Deliberately Colored Tee-Shirts

There are a lot of middle-aged guys in colored tee shirts on the 4:30AM train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central.  I was able to get my ticket from a kiosk.  The main station was closed.  No one staffed there at 4:30AM.  The guy in the colored tee shirt across the aisle from me has thrown a separate tee shirt over his head and sprawled out his feet.  At New Hamburg and again at Beacon, lots more men in deliberately colored tee-shirts come on.  They must all be part of construction crews that start work and end work early.  I don’t sleep and bang out emails.

Grand Central is coming to life at 6:30AM.  I get some money from the ATM and then head to the information kiosk in the center of the station.  “Where do you get the bus to Newark Airport?”  “Forty-First” says the woman.  I see.  Big street.  It's early and I’m trying to process my Manhattan sense of space.  “Which way, by Vanderbilt?”  “That way Forty-First” she says, as if I’ve asked which direction my shoes can be found. 

Out the door and across Forty-Second there’s a Starbucks.  It must be down this way.   Inside I get my morning shots.  The folks are a bit more pleasant than the gal at the kiosk.  Yes, it’s down that way, under the awnings or whatever they’re called. Go left.  You’ll see.”  I see.   There is indeed an awning on one side of the street, and I begin to look for signs. 

Fifty meters down a clapboard tells me to buy my tickets in the bodega.  I wait in line behind two people who are playing Powerball or Moneyball or whatever it’s called.  They spend their hard-earned cash on tickets that immediately prove worthless.  I get my tickets from an Indian gent who confirms the next bus is fifteen minutes away.  I’m first in line for the next bus.  It proves to be more like thirty-minutes away, and he parks thirty yards down from where the line is at a place of his choosing and I’m one of the last people to make it up and on to the Newark Express.  

A Chinese woman and her son are reluctant to give the attendant their luggage.  They don’t understand.  He tells her “don’t worry lady.  I’m not going to steal your things.  I’m just putting them here.”  I’m next up and present him my bag and resist the urge to intercede. 



Thursday 8/22/19