On the train from Penn station going home to wherever home may be, there is always a lot to look at. Fashionably dressed babies, probably better dressed than most of the women in their twenties or so, just getting by on their meager paid intern salary. Then there are the established looking businessmen in their suits. They take up two seats with their bags and coats that are more important than human lives, just to return home to open the solitary can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup by nine, hopefully. Then there are the moms and their bratty six year olds, coming home exhausted from that lovely Broadway show, comparable to the cost of the textbooks the college students who commute pay for and never open.
There isn’t usually much chatter, mostly excuse me’s and is this seat taken? so it was surprising to hear conversation coming from down the train car. A girl, about 16 or 17 or so, was stumbling down the car. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in a few days, a few months, her skin looking lack luster and her hair dull and stringy. She kept asking for gum.
That’s when one of those businessmen, if you could call him a man answered. He looked out of place in his suit on the train. He was handsome and young and the cooperate world had not yet aged him. He looked about 23 or so and was connected probably by an uncle or cousin or something to get the job. He offered the girl a stick of five gum, the kind that came in a black foil wrapper, and he offered her a seat as he closed the file folder filled to capacity.
Although they spoke in hushed tones, neighbors sitting close enough could make out clips of their conversation. It was as if all of the passengers had come to a mutual agreement to eavesdrop because this rare background noise was just so out of place. Everything about it was juxtaposed and wrong. Her hair against the silk tie he wore, her ratty Bob Marley inspired bag just inches from his polished shoes.
“Oh you didn’t have to offer me a seat,” she said, her voice trailing off as she graciously sat next to him.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said politely, a vague accent coming thorough as if he were new to New York.
They sat in the silence of the car and then slowly she mustered up her nerve. It was written across her face that she had something she needed to get out, it obviously didn’t matter to whom she would tell her details.
“I’m in trouble.” she half whispered to him half said to herself in disbelief.
“I’m sorry, how do you mean?” the well-mannered businessman answered. There was still a pleasant smirk on his face, not the condescending kind, the gentle kind. He didn’t look offended by her stench or annoyed at her noisy aura.
“I have an eating disorder. I have for years now and I’m…” her voice trailed off again into an inaudible whisper.
“Honey I couldn’t help but over hear you, you sound like you could use some guidance.” a woman sitting two seats over from her offered her a business card as she spoke. She just barged in as if it was her job to protect the troubled youth even when she was off the clock, as if she had some sort of debt to repay. “I work with a non-profit, we help girls like you…”
The sentence filled the car like an overwhelming perfume. It has good intention but it is suffocating. Girls like you hung in the air as she answered.
“Oh, no, no thanks. This is my stop.”
The young emaciated girl tumbled off the train. Into the cold grey asphalt of Jamaica Queens to God knows where.