Over the past 5 months, my el ridership has gone way down, what with the unemployment and all. And then my freelance project in the meat packing district let me to drive to work for a few months. But now I’m back downtown, taking mass transit with the masses.
Good news: not much about the CTA has changed since November. Except my current freelance project requires I hop on the red line to get to the office, and I haven't really had to take that since we lived on Addison.
The thing about the red line is it smells bad and it goes underground and the passengers aboard are all sorts of crazy. Seriously, last week I'm coming home from my interview and we’ve already got one guy at the end of the car just shouting. Then this girl gets on at Lake, stands in the little doorway and starts belting out “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She was nuts, but even over my iPod, it was obvious she had a decent voice. Thank goodness she got off at the next stop.
Anyway, today I get on at Fullerton with all my “please don’t talk to me” gear in place: sunglasses on, headphones in, arms crossed. I even stand by the door in hopes of keeping some personal space about myself. As the train descends from the elevated tracks to the underground subway, I take off my sunglasses. I have this thing where I feel ridiculous wearing sunglasses when it’s not sunny; I’m not Kanye West and I’m not fooling anyone.
But no sooner are my Ray Bans perched atop my head does one of the crazies start talking to me. How crazy, you ask? Scraggily hair. Denim on denim ensemble. Possible missing tooth. This guy made Keith Richards look like a kindergarten teacher.
He’s staggering around, holding a cigarillo and a bottle of root beer. The cigarillo doubles as a pointer as he follows the train's path along the map above the door.
“Where’s Randolph?” he slurs my way.
Why me? The two people behind you don’t have headphones in. They’re chatting amongst themselves. They look far more helpful than I do. But they’re still wearing sunglasses. Crap.
I pull out my headphone and respond to him, nod politely and put my headphone back in. He staggers away and lets me enjoy the rest of my commute in peace.
Oh, no wait. The train is pulling into Clark and Division and he’s back. “Where’s Clark?” he angrily thrusts his cigarillo at the map, apparently accusing it for lying to him.
I pull out my headphone again and tell him it’s the stop marked Clark/Division. He stumbles off the train when the doors open and looks up and down the platform, presumably for someone's face to wave his cigarillo in. Pretty sure he’s not getting himself down to Randolph, but who am I to argue?
Headphone back in, volume up a few more notches and sunglasses down. I no longer care if I’m underground. I’m guessing Kanye rocked the shades on the red line on more than one occasion. Just call me Mr. West. Except maybe not in that awful Milton Bradley, “I’m the Kanye of baseball!” sort of way.
Editor's note: Sorry for swearing in the title there. They say swearing is kind of a cheap way to get laughs in writing, but there aren’t many better ways to explain the clientele riding between Howard and 95th. Plus, I liked the cadence of the line. So I kept it, four-letter word and all. I'm such a damn rebel.
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