A Tiny World After All

It started off as a really lousy Monday. The kind of Monday where you wish that there was just one more day to the weekend. The kind of Monday where you wish your commute was longer so you could sleep that much longer on the bus. The kind of Monday where you drag yourself through your workday and people in your office tell you you look "tired" (horrible in office parlance). The kind of Monday where, as you trudge across 42nd Street from the East Side to the West Side, you step in a grate and ruin the calf-leather covered heel of your expensive Italian stilettos, a purchase you really couldn't afford to have ever made. The kind of Monday where you wonder what fresh hell life is going to put you into next.

* * *

At the Port Authority, there was a woman sitting on the stairs that lead from the entrance on 42nd Street and 8th Ave to the second floor where the New Jersey Transit buses run. This woman was sagging over herself, head laying on crossed forearms laying on knees. She had on flip-flops and her feet were dirty. Her hair was wild. Everyone was taking the escalators to avoid walking past her, but I didn't notice her until I had taken the first step. For a moment I considered turning around and taking the escalators, but I didn't. It seemed rude to go to such great length to avoid coming into any sort of proximity to her. I mean, she wasn't a leper.

So I climbed the stairs. I have to admit, I felt a little scared. Something about her was vaguely frightening. Everyone else was rushing, rushing, rushing through. And she just sat motionless in the middle of it all. And then it happened. As I was going past her, she slumped her body towards me, groaned, and shot her arm out as if to grab my ankle. I jumped about a mile. No, that's a lie. I did a little hop jump skip to about three steps above her. Then I stopped and turned around. I don't know why. She also had turned her head to look at me. The expression on her face sent my heart into my throat. I thought she'd be an old woman but she wasn't old. And her eyes looked dead. There was not a single glint of light in them whatsoever. This was a lost woman. This was a person in the depths of despair.

And what did I do? I turned my back and went up the stairs. And this is evil, evil, evil of me, but I actually felt better about my shitty Monday, because at least I wasn't her. Sure, I make a pitiful salary. Sure, I have enough debt in law school loans to keep me from buying a house for, oh, say, the next 10 or 15 years. Sure, sometimes I get slightly tired of struggling with bills and not having enough of a cash flow to live in my own apartment and wishing I could just win the lotto and move someplace far away from New York City where I can have a bit of ocean and a bit of mountain together and start everything over afresh. But these feelings reflect certain moods I get into. At the end of the day, I am never a wrecked piece of humanity washed up on the stairs of the Port Authority, without a glimmer of hope for anything good in life.

* * *

Afterwards, I started feeling bad again because I had taken comfort in the awful abject patheticalness of this woman. So I called Andrew and asked if I could come over - I needed him to cheer me up and tell me I wasn't terrible. On the way to the 210 gate, I noticed a small changepurse on the floor. I picked it up and took it on the bus with me because I was right by the gate and I really didn't want to go all the way downstairs to the Lost and Found. I figured if there wasn't any identifying information in the purse that I could use to contact the owner I would just bring it to the Lost and Found the following morning. When Andrew and I went to get coffee I took the changepurse out to inspect it. There was a license in it. Umara. A Muslim girl. The address on the license was in Teaneck - the town right next to Andrew's. I called information to get her phone number and arranged to meet her at the Blockbuster by Andrew's house.

She pulled up in a Mercedes. Someone else was driving - she hopped out of the passenger seat side. As soon as she saw me she said, "You were in the seat in front of me on the bus!" And I said, "Yes, I remember seeing you." Mainly because she was yakking on her cellphone and I turned around to give her a look, but I didn't mention that. Then she said, "Did you go to Stevens?" I was astounded! I said, "Yes." Turns out she graduated in the year ahead of me. For some reason I have no recollection whatsoever of this girl but she remembers me I guess. She told me she recognized me on the bus and then when I called to tell her I found her wallet she thought my voice sounded familiar and then when I told her my name she figured it must have been me! What a small world, right? She tried to give me a gift but I wouldn't take it because it seemed chintzy to do so. So she told me to at least take the card. It said, "Thank you" on the front and she had written "I'm so glad there are people like you in the world." inside.

I wonder if the woman at the Port Authority feels the same way about me.