| Anne Cooper |
| Copyright 2007 Red Pulp Underground |
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Outside the Angel tube in the midnight social shift change crowds mill and spill onto the road. Near the hotdog seller a man in a blue hooded top makes claws and growls at the passers by - no one is particularly bothered. Inside a young man leaps the escalator, lank blonde hair whipping his shoulders and bare back as Calvin Klein underwear emerges at least six inches above his jeans which hang from invisible hip bones. In the carriage a couple embrace playfully; one has a look of a cheerful Kevin Spacey the other Clark Kent. Spacey puts his arm around Kent and croons into his ear in German. We nod and smile at each other as they leave. I envy their easy intimacy. An empty bottle of Bud rolls back and forth against the ledge with the ventilator besides me. Tap tap tap. Brakes screech. At this time of night the usual formality - I’m not here, I can’t see you, I’m not looking - is abandoned. One time in the day a guy throws up right there in the carriage Like an eruption, like he didn’t know it was coming. After he sits there like nothing happened. No one moved. No one said anything. No one looked but we all saw. Eventually the smell drifted up, eventually he got off while everyone carried on not noticing, not making eye contact, unmoved in quiet discomfort. I want to drink in the night, every detail; the girl with pink miniskirt and pinker legwarmers who shakes her blonde bob, not aware her eyeliner has smudged, the slumbering black guy in a sharp suit and turquoise tie, the dreamy eyed eccentric, hat at an angle over his grey hair and flushed face. There’s no fight tonight. It happens sometimes. Beery breathe and cartoon lunges. Someone will tread on a carton of KFC in the ensuing confusion; the reason for the fight will be forgotten. No fighting, just easy; to one side a man and woman slump into the seats, they mirror each others limp mousey hair and soft jaws as they pour over the crossword in tender concentration. Everyone in couples, groups, apart from the sleepers, apart from me, all making a living room of the carriage. November 2007 |