The Q

I love the Subway.
It's riding the School Bus, but these are adults, thus given it's tradition I always feel that there is a tremendous amount of comradeship. We rode in this morning, about a twenty-five minute trip iinto Manhattan. Every now and then you'll get somebody crossing cars and walking into yours. You know that they're different just for the sake of moving between cars, not worried about someone stopping them or staring. Occasionally it's some homeless guy shouting in need, occasionally crazy, sometimes just desperate and embarrassed, they smell of hot dogs and body odor and they appeal to your better nature or your upscale "homeless means gross" nature (which is pretty much mine, fakers are in abundance) they reach out there hand and you toss some money into a Tropicana carton. Today it was Dancer that walked on. They warned us ahead of time, there will be dancing, we should be prepared to see some hot shit. Three of them walked on, two black, one white. The first guy started, he ran down doing flips, jumping from the pole hitting the ground with is hands. They performed back flips up and down, tied their hand together, rolled down. "Whoever said white men can't jump," one guy said about his white co-star. The guy did some flips with the other partner and hits his head on the ceiling, leaving a big red mark. White men can't jump I guess. Some people are just ignoring them and their boom box, some are staring, my family doesn't applaud, but I manage a slow and subtle clap. They hold out their flat bills for money and i wish i had broken that twenty in my pocket. It was impressive, it was impressive because they broke the ice on that subway ride, because they through themselves out there. There's a  lot of power if you can manage to entertain a subway car full of strangers, full of preconceived notions, tourists trying to be New Yorkers, New Yorkers trying to tell them apart and vice versa. I think I can dig a Hardy niche for myself here, when the time comes, and it will, even if i have to break dance.