Ruminatrix
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Friday, Jun 20, 2003
Locked and Loaded on the F train
On the F train yesterday, a man is declaiming to everyone, in a deep James Earl Jones tone, carefully enunciating, as if reciting lines: "Check your weapons guys, we hit the beach in five...no four minutes..." He is of indeterminate age, somewhere beyond thirty. At one point he holds a plastic soda bottle to his ear like a walkie-talkie. Then comes: "Many weapons of mass destruction can be carried in a suitcase. You all know what a suitcase looks like, don't you?..." I catch a few bars from the Star Wars theme hummed deadpan.
Each sentence is repeated two or three times, in case you didn't hear him the first time. Are these lines from old movies or is he an addled combat veteran? Or just one more of the city's walking wounded, back in the subway to shelter from the rain? But I can feel unease building among the passengers -- his doomsday ramblings are more troubling than any of the common variety spare-change pitches. You don't hear much about suitcase bombs on the subway these days, though I've seen soldiers patrolling the Union Square station at night-time with their M-16s at the ready...
Then, just before my stop: "Don't touch women. Don't let them touch you. Only gays and children do that." Is that from Full Metal Jacket? Consternation...What's with this guy? Then he says: "I never met a woman who wasn't a government agent. They ask for all kinds of information, try to get into my stuff..." And at once smiles break out all around the subway car, even the women, well some of them at least...