From A Cruel Puppet’s Journal…

4/14 (12:30am) E Train over the Damned F Line

Who rides the train at 1am on a Tuesday??? The man across from me has a roll-y backpack and it seems full of snacks. His movements are all slow and deliberate, as if he is alone. There is a couple. The backpack man helps a woman who is lost, then everyone in the car is trying to help her all at once…Backpack man, guy in dickies, a young Indian couple, A churchy bible carrying woman, a sleepy woman, me. We help her though at first everyone gives her a different set of directions and then fights over who is right, like the tower of mta babylon. And no one is sure where the F intersects the 6. Fighting gets biblical. Skateboarders…I gamble on transferring at Rockefeller Center as the Skateens get frisky in a corner.

1am Somewhere over the B line

B IS FOR BETRAYAL. 20 minutes and no sign of a train. A garbled anouncement, 3 F trains have passed. Skateens are still here, hackey sacking their way home.

1:05am Still on the B platform

Skateens lose their hackey in a tragic accident of fate. They are notably less frisky.

1:15AM 59th street Platform

Skateens are still with me. They mourn their lost hackey by sacking a can. Starving at this point, I poison the temple of my body with pizza combos, then poison earth with the non-biodegradable wrapper. 2 and 3 trains pass repeatedly, but no 1. Is there red wine in my house, and can I drink it and yet sleep at the same time???

1:30am Platform

3 train, then 2, then 3 train on the 1 line for no good goddamn reason at all. After midnight everything descends into nonsense. Pizza combos are not enough, still starving.

1:47am Somewhere over the 1

1 train arrives at last . Fascinated by a woman drinking from(and what I assume is supposed to become a new eco trendy must have) a squishable squeezable water bottle. It looks like she is sucking on an IV bag. Or maybe I feel like I need an IV bag. Train take me home….