Honor

I am in my first real job after college. I am wearing an expensive wool suit, stylish pumps, a lovely coat. I have worked late. It is past rush hour, so the "5" train is more desolate than usual, especially as it empties out downtown on the way to Brooklyn. I am both dismayed and fascinated by the spectacle of the lone man sitting on the long bench diagonally across from mine. His expression is vacant while his fingers move like a frenzied Liberace's as they pick over his scabrous body, through his hair, pits and crotch. I wonder if he has lice or just imagines he does. I hope that if the former is true I am not anywhere within striking distance.

A legless man, who has hoisted his half body onto a skateboard, enters the car soliciting funds. He is propelling himself along the floor with massive, filthy fists. I wonder how he came to his fate. I wonder how he survives. As I muse, I watch the lice man's movements become just a bit smoother as he reaches into his pocket. He takes out a greasy Mc Donald's fries bag, which is folded as intricately as origami. Lice man reaches delicately into the folds, procures a coin and drops it into the skateboarders cup then returns to his nit-picking.

Dishonor

I walk into the deep, dark dank of the 7th Avenue "D" line. I am now a teacher of children whose family incomes fall beneath the poverty line, who are entitled to free lunch at school, who are entitled to Chapter One funds to redress the economic divide. Still, the boys I see down the platform, ranging in age from about nine to eleven, look so much poorer. So completely deprived. Their hair is nappy. Their skin is ashy. Their clothes are scrappy, dirty, hanging off their skinny bones. They look out of place. They clearly don't live in the wealthy comfort of Park Slope above-ground. I am not close enough to make out the words, but they are clearly jostling one another with boy bravado. What's this? Are they mad? One is now jumping onto the tracks, then another and another. I look around to see others' reactions. At least ten others are present. There is no reaction. Are they insane?

The boys are flirting disaster with the third rail and I see the lights of an oncoming train in the distance. I foresee images indescribable in their horror. I am practically sobbing when I run towards the boys screeching, "Get off the tracks." I wait for back-up from the others. There is none from the expressionless Stepfords. I scream again. The boys pull themselves off the tracks. As one, they come at me, "Fuck you lady. Who the fuck you think you are?" They look more scared than scary. They look so lost. They walk by and go up the stairs. My train comes and I ponder on these little boys who fit the German descriptive adjective lebensmude, or tired of life. I am saddened as much by these boys as I am by the lebensmude, jaded adults in whose company I stood on the platform that day.

Power

This day my profession, station in life, class, social status don't figure into the equation. I am woman. No more. I have had it with being poked in the behind only to turn around and find that the offending object is not the man's briefcase. I am fed up with men's taking advantage of the crowding by spooning their uninvited, unwelcome bodies into mine. More than anything, I am sick and tired of the men who take up three seats and over half the floor space in front of them with their splayed legs during rush hour when the only choice for balance and dignity I have left is to step over and between their legs to find a bit of metal to hold onto.

I pay the same fare, dammit. Who do these space invaders think they are? And what has happened to consideration of one's fellows? So today, this little slip of an early adolescent girl gives me hope for a new era. She approaches one of these hulks and says in an exaggeratedly exasperated tone, "Do you mind closing your legs? I want to sit down!" He counters thickly, "Uhh, I've got something in the way, you know?" She stares pointedly between his legs, cocks her head, squints and singsongs, "Don't look that big to me." Women within hearing reach catch each other's eyes and the faintest suggestions of smiles flit across their faces. Yeah. Girl power rocks the city. I am woman. Hear me roar.

Born in Greenwich Village, raised in Stamford, CT, Kathy Siegel Fine ran back to the city as quick as she could for college (Barnard). She discovered Brooklyn in her early twenties and has never looked back.