Construction Man

(I’m going to my dad’s this weekend for Father’s Day. This past week has been a bit busy with school ending. I didn’t have time to write a new entry, so I thought I would post a past Subway Chronicles entry from last year. It goes along with the last few weeks’ ideas on possibilities…Tim.)

We all face certain dilemmas, crossroads to which we come in our lives in which we must make a decision. Should I go to college? Marriage? Take that higher paying job in Kansas? Vanilla or chocolate? Coke or Pepsi? Maybe Sprite? How do these choices affect our lives? It can start me thinking of the “what ifs”. But when I think about it too long I decide not to spend any more time on that whole discourse between my Self and my Mind because I’ll never know. I can imagine, but the reality I live is the one I choose (sprinkled and finely balanced with a bit of destiny).

There was a significant moment in Richard Linklater’s mucho-significant film "Waking Life" when a character talks about free choice. He begins by saying that since science had taken that place of God, there was free choice once again and not some pre-planned course of events for a person’s life. But then he begins to question that because of quantum physics, which is finding more and more that there are fundamental laws in the universe that particles follow. We’re made up of that stuff of the universe, so do we really have choice?

I still believe we do because there are still some random events that science just can’t explain, and the closer some scientists get to physics, the closer they cuddle up to some semblance of “God” (see Dialogues with Scientists and Sages by Renee Weber). Not necessarily the old bearded honcho on the big throne, but something that connects us all, the Source of our lives, which is better than denying it at all.

The Subway. Another platform for infinite choices that can affect life in all possible ways. The biggest choice I must face every time I want to go uptown is “wait for the express or take the local that just showed up”. I know it’s not some life threatening choice, like if I'm in the grasslands of Africa and I come across a lion - do I stand still and exhude a dominant energy, or do I hightail it and run like hell hoping that I'm not going to be cat food for big daddy's den? It won’t necessarily change the entire course of my life, but then again, it just might. The best movie that played with the idea of choice, and is perfectly germane to these thoughts, is "Sliding Doors”. The film plays out two different parallel realities that could happen in Gwyneth Paltrow’s life and poses the question, what if she had made the train?

A Winter Scene from the Subway:
The 1 train pulls up at the Houston Street station. I walk through the doors and stand clear. Construction Man is seated, looks at me and gives me the most vague of nods. Almost imperceptible. Maybe it was just a twitch. I know he is Construction Man, not necessarily because of the dusty Carhartt jacket, hooded sweatshirt underneath, steel-toed shoes, but because of his hands. They are working hands and they’ve been laying bricks for a better part of their lives. I moisturize, am a creature of certain products, and feel a twinge of jealousy. It might be nice to be outside a lot, working all my muscles, being a rugged man, a manly man, a man everyone looks at and says, "Wow, now that's a guy!"…then again, the school is heated and I don’t like my legs to get chilly. I also chap very easily.

When I get to 14th Street I face that unnerving choice of whether to get off and wait for the 2 or 3 train. I think, Hey, I’m on a train now. It’s moving. I’m not particularly in any rush. I’m finished work, have to go to grad school and make a copy of an article in the library, then just go home. I could sit down, read a bit, relax on the local 1 train and wait for the 110th Street stop. Anyway, I’m going to have to eventually go local at 96th Street to get to 110th. Against the advice of the monkey in my head, I hop off just as the doors close. I turn and through the passing window, construction man regards me squarely.

Waiting for the 2 or 3. Why didn’t I just stay on the local?! It’s been at least three minutes, there’s no train in sight, and I’m not moving! Another local train pulls up and stops. Ding, the doors open. I look down the 2 and 3 line and see no lights coming. What to do! I’ve been trying to listen to my instinct, that little voice inside me that can see the future sometimes, and it tells me to move my butt onto the 1, but my feet falter, the doors close and the train is gone.

Suddenly I see two lights down that long tunnel. Joy. Rapture. I’m glad I didn’t listen to that little voice. (Maybe you should have listened to me.) Shut up in there! (Eat me.) Eat this! I throw the monkey a banana.

I arrive at 96th Street in what seems like only seconds. Gotta love that express. The universe is with me because there’s a 1 train pulling up at the same time across the platform. You’ve made the right choices today, Bucko. Life is good on the subway when it all goes down like a pat of butter on warm toast. My step is lighter this time as I stride onto the local.

Construction Man’s chapped lips curl up ever so slightly at the corners. Is that a smile? There’s definitely a nod, though, but a knowing one this time. I shrug as slightly as his smile and smile myself. Without any words spoken, our eyes make this exchange:

Construction Man: “Back again?”

Me: “Yep, back again.”

Maybe chapped lips wouldn't be so bad.