The Life You Save May Be Your Own
by Shannon McEntee
it says
SLOW!
The
Life
You
Save
May
Be
Your
Own!
--
A man walks into the train car. His eyes light up when he sees me. I can’t imagine why, at the time. I’m weary from a full day of travel, a total of 10 hours sitting in things with wheels, tracks, sitting in rotting seats and trying to take comfort in the dark and the gentle rock of the road. All he could see is a small figure, bundled up in dark clothes, body hunched and stiff.
Maybe he mistook me for a child.
He couldn’t have mistaken me for anything else. I hid everything that could bring attention. My hair tied straight back in a bun, covered up by a hood, pulled low over my forehead to hide even the glimmer of femininity. Baggy pants meant for an EMT. A torn sweatshirt, with an extra foot of spare fabric if I pulled it out tight. Black boots. No heels.
Nothing attractive to me. There’s nothing attractive about you, I had commanded to myself in my own head, gazing in subway bathroom polished-metal mirrors, or my reflection in the plexiglass covered bus stops.
There's
nothing
attractive about you.
I’ve always been a person who believes that thoughts beget form. That, if you believe something hard enough, tell yourself that it is fact enough, it becomes so. And so I told myself I was nothing. I told myself that there was nothing appealing in the way I walked, in my glances, in my shape. And so I became a figure in dark clothes. I became piercing eyes threatening you to look away, look away from me. Were there wide thighs there? Hips? A waist? A woman’s chest peeking out from the tight sports-bra I had tried to hide it under? No. Nothing. This is a short, poor person. A homeless person. Stare more. Look at me more, I dare you, my eyes beg. Look at me and recognize me, please please. See that I deserve so much more. See my story. See who I am. See. See?
But expecting kindness makes you vulnerable.
Vulnerability means you will be targeted.
Pleading eyes turn hard, turn staring and confronting. Dare you to look at me. Dare you to wonder.
I have grown well acquainted with them.
Few look at me anymore. Not longer for a second. Not until they see my face. Hard, anger out of default, but truly the expression of those who have so little but dare you to take what’s left.
But he looks.
This is bad.
He sits down two seats ahead and to the left of me, an aisle seat. I am far back right, aisle seat. The door to the next car is to my immediate left. He tries to hide his excitement, masks it with a face of pity and concern.
He starts out slow.
“Hey there… you doing okay?”
My eyes flick from watching everyone in the subway car equally to focusing on him, rigidly. I stare into his face without flinching.
This makes most of them stop.
“Do you have somewhere to go?” He starts, pretending to be hesitant.
Waits for a response.
“Need somewhere to sleep?” He tries.
There’s still music playing in my headphones, but I knew better than to let that be known. They’re hidden behind my hair, hidden by the hood, which is pulled down around my head by my hands buried deep in my pocket. They’re fiddling with the only three things not stashed away in my backpack, which is crushed behind my back against the subway seat. A risky decision-- bags are much safer squeezed between your feet with the zippers facing the outer wall-- but I don’t care. I feel secure. Safe. One entity. Me, my hands, my extensions of myself, and everything that reminds me of Me strapped to my back.
He glances at my sweatshirt pocket. He sees my fiddling start up as he starts probing into me. Noticing me, out of the thousands of people I’ve been surrounded by who have not. I was the same as cardboard to them. To him, here and now, I am interesting.
That is a threat.
Wallet, headphone charger, phone. Wallet, headphone charger, phone. I keep them in my pocket because if I lose them I will die. Wallet, headphones, phone. 400 dollars to my name, everything on one card. Wallet. The lifeline to music and blocking out the screeching of the subway cars, the rumble of the bus rides, the screams and the moans and the horrific words of those who are also homeless. Everything. These headphones make it bearable.
And my phone, my phone. I text friends. Few respond.
But I can track trains, buses. See if I’ll be waiting an hour, 10 minutes, or until the next morning for a ride to my destination.
Phone..
He doesn’t know that. He sees shapes in my pocket. Rectangular, oblong, rectangular. I twist them around in my hands. I don’t let them go, just let them slip through my fingers, let my hands feel them. I still doubt that they’re there even as I touch them. I have to feel them some more. Flip, flip, flip in my pocket. Yes, still there. $400. Music. Lifeline. $400. Music. Lifeline.
He watches, a little scared. But he turns back to my face, angles his body in his seat. His entire legs are in the aisle. He’s leaning at me like he could lunge for my throat if he gets just a bit closer.
“I have an extra room at my place. Lots of food. You’d be on your own, I’d leave you alone… you’d have a place to sleep.”
My eyes don’t flick around to the others in this packed train car. It isn’t the 5pm rush, but it’s close. Maybe 7. A subsequent post-shift rush for the depths of San Francisco.
Nobody looks at him.
I didn’t expect them to.
I know better now.
I keep my eyes on his face, his body, his hands.
His hands are on his thighs, out in the open. They reach out towards me, periodically.
I watch them like a stray dog.
“I could take care of you.”
It’s a staring contest. I haven’t needed to intensify my gaze. I know it is soulless. I know it is intimidating.
He sees nothing inside, and he likes that.
I know there is steel behind what remains. Strip it all away, strip everything I have away, watch there be steel beneath. There are no whites of my eyes, only steel.
This is where I’d like to say that some kind stranger stepped out, and stood up for me. Told him to fuck off. Told him not to prey on poor homeless girls like that. Told him to fuck off or they’d call the police.
No one moves.