You and Me, on a Train, Chewing Gum
/You: grease stained, on the way back to Queens from your apprenticeship with a mechanic who looks at you for too long sometimes, sitting across from me: paint stained, my backpack full of spray cans. If anyone else asked me what I was painting, I’d tell them it was a mural commission in Soho. But if the question came from you, I’d tell you the truth.
We both picked the empty car on the subway. You because between the garage and your drum-playing roommates, an empty subway car is the closest you ever get to silence. Me because I like being able to spot if someone’s tailing me (no one ever is, but I like pretending I’m a secret agent). But this doesn’t explain why we’re sitting across from each other, and not at opposite ends. Or why we’re taking turns looking at each other.
Your coveralls are patched up and half your hair is loose from your bun and falling around your shoulders. What are you looking at, I wonder? The boots? The bandana? Are you trying to read what my knuckles spell?
You, chewing chewing gum: Bazooka. Me, trying to remember which pocket is holding mine: Bubblemint. I want to catch your eye, reach down all smooth and pull it out without looking. But I get the pocket wrong, and the zipper gets stuck on the next one because I’m not looking at it. You smile and blow a bubble. When it snaps I look down and fix the zipper. My gum was in the first pocket anyway.
You wait politely as I start chewing, looking past me out the window. Your eyes come back when I blow a bubble of my own. The size of it says: you’re outclassed here buddy. What do you think of this? You try to show confidence, thinking I don’t see your eyes get a little wider but I do. You blow another bubble. It’s not even close.
You get another piece from your pocket and start chewing. Now you have the raw materials you need. Now you can compete. Your next one beats mine easily. When it pops it covers your lips. Stray flecks escape your gravity and stick to the ceiling and the poles. I add to my own supply, two, three more pieces. Now it’s a contest. Our jaw muscles shape and twist, line up. In through our noses, out through our bubble gum.
The train stops a couple times. Commuters step in, then change their minds and decide on a different car. We’re running out of gum, but neither of us is calling it quits just yet. You, reaching under your seat, fingers probing for more ammunition. Me, thinking if I can eat food out of a dumpster, I can chew gum off a subway windowsill.
Other colors join the pink: yellows, greens, and blues. Juicyfruit, Orbit, Spearmint, Winterfresh—anything to give us an edge. Our bubbles get tougher to inflate, but still bigger, more colorful. We compare presentations like peacocks. Mine, bursting with a force that blows your hair loose. Yours, splattering the subway car with neon wads.
When we’ve cleaned the car of remnants, when we can see our reflections in each other’s presentations, when they’ve finally gotten so big they meet in the middle, growing into each other, popping at the same time in technicolor climax, you give me your name, and I swallow what’s left of my gum.