in the soup

on the subway today: two young women, pretty, well put-together, early-20s maybe. they're holding hands and cuddling like the newly-in-love. i smile to myself. think about how things have changed since i was that age, since the times when i thought the only safe places to be out were in the darkness of tallulah's on a saturday night, or the harbour of home, and then, once a year, maybe, in the psychedelic daylight of pride. in a way, i feel proud of these women. want to encourage them, send a smile their way. i wonder if they feel brave. i imagine them full of youthful confidence, and i get a charge out of what i read as fearlessness.

most people on the train aren't looking. a few sneak glances their way. a few, like me, smile. i think the couple is mostly oblivious. or if they're not, they're doing a good job hiding it. but then the train stops. goes out of service, and we all herd off, and wait on the platform for the next one to come along. me and the women lean up against the wall; i'm slouching to the tom waits on my freshly-repaired ipod, and they're canoodling.

and then this guy notices them. starts to stare. stares and stares and stares and stares. without shame and without blinking. he stares them down, then he stares them away. they move down the platform, looking for a different car to ride in. and i want to say something. anything. i want to tell the guy to fuck off. i want to tell the girls to stay. i want to stare right back. because the stare can be a knife when you're different. can be a gunshot, a fistfight, a curse. and how do you defend yourself against that? how do you ward it all off?

i remember d. telling me that the danish, in response, answer the gaze with a question that i'm sure has lost something in the translation: "did you have stare soup for lunch?" we laughed a lot about that, and used it often. but there's only so much laughing off you can do. and so many times you can sing about sticks and stones. because sometimes your shoulders get tired of shrugging, and you get fed up with moving down the platform.

and staring back doesn't seem enough, 'cause you almost never win. it makes me crazy sometimes that it's all we've got.

tom waits - bottom of the world