He sat quietly in thought with noise all around. Meditation. Prayer. A gathering of senses as the number 6 train ran from station to station. From the Bronx to the Brooklyn Bridge, from Pelham Bay to lower Manhattan with people boarding and people getting off. Each car was a portrait, a painting of urban decay and celebration; those who still had faith and those who did not. Some with bottles wrapped in brown bags and others carrying brief cases, wearing suits, looking like dandies. He just sat there.

In his book bag was Tropic of Cancer. The homeless man began reading silently the story of love and art mixed with freedom and what we must do to survive in America.  Nothing has changed much. He thought. You still gotta bust your ass to make a buck. Nothing is free. And life will leave you behind. He quietly laughed.

Boom boxes played rap and hip hop. Black kids nodded their heads to bass lines. White lines….pure as the driven snow…..played loudly in passengers’ ears while old ladies protected their carts of groceries and old men checked The Post for obituaries and sports scores. A Hasidic Jew sits next to a Mexican with a green teardrop under his eye. They do not speak.

Soon, it is four in the morning.  The train is never empty. He rests his head on the window, holding onto Tropic of Cancer like a teddy bear. His trip never ends.