D.C. Nights

Night time on the subway here has proven to be one of the most interesting aspects of this city.

The monuments are great and speak of a majesty so grand it's hard to believe human beings actually accomplished this, but it isn't until you get into the subways that the city shows its true colors.

Here they are. All of them. Every single walk of life. In this artificial cave of steel and concrete. Somewhere between work and home, home and work or nothing better to do and boredom, they come here.

One woman looks like a young grandmother. Her tied black eyes cry out for rest. She leans her head against the glass and is met with equal pressure from her twin in the window. Head-to-head they try and grab a few minutes of sleep as they speed forward in hollow darkness.

Down the train from them, a young, devlopmentally disabled man signs to his friend or guardian. She signs back, saying the words along with each gesture. I can't tell if she's relatively new to sign language or if she just got in the habit.

He asks me for a cigarette. I ask how he knew. It was the jacket, he says. A jacket like that can only belong to a man who smokes cigarettes, and probably other things, he says. You got me there, I say, and hand him one of the little paper tubes.

And on and on and on and on through the darkness we go. Past Glenmount, Vienna, Union Station, Shady Grove and Metro Center. Whirling around in a late-night tornado of cream-and-orange seats on rusty-red carpet. Stuck in a car from the seventies until one by one, we disappaite.

They get off at the Smithsonian exit. I hope they aren't going to the museums. If they are, there's going to be a severe disappointment.

She signs at him to stand up, they get off at Metro Station. A group home, a long nights sleep, a mugging or any combination of the three could await those two as they leave the car and head towards the surface. Out of our subterranean bonds and into the cold of a city that won't remember any of our names.

He's tapping the cigarette against his teeth. It must have been a while since he smoked last. The cotton must be getting moist as he tap-tap-taps the brown and white tubes on his front teeth. Then the train stops and he departs. I hope he enjoys that.

And I get off at long last. I must have walked ten miles today. Whatever happens tomorrow is eclipsed right now for my need to sleep, which is eclipsed right now by my need to blog. I saw something beautiful tonight, I can only hope these meger sounds can make others understand.