But he was tired during the day.
And there were no parts for him, and the accent would just not go away no matter how he tried. It didn’t help that Patricia and Natasha spoke to him with full Jamaican accents, even though he tried to teach them the “proper” American pronunciation.
And rejection was not an easy thing. To be an actor you’re supposed to have thick skin, but Samuel’s skin was never thick enough. Rejection was like sandpaper. His skin sloughed away under its constant onslaught. After a while, Samuel wasn’t sure which would last longer: himself or his dreams.
Resigned Local Takes Westbound 7 Train to Childhood’s End
Sure, I can be a little dramatic, but that’s what it feels like. This train is a Magic Fucking Train speeding me from childhood (joy, spontaneity, fun) to adulthood (misery, predictability, absolutely no fun will be had by anyone). When I get off I will have a plan and tastefully groomed (meaning short) hair. I’ll no longer read (or write) poetry—only biographies of Very Important People. I’ll have a Point of View on serious subjects such as Immigration, the role of the Catholic Church in an increasingly secular society, the relative suckage of professional football teams.
The train stops, and half the people clear out. I head to my favorite spot—the two-seater in the corner next to the conductor’s box. I spread myself out and take up both seats.
Yes, it’s obnoxious. But I have a good reason for this behavior that involves a completely empty train one night at two a.m. (way post-curfew) and a man with a big-ass snake wrapped around his neck who chose to sit next to me despite there being one thousand (give or take) empty seats.
I take my notebook out of the inner pocket of my suit jacket. It’s about an hour to Thirty-Fourth Street in Manhattan, where my favorite barber is, and this poem won’t write itself. Fifty minutes (and three very poorly written lines) later, we’re only a couple of stops away from mine. Magic Fucking Train’s doors close. We make it about twenty feet into the tunnel and grind to a halt. The lights flicker off, because of course they do. We sit for five minutes before the conductor decides communication would be good. I expect to hear him say that the train will be moving shortly, etc., but what he says is this:
“LAdies and GENtlemen. Up until yesterday I was just like you. I was on a train going NOwhere, just like you.”
Holy shit. Usually the freaky people are on the train, not driving the train. My fellow passengers sit up straighter. What the hell? thought balloons float over all our heads.
“But something HAPpened to me. I had a religious EXperience.”
I’m not sure where he’s from (Crazytown, population 1). He overpronounces the beginnings of words and sounds like he’s smiling the whole time he’s evangelizing.
“God HIMself came down from HEAven and he saved me.”
Foreheads are smacked and eyes are rolled in complete disbelief.
“HE will save you too, but you have to ACcept him into your hearts. ACcept him now before you reach your final DEStination.”
Now I’m groaning too, because puns are the absolute worst. A guy in a suit yells out that the conductor should just shut the fuck up and drive the train. A mother covers her little girl’s ears and tells the guy that there’s no need for that kind of language. We might get all Lord of the Flies on the number 7 train.
Our conductor/evangelist goes quiet, and it’s another minute of sitting in the dark before we move again. We pull into the Times Square station, but the doors don’t open right away. The speakers crackle on.
“LAdies and GENtlemen. This train is now out of SERvice. Do yourself a FAvor. Get out of here. You will find God if you look for him.”
We all get out of the train, somewhere between relieved and angry.
Everyone’s got someplace to be. Finding God is not on the schedule.
HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT REASONABLE creatures. Instead of being ruled by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true. For example, based on a single phone call, I have begun to hope for a miracle.
I don’t even believe in God.
THE CONDUCTOR’S DIVORCE had not been easy on him. One day his wife announced that she’d simply stopped loving him. She could not explain it. She wasn’t having an affair. There was no one else she wanted to be with. But the love she once felt had vanished.
In the four years since his divorce became final, it’s fair to say that the conductor has become something of an unbeliever. He remembers their vows spoken in front of God and everyone. If the person who’s meant to love you forever can suddenly stop, then what is there to believe in?
Unmoored and uncertain, he’s drifted from city to city, apartment to apartment, job to job, anchored to the world by almost nothing. He has trouble falling asleep. The only thing that helps is watching late-night TV with the sound muted. The endless cascade of images stills his mind and sends him off to sleep.
One night, as he’s performing this same ritual, a show he’s never seen catches his eye. A man is standing at a lectern in front of a huge audience. Behind him is an enormous screen with the same man’s face projected on it. He is weeping. The camera pans to show a rapt audience. Some of them are crying, but the conductor can tell it’s not from sadness.
That night he does not sleep. He unmutes the sound and stays up all night watching the show.
The next day, he does some research and finds Evangelical Christianity, and it takes him on a journey he did not know he needed. He finds that there are four main parts to becoming an Evangelical Christian. First, you must be born again. The conductor loves the notion that you can be made anew, free of sin and therefore worthy of love and salvation. Second and third, you must believe wholly in the Bible and that Christ died so we may all be forgiven of our sins. Finally you must become a kind of activist, sharing and spreading the gospel.
Which is why the conductor makes his announcement over the loudspeakers. How can he not share his newfound joy with his fellow man? And it is joy. There’s a pure kind of joy in the certainty of belief. The certainty that your life has purpose and meaning. That, though your earthly life may be hard, there’s a better place in your future, and God has a plan to get you there.
That all the things that have happened to him, even the bad, have happened for a reason.
SINCE I’M LETTING THE UNIVERSE dictate my life on this Final Day of Childhood, I don’t bother waiting for another train to take me to Thirty-Fourth Street. The conductor said to go find God. Maybe he (or she—but who are we kidding? God’s definitely a guy. How else to explain war, pestilence, and morning wood?) is right here in Times Square just waiting to be found. As soon as I’m on the street, though, I remember that Times Square is a kind of hell (a fiery pit of flickering neon signs advertising all seven deadly sins). God would never hang out here.
I walk down Seventh Avenue toward my barber, keeping my eye out for some kind of Sign. On Thirty-Seventh I spot a church. I climb the stairs and try the door, but it’s locked. God must be sleeping in. I look left and right. Still no Sign. I’m looking for something subtle, along the lines of a long-haired man turning water into wine and holding a placard proclaiming himself to be Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.
Suit be damned, I sit down on the steps. Back across the street, people are making their way around a girl who is swaying slightly. She’s black with an enormous, curly Afro and almost-as-enormous pink headphones. The headphones are the kind that have giant ear pads for blocking out sound (also, the rest of the world). Her eyes are closed and she has one hand over her heart. She’s completely blissed out.