NYC: It Runs on Spite

Another day from hell in NYC. That's probably redundant, since NYC is itself the closest thing that I can imagine to hell on earth.

Feeling under the weather and generally burnt out, I left work earlier than usual today. After wading through a few thousand people on my way across midtown in the humidity of the urban hellhole that is New York City in July, I finally arrived at the bus station to find it thoroughly jammed with the bodies of commuters and tourists fighting their way through aluminum framed doors and poorly-lit stairwells to their respective terminals in a slow motion battle of maneuvering. I fell into line with the rest of the lemmings dragging their way up the escalator in route to our respective Jersey-bound buses as stale air blew down on me from above from the blackened ventilation system.

As I reached the top of the escalator, it dumped me into a small waiting area cramped with passengers waiting to get on their buses. This room is usually packed to capacity with bodies, and today, during rush hour, it was especially crammed. As I stepped off the escalator and into the crowd, the guy behind me in line exclaimed irritably to my back -- or to the backs of anyone who would listen -- "You have to keep moving...people are getting off the escalator!" Without turning around, I resignedly raised my arms in a gesture that I hoped said "what do you want me to do? There is a wall of humanity in front of me and I am shuffling through it as best I can." Not deterred, the would-be rat race champion proceeded to shove me aside and step ahead of me. I raised my voice and said "EXCUSE me" loudly and clearly to let him know that I didn't approve of his line jumping or his attitude. He stopped briefly and replied cursorily "well, you have to push them out of the way and keep moving." At that point, I looked hard at the guy, a diminutive, graying 40-something wearing a yellow golf shirt and wire rimmed glasses. He was not the picture of a threatening man. This realization coincided with my rising anger as I stepped directly into his path, placed my face very close to his, and said, "I don't push anyone. Until they push me. And then I push back." Apparently I looked just crazy enough to be taken seriously because the guy effectively fled after that. I'm not confident that he even got onto a bus.

What's remarkable about this is not that I, weighing in at a mere buck fifty-five (wet), so intimidated the guy with such a silly line that he ran away from me, but rather the fact that the encounter happened at all.

I liken New York to a large amplifier emitting pervasive waves of rage. If you stand close enough to it for very long, it penetrates you, conquers the light inside you, and turns something in your blood to a viscous, vicious black filth. The city is filled with people who are filled with anger toward one another, a collection of concentrated bitterness and spite in an unending I've-got-mine contest for supremacy in the everyday little things.

I've been here 2 years 10 months and 6 days, and I can fill the sludge beginning to fill my veins.