documentation of a strange encounter with a young financier
on a cold autumn night a few months ago around 8 pm,
i was getting off of the train in downtown [municipal name withheld].
as i was walking towards the stairs to street level,
i felt someone looking at me, so i abruptly lifted my head up
and scanned my field of vision as quickly as i could.
a guy with whom i went to high school, max, was looking at me.
he saw me look back and he quickly looked away.
he appeared as if someone had just hit him in the face with a shovel.
i think he was embarrassed because i caught him looking.
i had never spoken to him when we were kids.
our circles of friends had never intersected that closely.
thereafter, i didn't see him. he was out of sight and out of mind.
i thought about him once or twice in the following months,
while walking down those same stairs.
this brings us to tonight-- a few hours ago in boston.
i was walking to the train around at midnight,
on the other side of the platform.
i apparently walked right past him
but i didn't realize it was him.
he looked haggard and wobbly
in somewhat wrinkled black business attire.
i'm scurrying like a small rodent with racing stripes.
there's a windchill comparable to neptune's,
and it's tearing the skin off of my face.
then i hear "hey!" from behind me,
as if someone is trying to get my attention.
i ignored it and continued scurrying,
hoping that it wasn't me being addressed.
then i hear the same voice shout, "hey what's your name?!"
i thought, oh god what fucking asshole is gonna hit on me now.
a lot of married men have hit on me on the train for some reason.
i turn around grudgingly, and there is max.
he's wearing a black stocking cap and a suit,
and he looks like a sleepier version of hell.
i halfway recognized him from my unreliable memory,
but my mind's eye faltered and suspended itself in doubt,
and for two seconds, it was only someone who looked like him.
i must've looked a bit strange in my momentary doubt,
looking at him blankly with my large, dilated pupils as i usually have.
after sufficient awkward silence and avoided eye contact, i said,
"OH uhhh...hi. sorry im out of sorts. well what do you think my name is?"
after a few seconds of scrutinizing my face, he said, "caitlin?"
i said "ewww yuck. nope i'm not a caitlin."
i don't care much for any of the caitlins i know.
in an effort to mitigate his incorrect conclusion,
i gave him the hint that my last name is a coin.
following about 5 more seconds of awkward silence,
he said, "ahhh you would be jess."
he asked if i knew his name.
i said, "max." i looked up with a smile to see if he was surprised.
he looked as if his own guilt had thickened for calling me a caitlin.
i was starting to figure out how drunk he was by that point.
meanwhile, i had been abusing uppers 20 minutes earlier.
law students abuse substances at all hours.
i'm sure i must look high on something,
and i become self conscious, looking at the ground,
but then i realize he's drunker than i thought he was initially,
so he probably wouldn't notice through the veil of alcohol.
so we sat and talked on the train.
after 15 minutes of sitting awkwardly close to me,
he said "i just noticed that giant book in your lap."
his words were very slurred and bloodshot.
i lifted up my ponderous constitutional law book,
looked at its blatantly formidable girth,
and put it back onto my lap with a quiet thud.
while staring at the large volume of incredibly boring literature,
i said curtly, "it may or may not be a noticeable book."
he laughed at his own absent mindedness.
something gave me the feeling that i made him slightly nervous.
we exchanged brief accounts of our lives as young adults.
he told me that he had been working in baltimore,
but he'd had a nervous breakdown and a severe bout of depression.
consequently, he quit and moved back up here.
he lives with his parents now.
i said i do too, but i'm never home.
"i like my parents a lot," he averred, "they are nice to talk to."
a sudden bout of sadness struck his face.
he caught himself frowning and perked up.
with his new found smile, he said,
"we should get drinks some time."
he said there's no people our age in town.
it's all older people and little kids, as suburbia would have.
he looked down and divulged that he feels alone here,
and that it is almost as lonely in his profession,
working as a stock trader on state street.
his face is an easily legible tableau
of the recently passed dismal years of his life;
his eyes are desolate, and his mouth is doleful at the corners.
he is, nonetheless, not bad looking by any means,
but he is endearingly wooden and vaguely nerdy.
after getting off the train and walking down to street level,
i stepped around a large icey puddle,
into which the snowflakes were disappearing upon contact.
as i stepped around the ice, he thought i was parting ways with him,
and he started to say bye to me.
in the same breath, he realized i was only avoiding cold, wet feet,
and he mumbled "oh.. uhh.. nevermind... thats awkward."
i shot him a confident smile and said,
"but i thought one was supposed to be
unrelentingly comfortable with oneself at all times."
he didn't really know what to do in response.
he allowed an empty smile to spread thinly over his jaw.
he looked like a glimmer of a person with his glazed eyes.
he asked, "do you live over there?"
he pointed to some direction that wasn't my house.
i guess his car was over there.
i replied, "no it's over there."
i pointed to the opposite direction.
he stammered and inquired a bit drunkenly,
"well do you wanna come over here?"
he motioned to across the empty, salted street.
The orange street lamps had made the snow look a bit disgusting.
i couldn't help but laugh aloud;
i wasn't sure what purpose he intended this to serve.
i looked around and simpered, "okay."
when we crossed the street,
i stopped on the sidewalk in front of the post office
and inched in the direction of my house very shrewdly.
he garbled something cordial and clumsy
like "it was nice to see you."
i never pay attention to courtly niceties.
he held his right hand out for a handshake.
at the moment, my right hand was holding my con law book,
and my left hand was free by my side.
i was too lazy to put the book in my left hand,
so i gave a rather maladroit, left-handed handshake.
squeezing my hand a bit, he said, "be strong,"
and lurched up the snowy, cobblestone street.
i'll never forget the snow falling on his sad, white eyelids
as he admitted to me that he doesn't know where anything is going.
i haven't seen him since.
i was getting off of the train in downtown [municipal name withheld].
as i was walking towards the stairs to street level,
i felt someone looking at me, so i abruptly lifted my head up
and scanned my field of vision as quickly as i could.
a guy with whom i went to high school, max, was looking at me.
he saw me look back and he quickly looked away.
he appeared as if someone had just hit him in the face with a shovel.
i think he was embarrassed because i caught him looking.
i had never spoken to him when we were kids.
our circles of friends had never intersected that closely.
thereafter, i didn't see him. he was out of sight and out of mind.
i thought about him once or twice in the following months,
while walking down those same stairs.
this brings us to tonight-- a few hours ago in boston.
i was walking to the train around at midnight,
on the other side of the platform.
i apparently walked right past him
but i didn't realize it was him.
he looked haggard and wobbly
in somewhat wrinkled black business attire.
i'm scurrying like a small rodent with racing stripes.
there's a windchill comparable to neptune's,
and it's tearing the skin off of my face.
then i hear "hey!" from behind me,
as if someone is trying to get my attention.
i ignored it and continued scurrying,
hoping that it wasn't me being addressed.
then i hear the same voice shout, "hey what's your name?!"
i thought, oh god what fucking asshole is gonna hit on me now.
a lot of married men have hit on me on the train for some reason.
i turn around grudgingly, and there is max.
he's wearing a black stocking cap and a suit,
and he looks like a sleepier version of hell.
i halfway recognized him from my unreliable memory,
but my mind's eye faltered and suspended itself in doubt,
and for two seconds, it was only someone who looked like him.
i must've looked a bit strange in my momentary doubt,
looking at him blankly with my large, dilated pupils as i usually have.
after sufficient awkward silence and avoided eye contact, i said,
"OH uhhh...hi. sorry im out of sorts. well what do you think my name is?"
after a few seconds of scrutinizing my face, he said, "caitlin?"
i said "ewww yuck. nope i'm not a caitlin."
i don't care much for any of the caitlins i know.
in an effort to mitigate his incorrect conclusion,
i gave him the hint that my last name is a coin.
following about 5 more seconds of awkward silence,
he said, "ahhh you would be jess."
he asked if i knew his name.
i said, "max." i looked up with a smile to see if he was surprised.
he looked as if his own guilt had thickened for calling me a caitlin.
i was starting to figure out how drunk he was by that point.
meanwhile, i had been abusing uppers 20 minutes earlier.
law students abuse substances at all hours.
i'm sure i must look high on something,
and i become self conscious, looking at the ground,
but then i realize he's drunker than i thought he was initially,
so he probably wouldn't notice through the veil of alcohol.
so we sat and talked on the train.
after 15 minutes of sitting awkwardly close to me,
he said "i just noticed that giant book in your lap."
his words were very slurred and bloodshot.
i lifted up my ponderous constitutional law book,
looked at its blatantly formidable girth,
and put it back onto my lap with a quiet thud.
while staring at the large volume of incredibly boring literature,
i said curtly, "it may or may not be a noticeable book."
he laughed at his own absent mindedness.
something gave me the feeling that i made him slightly nervous.
we exchanged brief accounts of our lives as young adults.
he told me that he had been working in baltimore,
but he'd had a nervous breakdown and a severe bout of depression.
consequently, he quit and moved back up here.
he lives with his parents now.
i said i do too, but i'm never home.
"i like my parents a lot," he averred, "they are nice to talk to."
a sudden bout of sadness struck his face.
he caught himself frowning and perked up.
with his new found smile, he said,
"we should get drinks some time."
he said there's no people our age in town.
it's all older people and little kids, as suburbia would have.
he looked down and divulged that he feels alone here,
and that it is almost as lonely in his profession,
working as a stock trader on state street.
his face is an easily legible tableau
of the recently passed dismal years of his life;
his eyes are desolate, and his mouth is doleful at the corners.
he is, nonetheless, not bad looking by any means,
but he is endearingly wooden and vaguely nerdy.
after getting off the train and walking down to street level,
i stepped around a large icey puddle,
into which the snowflakes were disappearing upon contact.
as i stepped around the ice, he thought i was parting ways with him,
and he started to say bye to me.
in the same breath, he realized i was only avoiding cold, wet feet,
and he mumbled "oh.. uhh.. nevermind... thats awkward."
i shot him a confident smile and said,
"but i thought one was supposed to be
unrelentingly comfortable with oneself at all times."
he didn't really know what to do in response.
he allowed an empty smile to spread thinly over his jaw.
he looked like a glimmer of a person with his glazed eyes.
he asked, "do you live over there?"
he pointed to some direction that wasn't my house.
i guess his car was over there.
i replied, "no it's over there."
i pointed to the opposite direction.
he stammered and inquired a bit drunkenly,
"well do you wanna come over here?"
he motioned to across the empty, salted street.
The orange street lamps had made the snow look a bit disgusting.
i couldn't help but laugh aloud;
i wasn't sure what purpose he intended this to serve.
i looked around and simpered, "okay."
when we crossed the street,
i stopped on the sidewalk in front of the post office
and inched in the direction of my house very shrewdly.
he garbled something cordial and clumsy
like "it was nice to see you."
i never pay attention to courtly niceties.
he held his right hand out for a handshake.
at the moment, my right hand was holding my con law book,
and my left hand was free by my side.
i was too lazy to put the book in my left hand,
so i gave a rather maladroit, left-handed handshake.
squeezing my hand a bit, he said, "be strong,"
and lurched up the snowy, cobblestone street.
i'll never forget the snow falling on his sad, white eyelids
as he admitted to me that he doesn't know where anything is going.
i haven't seen him since.