Only in NYC

A pair sat on the bottum steps leading to the subway platform. As stap hangers raced down to wait for their train, they were careful in sneaking a peep at the two. The girl on the right could have been dead. Her body was limp; a deep red trail started at her feet and flowed down off the edge of the platform. Her head was buried into the lap of her companion, a transvestite, uncommonly tall and undeniably manly. He had the face of an ugly Iggy Pop and wore tight jeans, a blouse, and high heels that planted his feet awkwardly against the ground. Waiting for the girl to wake up, he fought off people's glances and meticulously brushed his long blonde wig from his eyes.

Finally someone asked the transvestite the question everyone wanted to know.

"She's fine. She just drank to much red wine," he responded.

I've never seen anyone puke up straight untainted red wine before.

The next rush came and people never failed in looking back in curiousity. A man in a monkey suit tramped right through the wine-womit and a stamped the platform with a red footprint as he looked for a place among the crowd to camp out for the next train.

Sitting a few steps above the couple this whole time was a homeless woman. Suddenly she asked if the girl wanted a rubber band to clear the hair from her face. The transvestite's mug smoothed over with a kindness as he accepted the woman's help. As the woman herself put the drunken girl's hair in a pony tail, there was a distant thankful smile on the girl's face. The first and only sign of life she was to display that night.

Finally the roar of the N train came and I quickly stepped inside, more eager than imaginable to reach home. A door down the transvestite was backing into the car, carrying the arms of the drunken girl. On the other end of the girl was the woman, who struggled to left the dead weight into the car before the door closed. Once they were in and the doors closed, all three collapsed to the floor and sat there triumphantly.

The crowd inside the car cracked smiles and made whispers for the first few moments. Then the threesome was no longer an attraction, but had assimilated into the environment as a norm.

The transfer from Manhattan to Queens is always the same bout of rattles and metal screams. It's a fine moment a chaos, complimented perfectly by a recorder, tambourine and modern/intrepreative dance forms and a final bow of two subway performers.

The transvestite and the woman jumped to their feet and hoisted the useless lump up as the car door opened for the first time in Queens. As they brought the body out, the N train closed her doors, left them behind and didn't look back. She had seen this before, we all had, this is NYC after all.