Every weekday morning, between 8:15 and 8:25, I step out of my apartment into the blue-walled, blue-carpeted hallway and press the “down” button on the elevator. Sometimes as I wait, I check my reflection in the glass of some stale modern art on the wall just to see exactly how corpse-like I look this morning. On the ground floor, I greet the doorman and the maintenance woman as I tiptoe across the freshly-mopped lobby. Then I thrust my entire body weight against the door in an attempt to plow into the wind vortex that is South Wells Street in winter. Commence the walk.
Having crossed two normal streets and one eight-lane highway, I take the shortcut through the courtyard of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Depending how early I’ve left that morning, the courtyard is either packed with colorfully-vested traders double-fisting their coffee and cigarettes, or it is completely deserted because the morning bell has already sounded. I trot past the newspaper man, imagining how cold and claustrophobic he must be, wondering how early he gets up for this gig, and how long he’s been doing it. Before long, I climb the stairs to the el train – always every other step – flash my CTA card at the turnstile, and step onto the platform. It’s now between 8:23 and 8:37.
The single greatest thing about taking public transportation to work every day is the people-watching. In a city this large, you are bound to see some pretty unique and eclectic things – like two elderly men kissing on the lips, a young man headed to work in a fedora and a waistcoat, or a woman who lives on the train and freely undresses in front of anyone dense enough to trespass on her “personal space.” These cases interest me less, however, than the people I see almost daily – the people who take the northbound Purple Line from LaSalle and VanBuren weekdays around 8:30 AM. These people, though I know none of their names and haven’t spoken more than three words to any of them ever, are my community.
Our cohort is small, since it’s against the grain to travel outbound from the Loop at rush hour. We’ve never had to share a seat on the train, and most of the time we don’t even get onto the same car. Nevertheless, we know each other well. There is Miss Mullet-hawk, whose dyed platinum hair is cut in a mullet, with the short part teased into a mohawk and the long part trailing straight down her back. She is always in a hurry. There is Nancy Nose, who is a young, well-dressed businesswoman with a unique combination of features. Her skin indicates African heritage, but her schnozz is long and pointy like mine (a burden we share). I muse about the various possible scenarios by which our ancestors happened to mate.
There are others, but perhaps most fascinating to me is Elf Boy. We are not talking one of Santa’s elves here, or Keebler’s elves, either. Think Lord of the Rings - specifically, Orlando Bloom’s rendition of Legolas. Tall, wispy, long blonde hair, and other-worldly brilliant blue eyes. Every day I see this kid (he’s probably around my age), and every day I find it near-impossible to avoid staring. To mix literary references, he seems like a refugee from Middle Earth, struggling in vain to blend in to the Muggle world. His misfit image is compounded by the wardrobe: every morning he’s got his 12-foot beanpole legs clad in a pair of tapered jeans from the 1980’s. I tried to justify them for awhile as the skinny Euro cut, or maybe just too small, but this is not the case; they’re unquestionably tapered. I am in love with a Nerd-Elf.
And no, I’m not actually in love with him. We’ve never spoken. I’m not even sure he speaks English (and I definitely don’t speak Elvish). But I like to imagine that we’re friends. If the Purple Line ever burst into flames, or veered off the tracks, I’m sure Elf Boy and I would band together to save our fellow passengers. We would toss each other knowing glances as he carried Miss Mullet-hawk to safety and I calmly reassured Nancy Nose that we were all gonna be okay. Afterwards, we would go out for coffee, dab our wounds with damp towels, and laugh about all those days of silent camaraderie. But until that day comes, we are forced to keep up the ruse. He’ll keep wearing his headphones, pretending to be interested in his iPhone instead of counting the Orcs he’s killed in battle, and I’ll keep burying my nose in a book, looking like a half-asleep corpse when inside I’m ablaze with curiosity.
Fullerton, Diversey, Wellington. Transfer to Brown Line trains at Wellington. Disembark. Doors are closing. 8:52 AM. Time for work.
