The streams of humanity pour slowly into the deep recesses of the subway. The old totter on the grimy handrails while the young skip a step and huff in impatience. The stairwells are coated in crumpled paper, old notes whose owners abandoned them.  Heads are fixed down, the stairs the closest future anyone seems to have. The distant screech, the clatter of the turnstiles, the rumble that fades deeply and resonantly. We are a mercury-like drop of humanity, all heading tidily and in giant blobs into those wormholes that have been bored around the city, wending, turning, regurgitating passengers back onto another platform, unharmed and unchanged, selling a ride home to the needy. 

     It has been a long day. The brightly colored R train rushed us to our favorite bar that sits a few blocks from the dirty hole that spat us out into the cold New York streets. Huddled, complaining, eager, pack-like, we stiffly walk towards the deep brown door of our drinking hole, all the while knowing the subway is there waiting, never leaving us, tethered to us like an over eager and loyal puppy, soon to return our pleasantly buzzed bodies back home.  

     The drinks have warmed us, opened us up, turned up our volumes, laughing, shouting, bonding in a cloudy state of early inebriation. The clock takes on all lookers, but she is impotent. We didn’t drive. The R is our ride, our chauffer.  Another round is needed to celebrate our independence from dependence. There is no car to worry about. The BQE is for those with an umbilical cord to a car payment, not the free denizens of the subway. We rode the R. We drink on, the night creeping behind us, not making a sound. 

     Morning creeps up on us like a sniper, the first rays of dawn bursting around us like warning shots, the day opening her noisy salvo. Our eyes are fighting to stay open, a battle that will be lost soon. The subway entrance waits for us at the corner, no strings attached. She waits like a doting mother, forgiving our drunken transgressions. The seats are gray and hard, but comforting. The monotonous drone of the rails and wheels under us sways the battle against sleep from our favor and our eyes close. The R wraps us up and takes us home.

Bronx native Tim Connors is a former chef in NYC and is now an airline pilot. He is currently based in Florida.