A warm Saturday in February. The rear cab of the Orange line, a row ahead of a young man and a female friend. He had apparently seen an afternoon drinking fancified malt liquor in his pastel polo. Long linen board shorts, the sweet breath of sugary corn spirits, and boat shoes.
He leans back against the railing and rocks an overtanned leg across the span of a handicapped bench.
“This is so fucking stupid dude, why is there a person driving this thing? This is the first job I’d automate. You know why it’s not automated? Our brother Elon isn’t running it.”
They snicker a glinting hiss to each other. They are happy now; the class war has been going well for them up to this point in the news cycle. They were ten yards from the train driver’s door.
“What kind of dumb joke job is this? .. to push go on a console and sit in a chair..”
he drunkenly says with the craft of someone saying something just loud enough to reach an intended audience. She giggles politely, in the way that you make soothing noises to a wild animal.
thumpthump, thumpthump
the slow of inertia to cross the intersection, then a return to tracks and the forward nudge, now the sound of his now-crinkling aluminum can.
“This is a shit job! Nobody should be forced to endure this. Wasted tax money.”
“[Garbled] seriously works over at [garbled] and they like, make nuts or washers or some shit? How can they do that, every day work on the same shit doing the same thing.”
“I’d blow my brains out. SERIOUSLY. ”
“But some people don’t want to do what you want to do, either, you know”, she whines.
PFffffFFfffFFFfft the sweet-tea laced air escapes his lips in wet, lopping plaps.
A moment hangs in the warm air, passively convected by the giant windows of the light rail cabin. The floor thumps and thrums and bustles along in rhythm to the pace of the world.
“He goes to [garbled] .. Nobody successful ever goes there. Have you heard of anyone successful going there?”
She giggles and sips at her own can, looking out at the street. The high of superiority has finally turned sour. His anger fumbles huffily into a low, restless boredom and the relative silence of a rolling train.