It was no day at the beach - part ii

Avid and regular readers may not have been too enthralled by my last act of bloggery, It was no day at the beach, so I thought I would try better this time. If you didn’t read that one, please note that what follows is the conclusion to the my previous post.

The train ride to Manhattan was unlike no other. First, there was a devastatingly handsome young Russian sitting opposite us. He seemed engrossed by his notebook and pencil. I think he was collecting phone numbers, or perhaps inside leg measurements because at the first stop when two attractive young men boarded the train, the young Russian began to cruise them with a focus that I have never before witnessed. He was like a human velociraptor with tasty prey in his sight. He made his interest in our fellow passengers abundantly clear, and when it was time for him to alight, he reluctantly got off alone.

At the next stop, three young black men boarded the train. We listened to their conversation and observed them. They looked as if they might be in their late teens. One boy was extremely fat and very vocal. His friend was a stick insect who made me look fat and didn’t have too much to say that wasn’t delivered in a tone of blind panic. The third young man was silent and instantly forgettable.

Angel whispered in my ear, “I can’t understand anything they’re saying except ‘nigga’ and ‘motherfucker’.”

“Don’t worry,” I said reassuringly. “Remember, I live in Harlem. I can translate.”

I made tried to look bored and uninterested in what was being said, but it was quite fascinating. As I explained to Angel later, when it was safe to do so, the large one was giving serious thought to perpetrating a crime that would pay off enough that eighteen months behind bars would be worth it. The stick insect knew what life was like in the big house.

[The following sentence is an edited translation for the benefit of avid and regular readers.]

“There are long tables and chairs where you eat, and big TV screens at each end, and cells all around.”

Big Boy liked the idea of TV and was convinced that he could handle doing time without any problem.

“Don’t do it, man”, Stick pleaded with his bro’. [bro’ = brother, friend, companion]

I thought that the big house would be like no fat farm Big Boy had ever been to, and he’d probably get released looking even thinner than me (though perhaps not so thin as Stick). And as for those giant TV screens, I didn’t think that with his his cellmates to consider he would have too much time for telly.

Angel was agog as I filled him in on the details. I was able to edit the story down to about half the length of the original by eliminating ‘nigga’ and ‘motherfucker’ from my version.

Anyhoo, that concludes the week before. If you haven’t fallen asleep yet (and who could blame you?) I’ll begin the next adventure. If you have fallen asleep, wake up, and get off my lawn blog er… I mean yawn blog.