So, I'm on the train. And it's hummin'. Straight funky. I follow the lead of a girl 'cross my way who's pulled her scarf up over her nose so she wouldn' t have to smell the smell. I'm pissed. It doesn't help that the train that I had to take to get to this train wasn't running because of "necessary trackwork" and I had to take a bus. And it doesn't help that before I caught the bus, I was halfway to the station before I realized that I left my perishable groceries at work and had to go back for them. And least of all did it help that now it's midnight, which means I won't get home until 1AM and I'm low on sleep. We hit the 42nd street stop and these two young couples get on the train. Kids, really. Couldn't be older than 15. All hugged up and on each other and whatnot. Proud of themselves. Giddy at the concept. I watch them for a bit and want to watch longer but they're at that finicky, highly-visible stage smack in the middle of adolescence and can notice the quickest peek with their darting eyes. I give up and watch them in the reflection of one of the train windows. This reminds me so much of what I was like at that age. Minus New York. But like that anyway. Two seconds older than awkward and excited about it. Watching my girlfriend who had been doing this longer than I had so I could take her leads and look like that with my man. Head on his chest and his arms around my back and whatnot. Trying to look comfortable. Look grown. They're geeked on each other and the boys are showing off. Breath bated on ego. Making a fuss of how it stinks on the train. "It smells like straight rat ass up in here!" All loud and whatnot. By the time we hit 125th, the whole train car is sick of the funk but too stubborn/ tired to change cars. I nod off to the sound of these kids crackin' on the smell and at 181st, I'm shook awake by the noise. I open my eyes in time to see one of them throw some trash at a man up the car from me. His friend yells to wake him up. The first one--the one that threw the trash--yells, "Wake up!" at the top of his lungs. When the train doors close, he pounds the train windows. Testament to adolescence. I see the figure at the end of the train--the subject of all this conversation... the source of the smell on the train--grumble and turn over. A slow mullusk too tired to react. I look on... pissed off all over again.