grey marble

August 5, 2004


J train blues

Teru hosted the first lightstalker gathering. For two hours he made stir fry for 30+ guests. The serving plates refilled as soon as they were emptied. Rice noodles, tofu, imitation crab meat, chives in garlic poured out from the wok. People arrived bringing beer and wine, grabbed plates and filled them with food. Teru's high school friend brought brownies.

At 11.30, I started to make for the door. Maki said that she was heading back to the city as well and we decided to catch the train together. Gigi and Nina were leaving at the same time and after a prolonged series of goodbyes (Maki still had an entire night of retouching to do) we made for the J train.

As soon as we climbed the steps to the elevated platform, the train arrived. We practically did cartwheels. The train wound its way through Brooklyn and then over the Williamsburg Bridge. At Essex, the train stopped and opened its doors. We chatted and waited. The doors remained open. A crowd of people transferred from a train across the platform. We chatted and waited. The doors remained open. I turned to Nina and said, "We're not moving." "No," she replied, and then a bell went off. She smiled and pointed. An annoucement was made to stay clear of the closing doors. Then the train moved. Backwards. We looked at each other as the train climbed back out of the earth and creeped over the Williamsburg bridge heading towards Brooklyn.

At the first stop in Brooklyn we got off the train and walked across the street to the Manhattan bound platform. Gigi was convinced we had each done something wrong that day. Nina said we had just talked about how we had left Teru's without doing the dishes. She called him to apologize. He said that after midnight the J does the shuttle thing. She said we should have known.

She was amazed we had sat in the Essex street station for so long without realizing what was about to commence. She said she should have known when the bell went off. She said a bell is the signal that the train is changing directions. We sat at Marcy Avenue. The rain started and then became stronger. We waited.

Gigi told us a story of what she might have done wrong that day. She had been walking across the street to do her laundry. A model was walking across the street with a laptop. The photographer was stepping back to try to get her carrying her laundry into the shot with the model. She glared at him. As a photographer, she felt badly as she had been in the photographer's position, but she just wasn't in the mood. Nina said she hadn't really done anything wrong, but Gigi said that it was the fact that she wouldn't have signed a model release if asked. The moral according to Nina? "Stay in the frame." Posted by eku at August 5, 2004 2:00 AM
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