My favorite spot to stand on the subway is in the doorway, hands free, reading, fucking with my phone or just plain balancing on the unpredictable express train without entertaining a single thought. Sometimes a faltering step to the side for protection as the tracks and stations click on by unevenly to and fro in a motion that soon becomes tranquil, something of succor to a New Yorker. And sometimes faltering a step to the front right up to thoughts of a forlorn love, maybe even a man who at one time sat local train across from me bunched up with New York things, or passed me by handsome on a leaf kissed autumn street. Because there are so many places to feel at home in the city yet some of them are so exclusive not everyman may partake. The subway, our lifeblood, coursing through the veins of this city with everyone and I mean everyone in tow. From Richie Rich to the guy who took a shower in Starbucks three days ago, I believe at one time even Bloomberg was a devoted straphanger. In a city so divided by every diverse interest imaginable there are so many precious little things, mundane things that hold us arguably, and mostly with solidarity together.
As I write this I post up at the giant windows of FIKA off 7th Ave in Chelsea watching the leaves dance down the unseasonably warm autumn pavement. Or more realistically as I periodically look up from my ultra light silver machine to see some of Chelsea’s finest stroll on by. I mean how can one from time to time not indulge in the act while temptation parades mere feet away with purpose and gym membership bodies, with their meticulous gaze glancing into coffee shops, and restaurants browsing for what catches the crotch. For as great as the art of cruising (hell, pastime) is in any city I think I’ve become so typically jaded in the sport since on the regular there is almost anywhere, at any given moment an opportunity for the gay male to have an encounter (no matter how trivial or in depth). After a while this constant peacocking becomes routine and the routine becomes normal or expected which then typically leads to a higher percentage of dismissal and boredom, if not a sardonic tone between lesser exchanges.
I recall once when I was 18 and funning around in Chicago easily commuting on the elevated train from Lincoln Park to the bastion of Boystown and I experienced my first subway cruising. It was awkward, and unfruitful but I still remember it vividly to this day. Down to the guys worked out form filling out a t-shirt and Diesel jeans (back when gay boys actually wore Diesel jeans). This is so way back when I thought anything was possible. You know, like love, affordable housing, and global understanding. The Chicago cruising culture seemed so exciting and foreign to a Kansas City kid, I thought they were so aggressive, and gorgeous. I thought it was fun. The act of reading Edmund White in the afternoon at Starbucks off Belmont and Clark in a reasonable armchair was an appetizer of the evening’s main course at Roscoe’s or later on at ugh, Hydrate. I didn’t live there, I didn’t catch these boys at the gym in the steam room like I so often do today, here I had minimal time before the siren of house music in a crowded dark room introduced our eyes and bodies. And it seems so old school today. The coffee shops used to be a great meeting spot for the gays and I suppose even the breeders.
To this day I always seem to have a crush on a guy in any given coffee shop (okay, so on any train, retail shop, or basically um anywhere), something independent single origin in the Village or somewhere bright and trendy in Chelsea; there is always one, somewhere behind a counter with dark hair and dark eyes. Waiting to unleash a bookish look subtly declaring they adore a good dark roast, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and art galleries on the Lower East Side. But now it seems the fun is gone and perhaps I could blame my bucolic age of 33 or even the hook up apps like Grindr but instead I just lament the last great time I casually encountered more then eyes on the street, bus, steam room, library, coffee shop, Crate and Barrel, bodega, FroYo line, wine bar, or um the Internet. There is something that seemingly connects the gay culture in New York City other than the missed connection ads on Craigslist, something more than the ubiquitous steam rooms and wet towels. And anymore I think its because we’ve moved out of the gay ghetto’s into the streets and in the local shops of everywhere NYC, everywhere USA. We’re so visible and invisible that the challenge, discretion, or protected neighborhoods are gone. Which occasionally provides the seasoned gayer an annoyance when we utterly are just tired and not in the mood because somehow and somewhere there will be proverbial eyes gazing with the question begging DTF?
manhattanrambler 