Kumbaya, Briefly

Me and this beautiful person.

14th and 6th, waiting for the light to change. Scruffy, lanky white guy in his forties scoffs at my sign: “Like Hilary didn’t lie? Please.”

I smile. “She’s not the President.”

I should have added, “Despite winning the popular vote by 3 million,” but that part doesn’t occur to me until later.

“That’s right,” he grumbles, or something trenchant like that, as he shoves off.

This has been coming up a lot in the past few days. E.g., business casual fortyish white guy on the train the other day: “Lemme ask you a question, what would you be saying if Hilary was President?”

“Oh, God!” I cried. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find out? Let’s find out!”

Guys, I think they have run out of all other defenses besides “Hilary was worse.” They’re not telling me what they like about Trump any more; they lead with how much they hate Hilary. I think many of them know he’s a disaster, even though they’ll never admit it, and they’re comforting themselves by thinking, “As bad as this shitstorm gets, I still did the right thing by keeping Hilary out of the White House.”

A table of four over-70 guys at a diner on the Upper West Side. They responded positively to the sign as I passed their table, so I asked if I could sit with them for a minute. They ID’d themselves as “two Jews, a black man, and a gay Sicilian,” also ID’d themselves as “horrified,” and “glad I don’t have kids — but I was glad of that before Trump too.”

Subway uptown: Well-dressed fortyish white guy says, “I couldn’t agree more.” General commiseration, discussion of ACHA flop, exhortations to keep up the cause.

Subway downtown: Twentyish Latin kid on the subway tries to take a picture of my sign surreptitiously, woman next to him freaks out — “You trying to take a picture of me?” He shows her the picture he took, she calms down.

“You never know, though,” she says in her defense. “This is New York.”