Kumbaya, George

I also have bootleg DVDs for sale.

April 27, 2017

Yesterday it rained on my sign.

I didn’t think it was going to rain when I left the house, but then it did. I protected the sign with my umbrella, which defeated the purpose of carrying both the sign and the umbrella. But the sign didn’t warp too much. The ink didn’t run.

I’m humming softly on the train. That way I don’t annoy everyone in the car by singing constantly, but I can escalate into singing immediately when warranted.

Here is one common type of New York City subway rider: a middle-aged white guy in spackled carpenter pants with a union patch on his sweatshirt, who is either getting on or getting off at 34th Street/Penn Station. Many of these guys dislike my sign. One gets on at 34th Street, sits down across from me. Hum hum hum, hmm hmm, kumbaya.

This guy has dark hair and is in his late forties and looks like the comedian Dom Irrera — a useless reference that nobody will get, but he’s a dead ringer. Except one of his eyes is smaller and less focused than the other, as I see when he stares at me.

I smile and stare back, humming my happy tune. He keeps staring, stone-faced. I am so used to this men trying to stare me down. I was used to this even before the sign. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he looks away for a second. He tries to stare some more, but now it’s awkward, and he shifts in his seat as I sing.

Kumbaya, the president is a liar, kumbaya…

Kumbaya, the president is a fraud, kumbaya…

The young woman next to me checks me out and adjusts her cross-body purse. I am a weird lady singing on the train with a sign; I will probably either ask her for money or give her bedbugs. A few other people in the car look over but whatever, I don’t really notice. I’m looking at this guy.

Kumbaya, there’s a white supremacist in the White House, kumbaya…

Oh, shit, kumbaya.

The guy, however, is not looking at me anymore. He’s looking away. And when I kick into my second verse (much the same as the first), he starts looking down.

Kumbaya, he doesn’t even know what country he bombed, kumbaya!

Kumbaya, he wants a war with North Korea, kumbaya!

Kumbaya, everybody say goodbye to your healthcare, kumbaya!

Oh, shit, kumbaya!

Last time I sang to a guy on the train was about two weeks ago. I didn’t write up my notes that day — like last night, I didn’t feel like it, but I still have the salient details: Fortyish white guy in a black fleece jacket with the IBEW logo, the stare, the smile, the song. The cessation of the stare.

So yesterday, that’s the ride uptown. Then I’m going downtown later, and I get into a car and sit right across from a white guy in his late fifties, with a Carhartt jacket and a high and tight haircut and an old-school New Yawk accent, tawkin’ to his friend ovah dere about runnin’ the trucks.

He sees me sit down with my sign and says, “Hey, where’s the party?”

“The party?” I’m not ready for this one, but okay. “You tell me.”

The young woman next to me leans over to see what my sign says. She laughs and seems willing to enter the conversation if necessary. I feel like she’s signaling that she has my back.

“I think Trump’s gonna go to a second term,” says the guy. “Who else are they gonna get?”

Sigh. I guess we’re doing this, then. “Literally anybody else?” I suggest.

“I wanted Bernie,” he says, hands up. “I didn’t want this guy. We coulda had Bernie.”

I’m happy he’s not a Trump supporter. I think the girl next to me relaxes too. As for the Bernie thing, there’s way too much to unpack there, so I shrug. “We got what we got.”

“A lot of my Muslim clients, you know, they support the ban.” George — for that is his name, as I will soon learn — drives a beverage truck, delivering to delis from 125th to Battery Park, and many of the deli owners are Muslim. “I respect their opinion.”

And I respect his respect. If he’s out there talking to Muslim business owners every day, he definitely knows more than I do about what they’re saying. “But I remember when the Yemeni delis all shut down in protest.”

He grants me that. “But some countries, they don’t like the others. Lot of fighting over there, anyway. Nobody trusts each other.”

No, we don’t.

George is from Bayside, a good neighborhood, except for a few people who get money and think they’re better than everyone, ya know? Ridiculous. He has beautiful light eyes that easily maintain contact. He is an enthusiastic and gracious conversationalist, as we go from tourism to gentrification to Bloomberg’s rezoning the city; we’re all over the map. You can tell by the mortified silence of his friend that this is S.O.P. for George; he’s the kinda guy who talks to people on the subway. Not the kind of guy who wants to silently stare you down.

I would so much rather talk to someone than sing at them. Singing is a desperate last resort to keep my spirits up in the face of constant atrocity; it’s my war cry when I feel intimidated. It’s so much better to talk, especially not about politics — better to bullshit about how bad traffic is now that West Chelsea is a thing, and remember when they packed meat in the Meatpacking District?

Before he gets off at 34th Street, George shakes my hand and says, “It was an onna to meet you. Take care. Be safe.” He elbows his friend and they disembark.

(To read Kumbaya, Motherfucker in chronological order, click here.)