Tramming

The tram was jammed full and everyone on it was either wearing headphones or had phones pressed to their ears. Except me.

Some, with eyes closed, let their music invade them; some stared blankly out the window as the sounds leaked from their ears; others spoke past the crystalline plastic boxes held against their faces, filling up the tram with hot breath. I sat to the side with an open notebook, writing and not looking up.

The bell was an afterthought. People knew when to get off and on in any case. From the guts of the tram they struggled toward the exit doors for each stop. At the doors they partnered in a clumsy dance, getting on, getting on, stepping to the side.

The tram is, above all else, an idea imperfectly executed. An electric mass-transport vehicle, it has clean, bonafide green credentials. But it is locked in, bound and curbed, by tracks in the road and ugly low wires above. In a straight line it takes off smoothly, speeds up with a streamlined whine too perfect for any animal to make. But around a corner it lumbers and inches, creaking and shabby, flickering. And it is always too crowded or too empty.

Thousands of people, packaged in these wood metal glass capsules, circulate through the city, propelled under wire and under spark like food pushed through guts and bowel. Churning in the belly of the city.

At night on the tram, half empty, we all stared in silence. I wrote and they glossed, eyes on the floor, eyes pointed at the silvery glass, eyes closed. I wrote and wrote. I wrote through motion sickness, through hunger pangs. I suppressed a full bladder by pushing pen and notebook hard into my lap. I wrote until I was the last one left. The tram stopped; terminus stop. I looked up and had no idea where I was.

I remember this from earlier in the night: turning a corner, the tram crossed from one power line to another. The lights briefly dimmed, the tram seemed to shrug, falter half-a-step. It felt like a momentary fall, a drop, a gap. Like a trapeze artist swinging from one wire to another, temporarily in space, floating aloft and unsupported.