Survival of the Fittest.

I was on the bus and heard the sound before I really knew what was going on. I was reading intently the New Yorker like the good little New Yorker that I am, so absorbed that I hardly realized just how far the bus had traveled (that early in the morning without coffee we could have been in the Pocono's and I’d have had absolutely no idea).

The point being that I feel about it about and I’m the first (or second, or third...) person to admit it when I’m wrong about something. I was wrong when I heard it, the hard abrasive sound of his janitor-like keys fall from the back of his maroon Jansport (faded and marked with inky scribbles) and fall to the ground - and I didn’t say a word.

I didn’t say anything at first because surely with a sound that loud and a weight so large suddenly being alleviated from his backside, he’d have at least noticed something was wrong. I didn’t say anything at first because surely that woman who was literally three feet away from him (and there was me, rows and rows away) would pipe up and do the right thing. I mean her and I were both looking at the same thing, the same pile of metal on the dirty floor, both starting to realize that time was passing faster than it should, and the longer we waited to act, the more lost this opportunity was going to become.

I watched in paralyzed horror as Jansport kept walking, took a sharp right turn at the front of the bus and bounded down the steps. " --------." My mouth was open and nothing came. I was really ready to shout (really), I even cleared my throat in preparation to get the best projection, but by the time I was ready it was too late - he was gone. For an instant, poised on the edge of my seat I had a brief flashing image of myself pouncing on the keys and jumping off the bus, running after him and returning his keys in a very saving-the-day kind of way.

But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. What is it about doing the Right Thing that has the power of stopping us dead in our tracks? I sat back in my chair and thought about how horrible a person I was for not doing the Right Thing in that clear distinct window of opportunity. I glared at the woman up front who I decided should really take all of the blame. Our eyes met and she saw my look: Yeah you, my eyes said, you totally dropped the ball on that one.

After a few blocks however, back reading my New Yorker in total caffeine withdrawal, I felt a little better about the situation. This is after all, New York City , NEW YORK CITY, a place where you have to have it together, where you have to know where your head’s at, (and your wallet and your bags and your keys and your subway pass and your phone...) at all times, or else you’re simply not cut out to be here.

And perhaps when Jansport got home that night and, unable to get into his apartment where his couch and food and cat and bed were, he decided it was time to go.