David Foster Wallace on the Metro

Yesterday, I took the Metro at rush hour. It’s panic-inducing to ride even for a few minutes smashed up against someone in a business suit, one foot stuck under a roller suitcase, one hand gripping a metal pole for balance. I apologized to a woman on crutches who pushed by and tried to ignore the smell of everyone’s sweat souring their cologne and perfume. The train got me where I needed to go, though, and after I struggled out at my stop, I was quite relieved to be heading toward the escalator and back above ground, even if it meant once again braving the freezing winter air.

As I weaved through people on the platform, I passed a woman in her twenties who stood with her mother. The woman wore a stylish black wool coat with a matching hat and high-heeled black boots. She was placing earplugs into her ears. Their white cord trailed down her shoulder. Her mother was bundled in a bulky aquamarine coat and wore a white tasseled hat and pink scarf that covered her chin.

“No, mom,” the younger woman was saying. She continued inserting the earplugs as her voice rose. Then she pulled her mother farther from the train doors. “We’re just going to wait until it’s less crowded. I’m not riding crammed in with a bunch of weirdoes.”

“Jesus Christ,” her mother said. “They’re just people trying to get home.”

Ok, so she wasn’t David Foster Wallace, but she reminded me of Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College. Only, he talks about people in grocery stores and how we forget that the world doesn’t revolve around any one of us.

Later, I went into a neighborhood furniture and knick-knack shop. I wandered among pewter side tables, mirrored dressers, and mahogany shelves, stepping sideways to fit between furniture to get from one end of the store to the other. Colorful vases, used books, and ornate hand mirrors cluttered the shelves and tabletops. Everyone else in the store seemed to know each other. When a man came in, someone shouted across the room and asked how he was.

“I’m happy as a lark,” he said. He sounded like he meant it. He certainly looked happy as he found his way to the used book section and chatted with the employees.

R. has a neighbor who always greets us with “Best day of my life,” in response to being asked how he is. He runs ten to fifteen miles most days, even when icicles hang on the trees, and never seems to frown. I have yet to detect any sarcasm or cynicism from him. Well, maybe when he talks about the Redskins. But even then, he refuses to give up on the team.

One of the employees at the Trader Joe’s near R.’s house is also of a similar nature, as if he were part of the same clan as the neighbor and the man in the furniture store. When customers ask how he is doing, he tells them, “Every day is a holiday.” He also seems to mean it. Every time. I sometimes wonder if he and the neighbor know something I don’t, were let in on some secret of life because it’s in their nature to bounce when they walk.

I don’t know what the answer is, but considering these people got me thinking more about the speech. Here’s the beginning:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

—C.