ski mask

6am i am late late late for the train. i arrive in time to watch it roll out from under my feet south into the cut and then it's gone. there is a bus not far away. down the street six or seven blocks is the southbound coney island bus which will take me to the bus my train would normally meet up with. i walk. i am dizzy this morning and the world seems to be lurching at me, dropping away. it is a beautiful spring morning, everything blooming and chirping and buzzing, but the lurching world and the 6am lack of people make everything a little more sinister.

i am just over a block from coney island avenue and look up to see a man. he is standing on the patio of a cafe. the cafe is closed and shuttered but the benches and tables are scattered around. he stands at the edge of them all, just in front of a human-size statue of liberty. she is on her pedestal and towers over him by two feet or so, but they look like choir singers on risers. he is all in black. black shoes and pants. a black jacket that is short and belted at the waist with a tightly knotted fabric belt. he is thin and pale. his arms fall away from his body and his hands are where they would be if he had them in his front pockets, but they are not in his pockets. they are just in front of them, not touching his hips. just hovering there. none of this is why he caught my eye. he takes a cigarette and puts it in his mouth. he is wearing a ski mask. a black wool one with two eye holes and a teardrop for a mouth. he puts the cigarette through the teardrop and lights it.

when i walk past him the whole world pitches and rolls, lurches one way, then another. i am only a few feet away and can see that his skin is horribly white behind the mask. his eyes are awful without his face to help them express. his eyes widen and i realize that i have been attempting to compensate for the fact that the world keeps moving unpredictably. i have been staggering down the street and in my own confusion or fear or whatever it is he's brought up in me i didn't notice lunging toward his masked face. i want to apologize for frightening him but i don't know that many folks who wear black wool ski masks on warm mornings in may and somehow i figure an apology might be the wrong thing. as i turn the corner i see the man who was walking behind me. when he sees mr. ski mask he lunges, too. away.