No country for old men left me reeling in the street with my
compatriots, smoking silently while being gutted with the distinctive
sharpness of a cold wind that has been meticulously carved by pavement and steel. and since one can only pause for so long during this late november manhattan wind, we soon ducked down the nearest MTA stop.
I was the first one to enter and didn't realize the others had been
held up at the gate because my gaze was drawn across the tracks where
a bum was struggling with a woman on the edge of the platform as she
tried repeatedly to jump. She went over and he grabbed her by the
seat of the pants and dragged her back up and off the bright yellow
traction bumps.
Seconds later a train laden with garbage roared through the station. by the time it was gone, police were swarming up the stairs. She resisted them all, screaming inconsolably. In the course of her struggle, her pants were twisted down and she was trapped on her stomach, still alive but nearly naked and sobbing.
spectators on the other platform pointed and laughed as she was bent over and cuffed.As their hyena-esque cackles echoed and boomed off the tiles, overwhelming her pleas to be freed, my train came.
And as the station's lights blinked out of sight, I realized just how
dead-on the Cohens were: vanity tells us we could stop these evil things, but there will always be another train and a million more spectators mercilessly trailing the scent of human agony.
