The Meet Cute.

Sep 13, 2008 - 09:32 AM PST

He was running late for rehearsal. He was always running late for rehearsal. The director was beginning to get annoyed with him. It didn’t matter that he was one of the best violinists in the orchestra he would get canned if he didn’t start showing up on time – or, better yet, early. But that was difficult. He often used the excuse that he lived far away, but he knew that it was getting old. John had already ripped into him about factoring that into his commute.

The train was late. He could use that excuse today and he would, starting tomorrow, make an active effort to leave super early for rehearsal. New York was a big city and hard to navigate at the best of times. Today he was having difficulties. The platform was crowded and the train he needed still hadn’t arrived. He positioned himself so that when it did he could hop on real quick and commandeer a place by the door so he could jump off again real fast. Still, it was tedious: waiting for the train.

Two years at Julliard and he was still getting used to living in the city. His friends were cool, his roommates were awesome, he loved school, he loved his band, he loved his music and the direction he was able to take with it, but sometimes he missed the comforts of home. He missed a lot of things actually. And he found he was becoming disillusioned with everything he had. He wished there was a greater challenge.

Damn it, he thought to himself as his train finally rushed into the station. He hopped on and secured himself a place. The doors slid shut leaving those not quick enough to wait for the next train to roll through. He leaned his head against the pole as the train left the station and moved his violin case so it didn’t hit the woman next to him. He smiled briefly at her and turned his attention into the crowd.

There he let his mind wander. His focus had nothing to do with rehearsal, music, practice or the upcoming performance. His thoughts, left to their own devices, tried to tell him that he was tired. But his brain, in its infinite capabilities, couldn’t register what his thoughts were telling him. Instead he acknowledged that he missed people from his past, he missed cooking with YaYa in her little house in Bedford or hanging out with his sister and her husband in Chicago or even Melissa, his ex-girlfriend, she was really nice, albeit a little crazy, especially at the end.

The train pulled into his station and he quickly exited the car. Pushing his way through the crowd, he made his way to another platform in the same station and was just in time to squeeze through the rapidly closing doors of his next and final train, violin and all. The car he found himself on was considerably less crowded and, knowing that the doors on the opposite side of the car would open at his stop, he made his way to the other side to the other set of doors where there were less people.

He barely noticed her as he approached. She was remarkably dressed, but no big deal when it came to New York City. She was seated two seats from the door but still he didn’t see her until he passed by.

Thwack!

By the time he heard the noise and felt the pressure of her action, the damage was done and there was nothing he could do about it. The sticker was securely attached to the top of his violin case.

“What the…?” He let his words trail off as he looked first at his case, then to the young woman seated on the bench trying her hardest to look demurely innocent.

She was beautiful, but that fact would not register for some time. She was dressed like a homeless person. Her shoes looked old and beat up, three inch heels with a strap across the top of her foot; her stockings were black and ripped; her skirt, almost too short, also black. She was wearing an absurd number of layers, a black tank top under a teal wide collared tee shirt under a white unbuttoned, button up shirt covered with a violet chunky knit sweater. She had a messenger bag slung across her body, her hands were folded on top of the bag and on them she wore orange fingerless gloves. Her nails, he could see were painted electric blue. Her long auburn curls fell over her shoulders. In and amongst the curls he could just see the glint of silver dangling earrings. Her heavily made up eyes where downcast, staring at her hands and her purple-red lips were slightly parted. She took a deep breath.

“What is this?” he cried.

She looked up at him for the first time. He took a sharp breath as her eyes, wide and blue, took him by surprise.

“What’s what?” she asked innocently. Her voice was light and sweet, but he still didn’t notice.

“What’s this?” he yelled. “This sticker. Why did you do that?”

“What about it? I think it looks good,” she shrugged and glanced at the sticker.

“I don’t want it there,” he snapped. His thoughts had tried to tell him he was tired.

“You don’t want it there? Why not? You don’t want people to know? You want to see people go hungry? You have something against peace?”

“What?”

“I asked you if you have something against peace,” she said slowly and calmly, never taking her eyes from his face.

He allowed his gaze to break away from her staggeringly intense stare and actually look at the sticker on his violin case.

It was an elegantly simple design with the slogan “Bread Not Bombs” printed across the center.

“Peace, huh?”

“And hunger.”

“Peace and hunger? That’s your cause?” he snorted derisively.

“What’s your problem?” She arched an eyebrow and stared sharply at him. “Just because you have enough to eat you think everything’s ok? Did you know that roughly 24,000 people die every day because they don’t have enough food? Wanna take a guess as to how many of them are kids? I’ll bet you didn’t think famine was still a problem in ‘our modern world’. You had no idea did you? When you think of famine, you probably just think of war-ridden, third world countries, don’t you? Or you think of the potato famine in Ireland and that you probably only think of every March 17th as you down some green beer with your friends. You have no idea that famine is actually a real issue in the United States. Some people don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. Twelve million US children don’t know if they are going to eat in a day. I’ll bet that thought never crossed your mind, did it? And yet we’re so concerned with War and Justice, that we can’t see that people are hungry.”

Her voice had quickly lost its innocent pitch as she became more and more impassioned in her speech. He took a look at her messenger bag as she continued to berate him for things he had zero control over. Pinned to the canvas sack were a number of buttons and ribbons. Breast cancer, peace, domestic abuse, child abuse, famine, rape, addiction, equality, genocide and racism were all represented there.

“Are you one of those atheist, liberal, idealistic, do-gooders?” he asked sardonically.

“Not exactly,” she replied. “I believe in God . . . and Jesus,” she added almost as an afterthought.

“So what is this?” he asked indicating her buttons and the sticker, implying that her actions were out of character.

“Isaiah wrote that ‘if you spend yourself in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday’.”

“So it’s all about self-glorification?” he countered.

“No, see, because Jesus fed the 5,000 and absolved the Woman at the Well.”

“Jesus is also the Christ and therefore righteous. Are you, then, self-righteous?”

She glared at him and sighed.

“Are you always this difficult?” she asked rhetorically. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Paul wrote in Galatians that we are crucified with Christ and that we no longer live, it is Christ who lives in us.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means that the sinner that all people are no longer exists.”

“Once you believe?”

“Exactly, once you believe. And, once you believe, you allow Christ to live in you. Meaning you are choosing to emulate His actions and live a life worthy of the Son of Man. And the Son of Man fed the hungry and stood up for the oppressed.”

“Huh,” he mused. “You’re not forcing your religion on me.”

“No, I’m forcing awareness on you. And now, through this sticker, so are you.”

She grabbed the pole and stood up next to him, swaying slightly as the train pulled into a station.

“So, let people know that the world is hungry and make a difference, if you dare!”

The doors slid apart and she breezed around him and onto the platform. It took a moment for him to realize that this was also his stop and he rushed off before the doors trapped him underground.

He hurried up the steps to the street level and looked around for her, but she was nowhere. It was almost as if she hadn’t existed, as if he had dreamed her down there in the subway. But her sticker was stuck forever to the cover of his violin case, crookedly calling for the end of war and famine in the same three words.

He was late. Taking off at a fast pace he arrived at rehearsal just in time for tuning.



After rehearsal, after being sternly talked to by the director, he was ready to meet some friends and let off some steam. He climbed the steps to his buddy’s fifth floor walk up, his violin case in hand. Rarely did he ever pay attention to graffiti or stickers that he passed, but on his walk over he couldn’t help but notice every single piece he saw. He never for a moment thought he would see her sticker anywhere, but there is was on the wall in his buddy’s building.

Shaken slightly, he trudged up the stairs and knocked on the door. As he entered the dingy studio apartment, one of many that riddled the city, he saw, amid the small crowd, a pair of ripped stockings and a violet chunky knit sweater leaning against the counter talking and laughing. She looked over her shoulder and, seeing him in the doorway, smiled.