For Sale
A woman sat down directly across from me on a Manhattan-bound 4 train. It was 10:30 or 11 a.m., the slow comedown from morning rush hour, and our car had only two dozen or so people inside. The woman was quiet for a few moments, then pulled something long and skinny from her fanny pack. It looked like one of those plastic tubes they sometimes use to package a single cigar, only this one was red and opaque instead of clear. She started her sales pitch. “Who wants to buy a dildo for $25?” she said. Then again, with more gusto: “Who wants to buy a dildo for $25? It’s easy to use. I’ll show you. You just put it between your legs and it feels good.” The precise nature of her facial expression was difficult to read behind a pair of large sunglasses, but clear enough to understand that she was enjoying herself. So was everyone else, looking up from books and smartphone screens, exchanging glances. She turned it on and it vibrated. “Can you hear it?” she asked. “Can you feel it? Who wants to buy a dildo for $25? It’s dildo season!” She slipped the prize back into her pack after not much more than a minute, calling out “going once, going twice,” then resuming her earlier charade as an ordinary passenger. At Fulton Street, many more people boarded the train, and the spell ended. I couldn’t help but feel sad for these interlopers, so confident in their suits and stretchy workout gear, who would never understand what we did: that the woman in the green sweatshirt had a dildo for sale, and it could be theirs if they wanted it.
