A Man

The best looking man in the world talks to himself on the train.

The best looking man in the world is always dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and he always carries a backpack. The best looking man in the world clenches his jaw and unclenches his jaw and maybe he’s grinding his teeth and when he’s not doing that, he’s moving his lips like he’s reciting something from memory.

I’ve seen the best looking man in the world sit down on the train and pull a beer out of his backpack and open it and drink it down in two or three big gulps and put the can down on the floor and put his head down, chin to his chest, as though he were sleeping. He closes his eyes. He moves his lips and clenches and unclenches his jaw like an insect that is constantly moving its mouth parts and the best looking man in the world looks troubled. He always looks troubled by something, even when he’s pretending to sleep on the train.

He looks like he doesn’t belong. He looks like he knows that he doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t, in fact, belong on the train, on the ten oh five train from Asakusa. He doesn’t, in fact, belong anywhere if he doesn’t belong on some catwalk in Milan dressed in a suit with lines so sharp that you could cut yourself on it and not feel it for several seconds afterwards.

He looks troubled. He looks as though his trouble was not a momentary thing, a fight with a girlfriend or a lost job. He looks as though his troubles were hardwired in, irrevocable, insoluble. He looks as though his demons are going to ride him all his days. He looks as though if you tried to separate them from him, he wouldn’t survive it. He is defined by something else. That something else is not his face.

I’ve seen the best looking man in the world twice. I’ve seen him twice on the train and I’ve made eye contact with the best looking man in the world once. He seemed not to see me though he looked right into my eyes and he looked without interest at me, the way everyone else looks at me these days, the way everyone else is always looking at me, with some hidden judgment.