Doors closing. Please move to the center of the car.
Doors closing. Please move to the center of the car.

Daniel looks up from his phone to see what tourist is keeping the door open. Out-of-towners assume that subway trains are like elevators, with doors programmed to reopen with a friendly wave at a sensor. DC Metro trains are fine-tuned to punish anyone who puts their hand in the closing door. Daniel smiles imagining the staff meeting where the door sensitivity is discussed – what’s the setting just short of dismemberment?

The smile fades quickly as Daniel processes who has just boarded the car. A classic French mime, complete with white face, red beret and a dingy shirt with horizontal stripes straining to contain a burgeoning midsection. The shirt looks stained with gray soot and red wine, suggesting a well-worn circuit between subway car to liquor store, probably traversed several times each day.

A middle-aged tech guy sitting on Daniel’s left exhales slowly, “Ooooh noooo…” He looks and sounds vaguely like Geoge Takei, Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek. His words are barely audible but something in his tone begs the attention of the other riders in the front end of the car.

“Help me, Lord Jesus,” adds a black lady who resembles an older Viola Davis. She instinctively gathers her grocery bags closer to her body to create a barrier.

“I’m as puzzled as you are, ma’am,” says a voice from the last row of seats. Daniel looks back and sees a young man who looks exactly like Leonardo DaVinci’s images of Jesus Christ, at least from the neck up – the  American University sweatshirt and Vans backpack are decidedly post-Renaissance.

Daniel smiles at the joke. “I guess a lot of people tell you that you look like Jesus returned to Earth.”

“I get that a lot,” says Jesus. “But I never really left, you know. Lots of people ask me about that.”

Daniel is now unsure whether the man is delusional or just doubling down on the joke.

The George Takei tech guy asks Jesus, “So, why don’t you look Middle Eastern?”

“I appear to people as they wish me to be.”

“That’s not how I wish you to be,” offers the Viola Davis look-alike.

“I mean Americans, in general.” Jesus is getting defensive.

“Not Black Americans,” says Viola Davis.

“Not Japanese Americans,” says George Takei.

“Look, every person looks the same in God’s eyes.“

“Well, while y’all are busy up there not seeing race, y’all are missing out on a whole lotta racism piling up down here.”

Daniel notices that many people have gone back to scrolling their phones as the conversation has become uncomfortable. The mime is still standing mid-car facing the passengers who are seated facing backwards to the impending motion of the train. He has placed his beret on the floor with a few crumpled dollars preloaded, and he seems uncertain how to proceed. How does a mime get people’s attention to start their performance? Daniel feels this is a fundamental flaw in the mime-busking profession.

The train finally begins to move, and the mime pretends to walk a tightrope down the center of the jostling car. His gyrating arms perfectly express that he’s having a hard time keeping his balance, but he does not seem to be acting. Daniel sees kids do this all the time on the Metro – trying to keep from stumbling without holding onto the pole as the train moves with its random shakes and shimmies. So far, this mime performance resembles every tipsy college bro on a Friday night train.

But now the mime has an invisible umbrella and his balance seems to be better. Not bad, Daniel thinks. And now the umbrella is picking up a breeze and blowing the mime away from the crowded end of the car. A sudden look of unified terror appears on the faces of the sparse group of commuters on the opposite end, and in unison they drop their eyes to their phones, their curious faces gone, replaced by the tops of their heads.

Just when all hope is lost for this new potential audience, the train slows for its next stop and the mime follows the momentum of the train forward toward Daniel’s group once again. He pantomimes tumbling forward, deftly picking up his beret along the way. He comes to a stop at the same time as the train, now standing within five feet of the commuters, literally hat in hand, blocking the aisle.

Not surprisingly, everyone except Daniel has decided this is their stop. But it is going to be tricky getting past the mime in the aisle without acknowledging him. Viola Davis reaches into her grocery bag and produces a Dasani water for the dingy mime.

“Stay hydrated, young man,” she says kindly as she sidles past. “I hope everything works out for you.” George Takei follows closely behind, breathing a low apology for not carrying cash. The mime sheepishly holds up the water bottle to Jesus, who is the last to disembark.

“Hey ummm, if you’re really Jesus, do you think you could… errr…”

“Mimes are not supposed to talk.” Jesus squeezes past and leaves the train.

The doors close again leaving Daniel and the mime alone in the car. Daniel hopes the mime doesn’t notice that half the people who got off the car have simply moved to another one further down. Of course, no new riders are going to enter a car with a mime – that is Metro 101. Probably he’s used to that.

With the Metro car to themselves and eight more stops until the end of the line, Daniel and the mime talk about society, civility, freedom and simplicity. They discuss the erosion of human interaction and the rise of isolation in the most connected era in history. They talk about the dangerous ambiguity of morality, the separation of church and state, and the trajectory of a democracy that is constantly diminishing its free press.

When they finally reach the Shady Grove station, the mime crosses the platform to wait for the southbound train, and Daniel heads to the exit. A look back over his shoulder, and the two men make eye contact again. The mime raises his Dasani bottle in tribute – a toast to Daniel’s health and good fortune, he imagines. But damn if it doesn’t look like that bottle is filled with wine.

Artwork by Tim Jegle, Brunswick Forest