demography

As I wait for the train, at that time that is both early in the morning and late at night, two young men who look like they should still have bedtimes sit down next to me. The one with a skateboard is white, his friend is Hispanic. Both have piercings that suggest awkward a bit more than they suggest hip.

"Did you see that one chick I made out with?" asks the boy who is white.

His friend shrugs.

"She was white, I think," says the first. He proceeds to list off the night's conquests by race: four white girls, two black girls, one Asian chick [at this point I begin to doubt his reliability], and, to top it off, a few Hispanic girls.

I remain in a quandary of mirth and horror. What astonishes, one top of everything else, is how accurately his demographics mimic the nation's.

Revelation 19:16

Signing for packages at a certain New York publication, the delivery man points to my bare upper arm (the offices of the publication are excessively warm) and says I should get a tattoo there. I sigh and explain that I can never decide what to get.

"Get this," he says, lifting his shirt to reveal a life-sized handgun tattooed over his breastbone.

"Now how did you decide on that?" I ask.

"I was in a gang in L.A.," he tells me. "It was a long time ago."

The tattoo is slightly gray, as old tattoos go. He heads out to his next delivery. I turn back to my computer, editing a podcast about the legality of torture, a podcast about the science of loneliness.