By: Gabriela Yareliz
There is a circus that does not travel. It stays underground, but it is anything but hidden.
Times Square station is like a collection of every performance you wish you hadn’t seen. How this group comes together and decides to split up into every corner of the station, while the rest of us run frantically from tunnel to tunnel, is a mystery. You know, the mysteries life is truly made of.
A woman dancing with her young child who I am sure is supposed to be in school, a man drumming on paint buckets while NYPD officers dance to the beat (I feel safer already), a woman who sings on a karaoke machine off key with the regular track (mic on full echo), the man who sings Spanish Christian music tracks from 2004, and the man dancing bachata with the skeleton.
It becomes a blur of noise and memorable faces as we rush from destination to destination.
I arrive at work, which happens to have musicians, and I lock myself in a stall to pee (because let’s face it, I always need to pee), and suddenly, a woman starts signing an opera in the stall next to me. Full volume. Could fill a theater. At this point, I am just peeing resigned, you know? There is no escaping the music. I wash my hands as I hear her warm up like she is Sharpay from High School Musical, laughing to myself. There is no quiet moment in this city. Not even when you pee. The circus doesn’t travel because it’s everywhere.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 