There are a few women on the subways I used to pay attention to. I know I still would if they had not all disappeared on me. It’s all about me, right. Me and my orbit.

One woman I follow, lightly, through her blog and web presences. She is a walker, like me, and is discovering New York the way I used to. One step at a time. She seems genuine and flawed, just like I like ’em. She speaks in the code of people who’ve been there, and made it. I still can’t believe I made it to 40. I suspect she will reach that milestone with the same sentiment. She is half my age. My interests are purely intellectual. Call me a fan.

Another woman, though, who I had not seen for a few months, suddenly exploded back into my orbit today. I knew the voice instantly. Raspy, throaty, giving and generous but the words that flow through that voice are almost always of the highest drama. I’ve seen her in tears, madly working her phone at 7 in the morning, texting 4 or 5 people and talking to another.

“You don’t know what I’m going through,” she would utter, covering her face with her free hand. She seemed to be studying the floor of the subway car as the person she was talking to said whatever the hell they were saying to console, comfort, or for all I know they were deliberately riling her up for routine emotional evacuation. Maybe this was a morning ritual that all those in her orbit had come to expect. This is why they love her.

I don’t know what her deal is, or what she does, but for a few months we seemed to get the same subway car every single day. She looked like trouble. Beautiful, dramatic, an emotional trainwreck… exactly the kind of woman I’d be attracted to. A fulfillment of my insatiable desire to be in abusive relationships.

But that body. And that voice. Oh my. I’m like a teenage infatuatist, I can barely look away. She is tall, commanding in appearance, tattooed, beautiful blonde hair, a sweet smile. But that voice. It roars through my head and body.

I can talk like this now because I will almost certainly never see her again. Overheard conversation says she is moving upstate, and soon. I also learned that her absence on the subway the past months was likely on account of her not working for the summer. I don’t know what she does but I guess she’s a serial job type, something I’d kind of like to be. I wanted 2022 to be my year of 100 jobs but I’m happy with just this one.

Anyway, she’s leaving my orbit, having neither of us ever exchanging a word. We did, however, make distinct and sustained eye contact on a number of occasions, as the familiarity from crossing paths every day became too obvious to ignore. Unlike the previous woman, whose online presences I follow, I felt I could easily make conversation with this woman. Too easily, I feared.

Then she vanished, reappearing today with the show-stopping sort of gusto I characterize her with. Rock ’em sock ’em, she might say, or behave. She was working her phone, texting and talking to I don’t know how many parties, talking about her future in a new city.

I could say that I will miss her but is that safe to say when I never even knew her?

I suppose it is. She is not moving immediately, I think she said she has a few weeks left in New York. True to my character I would make contact with her now and friend her on Facebook and keep her in my orbit from a discrete distance.

Or not.

It’s all about orbits, isn’t it. This is my orbituary. My solipsistic orbituary.

I put this woman, now moving away, at about 40. Another woman I see, only on weekends, is a radiant Asian, probably 60s, with a bountiful albeit rictus-like smile.  I see her rarely but she never fails to linger in my mind for the day. She seems arrogant, and absurd. That body, though, summons memories of the 60-something Chinese woman I messed around with pre-pandemic. Actually I think she messed with me, to be more precise, getting into my head in the wrong ways. But those breasts. Such joyful playthings. I could not keep my mouth away from them. She knew she had me hooked, too.

I see zero possibility of any encounter with this other subway woman, though. She is beautiful but her personality is visibly starchy. I say that in the way that I think all humans have primal instincts that can say with some accuracy just what kind of person this is based on their body language.

She seems starchy and disagreeable. The woman moving away from New York is a conqueror, albeit a vulnerable one. I think she conquers through her demonstrative weaknesses. The other one whose public presences I follow is clearly vulnerable, speaking in the code that those of us who have been there would recognize. And her body language show it.

How do I appear to those in my orbit. Probably as one who think he is better than you, superior, thinks he is smarter. I am genuinely none of those things but my fundamental shyness uses that façade as a shell, a protective shell. Which is ironic since that protective shell is responsible for attracting the only bar fistfight I ever got into.

I didn’t even throw a punch. That all came from the drunk firefighter who’d been mumbling shit about how I thought I was better than him. Until the altercation I actually thought this was a pretty cool guy I wanted to be friends with.

I did in fact get punched one other time at a bar, by a guy I still talk to but from a safe distance. Some people treat physical assault as a normalcy, an inevitable fact of life. I am not one of those people. Even the threat of being assaulted has been enough for  me to exit long-term friendships and relationships.

Anyway, that’s all I have today on the subway babes. I know them from afar and think it’s best to keep them that way.