The Little Gino and the Big Galoot

One gets on at one stop, the other a few stops later. The first guy is a little gino with spiky gelled hair, a diamond earring and a scar down his cheek. The other guy, this big galoot, gets on a bit later and slumps into the seat in front of the little gino. He’s young too. This big galoot has heavy eyelids, like eastern European, or maybe Egyptian. He’s turned sideways in his seat, his big heavy legs are like fallen trees in the aisle.

“How many did you make?” asks the big galoot to the little gino.

“Like 20-25”

“Halfs?” asks the big galoot.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

These guys either think I don’t know what they are talking about, or they don’t care.

The big galoot looks down at a phone that he makes disappear in his monstrous hand, given away only by the white headphone he’s got running up from the invisible phone and underneath his hoodie and eventually to his big ears. The little gino fiddles around with his phone for a bit too and then puts his knees up on the back of the big galoot’s seat and leans back with his hands in his hoodie pockets.

“Is it soft?” The big galoot turns and asks.

“Na, it’s pretty hard.”

“Sheeeet. That’s good. I like it when I can throw it against the wall and it doesn’t break,” says the big galoot.

“You, throw it against the wall?” Even the little gino questions this statement.

“Or like the floor or somethin’. I dunno, like drop it on the floor and it doesn’t break,” says the big galoot. Maybe he’s Lebanese. Or Italian. Either way, he’s big with big hands and he’s a drug dealer.

After a while, the big galoot starts to fall asleep a little. His eyelids look heavy and have eclipsed all but a sliver of his eyeball. He could still be watching me. His phone could ring any minute and wake him. The short one shuffles a bit then sits upright and bounces his knee a few times.

“Yo, Tony said he’d give me a 20 rock if I sold a hundred.” The big galoot wakes up and just says this without any warning, as if remembering this was enough to pull him up out of sleep. He doesn’t even acknowledge that he was sleeping. But the big galoot has said this too loudly because he’s been asleep and his mind has forgotten to adjust the volume of his voice inside the train.

“That’s so many man,” the little gino says, much quieter, “that’s like 5% and shit.”

“Fuck it. If it’s good…” After a while, he goes back to sleep. I think.

The train pulls up to the next stop and I can see from my window, two cops waiting on the platform. I know the cops are about to get on this train for two reasons: I jump fares all the time and have a keen awareness of not only the police presence, but also their movements, intentions and behavioural patterns. I’ve only been caught without a fare once, and since them have raised my game considerably. But today I actually have a ticket because I’m tired and don’t feel like being that aware. But these dopey dealers have fucked that up for me. Now I want the cops to come down and make us dig into our pockets for our ticket in hopes that the little gino might pull out one of his 20-25 packs of cocaine by accident.

But the cops get on and just stay near the door and the galoot’s sleeping, so he doesn’t see them at all and the little gino has his back to them in his seat, so he doesn’t know they are here either, and the whole damn thing is just waiting to go off.

At the next station, the train stops outside, shy of the platform. The little gino looks out his window, and then across at my window and then back to his phone. After a minute he looks straight back over his shoulder, fast, and for the first time. He sees the cops and then turns back so that he is facing the side of the big galoot’s face and he says ‘sixes’ without moving his lips, but I can hear him. And so can the sleeping giant who opens his eyelids a little and looks left down the aisle past the little gino where the cops stand. Just then the loudspeaker in the train comes to life and a scratchy man’s voice tells us that there is a police incident and the train is being held outside the current stations. Now the big galoot is fully awake.

The little gino fidgets in his seat and I can see one of the cops look down at us. Then the little gino looks out the window and down over the elevated track we’re stalled on and sees something that makes him say to the big galoot: “Oh shit, some shit must’a gone down here. They got the whole block empty”

“Someone got shot prolly” says the big galoot.

Then the train lurches and trickles into the station’s platform. The little gino and the big galoot stand up, slightly out of unison. The little gino exits through the first set of sliding doors but the big galoot lumbers down towards the cops deliberately and then crosses between them, says “excuse me”, but still bumps them both to the side a little bit with his size. Then the doors close and the little gino and the big galoot are off into the night.