Encrusted
The Boogers You Meet on the 6 Train
It was one of those flaky, crusty ones—the booger that fell from my nose onto page 57 of The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, a profound piece of literature being read by a man sitting down in front of me in the subway.
Well, that’s just fucking great.
You know that inexplicable sense of self-awareness that just sort of overcomes you? The kind where you can almost feel the blood pumping through your veins. Hell, you’re so self-aware that you can identify each individual blood cell as it’s pumped out of your heart.
“Eyy, Artie! How’s it flowin’?” You’re practically best friends.
So while I couldn’t very well see up my own nose, my other senses were more than happy to gather around the proverbial campfire (or, in more precise scientific terms, my stomach after a lamb gyro from the halal cart) to tell the tale…
Shackled to the wall of my left nostril, the Encrusted flapped around, strenuously trying to free himself. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. It didn’t matter. Each gentle breath brought forth the image of a Confederate flag, dancing violently in the gusts of a South Carolina hurricane. A vibrating staccato.
Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flap.
Something was keeping it anchored there. Something sinister. Something evil.
“It’s heritage, not hate!” I imagined the captors of the Encrusted bellowing as they tightened the shackles, trying to squash the slave rebellion happening in my nose.
“Help meeee,” I imagined the Encrusted meekly whispering during the calm between breaths. Truth is, I was a freedom fighter. A stubborn Yankee with a passion for justice. They called me Harriet Thumbman, and I was about to guide this innocent morsel to the promised land. The Underground Railroad. LIBERATION!
But how to get there? A confrontation was inevitable. Excavation was one option, of course. Thumb on offense, index for reinforcement. We all know the drill. This tactic was straight out of the Thumbman family playbook—a family with a long legacy of freeing captive boogers. Sure it was a little crass for this public of a setting, but I once witnessed a grown man shit into a bag in the York Street subway station. This would pale in comparison.
Amidst this bodily chaos I continued to come up with ideas. I could casually brush my nose in hopes of loosening things up, giving him a running start? Wait, didn’t I have Kleenex in my murse?
Distracted by this internal brainstorm, I didn’t notice that the flapping had suddenly stopped. It was the eye of the hurricane—that brief moment of calm before the storm resumes—and there I was on the boardwalk, talking to myself like an absentminded professor, oblivious to the inevitable regeneration of this horrid squall.
Or maybe it wasn’t oblivious at all. Maybe it was specifically that mindfulness—that commitment to sovereignty—that aided my friend, the Encrusted, in his daring escape. I felt the energy of those final moments. I felt him break free from the shackles of his oppressor. He hung there, for a moment, suspended in mid-nostril, before diving head first into the literary world of Mitch Albom and the literal world of my fellow 6 Train passenger.
I suppose I could have conjured up an appropriate response to this. Visible shame, an apology. Surely this man has dealt with a booger before and could empathize with my plight. Maybe he’s endured something worse. Really, though, I didn’t much care.
Instead, I chose to watch the Encrusted float down to this man, much the same way I would regard a feather dropped from the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building, gracefully making its way down to 34th Street. Pure, natural beauty. And besides, didn’t the old man know? This was a drop in the bucket of goodwill. He was a boarder along the Underground Railroad tasked with housing this newly freed nasal stalactite with the world at his feet.
It was a defining moment for me. The Boogers You Meet on the 6 Train, I thought. There it is! The title of my life’s story—a title that perfectly captured the blundering misadventures of my life.
