To find yourself suddenly engrossed in page A33 of The New York Times, one of several things is going on. The Times stooped from its perch to write about pop culture, you need to appear smart to impress the person next to you or the most common reason: There's a homeless man dancing for joy over Jesus in front of you.
The Lord had blessed my friend with a nice outfit and a booming voice, and he got a 10.0 on his improv skills. He danced, he sang, he recited Bible verses for us. Had there been a lion, I'm sure he would have stuck his head in the beast's mouth. As it was, I rode for him for almost 20 minutes and never did the man repeat a part of his message, which is harder than it seems when your entire message is "I love Jesus."
Sure, he stalled for time by saying "I don't even know where I am" every time the train stopped, but overall he covered a lot of territory. There was talk about his shoes (they may have looked shiny, but that didn't mean he wasn't homeless), turning the other cheek and counting our blessings for that $20 in our pockets (I was flattered he thought I had folding money).
As we wound our way from Brooklyn to Manhattan, his story came out. Dancing nonstop in the aisle, he told us about the homeless shelter he was kicked out of for being disruptive ("BUT I WASN'T!!") about Jesus.
He filled the time by speculative riffing about what kinds of hygiene products we might use. ("Think about that when you're putting on your Right Guard or your Prell or your Dolce" -- miming spritzing perfume -- "or Gabanna" -- spritz.")
And I will.