Some subway passengers the other day:

 A (short) (old) (paunched) (Latino) guy in a plaid shirt, who comes in and stumbles down the aisle as the train kicks up, and then grabs a bar and steadies himself and sits down and readjusts his facemask to make sure it goes over his nose, and behind him is a (taller) (fatter) (broader-built) (Latino) guy with a(n indigenous) nose and (longer) (graying) hair that needs product and is fluffed out in back apart from a bit of it that's desultorily pulled back into a braid, and now and then he talks loudly to the (old) guy in (Spanish).

Then, a (very dark-skinned) (middle-aged) (homeless) black guy enters the car from another car using the between-the-cars rickety pathway that you're not supposed to use, and he sets himself up and announces to everyone that he needs money or snacks or whatever you can give, and the (younger) (Latino) guy goes to his pocket and pulls out a wad of cash wrapped with a rubber band, and he pulls out a dollar to give to the homeless guy.

Like fifteen or twenty minutes later, then, a(n older) (very dark-skinned) (homeless) guy with his facemask hanging down around his chin comes through the car dragging a big black garbage bag full of boxes of toothpaste, and he goes person to person trying to sell it as he comes down the car till finally the (younger) (Latino) guy calls him over.

"Six," the homeless guy is like, pulling out a big economy carton of two huge tubes of toothpaste, but the (younger) (Latino) guy shakes his head and is like, "Five."

"Okay," the homeless guy is like, and again the (younger) (Latino) guy goes for his rubberbanded billfold, and he sorts through some twenties till he gets to the singles, and he counts out five and gets them to the guy, only he drops one on the floor and has to pick it up in the process before he gives it to him.

Later later, a (fat) (young) (very dark-skinned) (black) girl comes on the car and sits down near me, and she occasionally rocks back and forth some, and when she sees some (shaved head) (jacked) (white) guy standing nearby wearing a tricked-out mask with canvas bits and a big ventilator hanging off each side of it, she says "I need one of those" out loud, to no-one in particular.

Like five minutes after that, too, she pulls out her smartphone and fiddles with it and sticks it in her hoodie pocket, and it plays some modern country music song that I vaguely recognize the sound of.