Rob was perhaps the last person I had planned on seeing on the subway that day. When last I saw him, it was in the kitchen of the apartment we shared in Boston. The last time I actually was in physical proximity was more than five years ago. We ended on bad terms and I never expected to see him again.

Every day I would travel in from Hoboken on a PATH train to 34th street and everyday I'd take the subway up to 59th street where I labor in a white collar sweatshop twenty-four floors up off of Broadway. I’ve been doing it so long that the act has become autonomous and I can’t even remember what it is I do. I remember the beginning – logging into my computer, praying that Novell won’t lock me out again like it seemed to do every other day, and checking my email to see who of my few friends bothered to make contact – and I remember the end – the occasional drink after work at Rudy’s in Hell’s Kitchen where I'd get free hotdogs and the PATH ride home, trying to maintain equilibrium so as not to lose what I ate – and I remember when it used to not be that way. Anything else doesn’t quite register anymore.

When the two of us lived in Kenmore Square, sharing a two-bedroom second floor apartment – twice the size that mine is now – near the college Rob and I both were students at, I remembered everything. He was two years older than me, but was the older brother I always needed. He snuck me into the bars that littered the area every few blocks and we drank until two, arising at noon to run to classes the next day. We watched daytime television and re-runs on A&E of Colombo and Law & Order, trying to figure out how the case would be solved on the former and who was guilty on the latter. It wasn’t long until we had both series memorized and could say with in the first five minutes what the rest of the plot was. We did more, we did a lot more, but it’s all faded in the last couple of years. Seeing him on the train stirred some of the memories I had forgotten.

Rob had always been a big guy, but big in a jolly kind of way. His weight added several years to his face and his beard – ostensibly a goatee, but rarely shaven around the sides to give it the proper shape – gave him an almost thirty-something appearance he was known to take advantage of on frequent occasions. On the subway he just looked kind of old. The Santa Claus demeanor he used to exude was gone as was the pleasantly round stomach he would rub after we ordered and ate a pizza. His weight sagged and his skin no longer tried to keep it all together. I stood on the train bobbing back and forth with the movement of the train, sunglasses on even in the dark tunnel because the hangover from last night’s drinking made even the dull florescent lighting in the car unbearable to my eyes.

The two of us had a list of items that were the the’s. He owned a pair of boots called the boots because they were a real pair of shit kickers he had picked up from an Army/Navy surplus store and had a chair called the chair because it was – unbelievably – the most comfortable thing either of us had ever sat in. Kurt Russell in The Thing could be seen wearing the hat a huge sombrero looking arctic thing that was so amazingly atrocious it had to be cool. Jet Li was deemed the man. Rob’s stepmother was a recent Chinese immigrant and during a Sunday afternoon at his father’s house before their weekly family dinner, he joined her in watching an episode of her favorite soap opera in her native language. Jet Li guest starred as a martial arts teacher who brought together two of the stars with a Kung Fu kick of love. He was so charismatic, Rob had to know who he was. Another week, another afternoon, another Sunday dinner, she showed up with three videotapes of movies he’d made in China. We watched them that night and were hooked. We agreed that were Jet Li to don the boots, and the hat while sitting in the chair he would be unstoppable.

Rob was still wearing the boots but they didn’t look as powerful as they had those years ago. The nice black sheen they had maintained all while I’d known him had disappeared over time as the shoes became more and more scuffed with time. In some places, the leather looked so thin as to be almost ineffectual. The clothes he wore weren’t in any better of condition. He was clad in an olive green shirt and gray sweat pants, both stained and dirty, but not in the homeless kind of way. It looked like he just hadn’t done laundry in a few weeks. His eyes were glazed over and vacant and I wondered what he was doing on the train. Before I insulted his girlfriend and things between us ended with me moving out and to New Jersey, he always told me that he was never a city person. He had no problem with cities, per se, but he just didn't ever think that he could live in one. Now, he sat stooped over on a gray seat in a C train heading north sitting next to a woman in her mauve dress suite who looked nonplused to be sharing a bench with him. I wanted to talk to him and ask him what had happened. I smoothed out my tie and made sure that I hadn't dripped coffee onto my white shirt. I wanted to talk to him about the nights we used to ride the Green Line home from a night out on the town. I wanted to ask him whether or not he remembered that little place that served French Toast a la mode. I wanted to say that I was sorry and that everything I had said was wrong and shouldn't have been said at all but I couldn't. I couldn't think of the words that would properly express how sorry I actually was.

When the train pulled into Columbus Circle I knew that I'd missed my chance. It was still heading north and I knew that if I was late again I'd catch hell from my boss and that he was looking for an excuse to give me the boot. I backed out of the train, watching Rob to see if he would emerge from the little world in his head that I looked involved in and notice me. I didn't know why I wanted that except that I knew that perhaps I didn't have the guts to approach him myself and for some reason hoped that maybe he would make it easy on me. I wanted him to stand up and tell him, "Hey, I know and it's okay" so that I wouldn't have to think about the words to use so I could step back on the train and proudly sit next to him and the two of us could catch up as we rode up to Harlem and past.

But none of that happened.

He didn't look up from the dirty spot on the floor that his eyes seemed transfixed upon and the doors to the car closed with a hiss. On the busy platform, I was alone in my stillness as the train pulled away taking Rob to his destination unknown.