I saw a (presumably) homeless man sitting on the bench of an L Train car. His two bags were laying on the floor, the rest of the passengers had avoided sitting next to him. As I stepped into the car, I saw a jug of Apple and Eve brand juice sitting at his feet. “I hope that’s actually apple juice,” I thought as I stepped into the car, taking a whiff of the air to test. It was fine, so I sat on a bench several banks away from him. I could see him eating some sort of black twiggy thing from out of an unlabeled metal can. This lasted for several stops. The train doors opened at a stop shortly after he finished eating, and he chucked the can across the car onto the tracks below.

He stood when the train started moving again, grabbing the apple juice jug and facing the set of doors. I thought maybe he just wanted a view of the inside of the train tunnel while he drank his juice. But he never raised the jug to his lips. Instead, he lowered it further below his waist, right near the crotch of his pants. I saw him fiddling with his fly over the top of my National Geographic, and then the liquid level in the jug started to rise.