Journal, Day Five

Find true American eloquence, i.e., anti-eloquence, our vernacular, on the streets and in the fields.

Item: A Mexican migrant laborer picking lettuce in Texas, when asked if he owned any land: “I don’t even own the dirt under my fingernails.”

Item: Next to me at a San Francisco bus stop, a broken-down guy wearing headphones:
“Hey, man, this bus go all the way to the Marina?”
—All the way to the other side of town.
“These busses, goddamn, go all over the place.”
—They do that.
“But there should be a subway takes you from one end of town to another.”
—I grew up in a subway city; I like subways.
“Yeah, let me tell you, those subways are really something, I mean in big cities like New York and New Jersey.”