Alphonse Tczarzcyk, upon leaving work, rode the L train to Bushwick as he did
every evening. His job being fun, by fun I mean no fun and therefore more fun than
normal, he typically hummed in his head a tune of pomp and worth with feelings of
humorous entertainment. On this evening, he hummed quiet contentment in a Suza
march. Reflecting on his job, he grinned and nodded. He thought of the library, and
books that he touched, with their leathery bindings and strict forceful spines. In the rich
quiet of the New York Library, he imagined the books spoke to his heart as he cracked
their spines, and he loved to conceive their motionless forms as in a constant dance of
rebounding relativity. Moving the books; placing the books; listening to the quiet. It
made him quite cheerful and quite proud.

            Now he sat in the L train staring ahead of him in the blissful abandon of a melody,
his eyes fixed out of the window in absentminded boredom. For some reason the pole
before him looked at him.

            “Well hello there, Mr. Pole!” Alphonse pronounced in his mind.

            The pole grinned and winked at the startled man. “That’s Ma'am to you.”

            “My god,” Alphonse muttered under his breath. ‘This pole,’ he thought, and then
a rush of gladness flushed his cheeks. ‘This pole.’ He felt as though fish were swimming
in his intestines. ‘This pole!’ He stood up, grabbing the pole forcefully, gripping her with
all the manly courage that he could muster.

            “OOooo,” she said, puckering her lips a little. “Oh baby.” Alphonse moved closer,
leaning slightly on her waist. “Oh, I like that,” said the pole. Alphonse scanned the train
car, looking for the slightest suspicious glances. Finding only the desultory gaze of a
small brown skinned child, he rested his head against the pole. “MMmmm,” she purred.
Just then the intercom crackled into operation, “This is the Morgan stop. Next
stop is Jefferson.”

            ‘This is my stop,’ Alphonse said to himself. ‘But I’ll be back. Tonight I will be
back!’

            Indeed that night, Alphonse returned to the subway station with a saw. When he
returned to his apartment, he had a new pole. He treated this pole as if she were the finest
of life’s accoutrements. Treating her to nothing but luxury and insisting that she have only
the most elegant of refinements, he spent five happy years of his life with her.

            Everywhere he went he took her. Though they never spoke, it was as though she
could read his mind. He found her company quite agreeable, until one day he snapped. The
pole, having showered, was toweling off when, upon leaving the shower, she happened
upon a devastating scene: Alphonse sitting on the couch - their couch - her couch - with
a new fling. She was a rail!

            “You bitch!” She screamed. “You fucking bitch!” The fight that ensued took such
a brutal turn that I cannot indulge the details in this story, but to summarize, both poles
took a beating, and Alphonse had been quite dented by the time the police arrived.

            He told the police his story, while the poles lay motionless on the ground.

            “Mr. Tczarzcyk,” one police officer calmly stated. “We are going to take you to a
place that is safe for you, OK?”

            “No, sir, you simply cannot separate me from my friends here. I am terribly
worried! They haven’t said a thing since you came.”

            “It’s OK, Mr. Tczarzcyk, I’m going to take you in.”

            Alphonse spent a year in the Bronx psychological hospital for observation, where
there were no poles around. He formed relationships with humans and started along the
path to reformation. After the expanse of time, he was judged to be relatively sane, and
thus was given full discharge from the hotel.

            “Thank God. I’m so relieved.” He said to one of his chums. “I’ll miss you, but I
won’t miss this.” He proclaimed, gesturing about his environs.

            A nurse walked up, “Tczarzcyk, you can go home now.”

            “Thank you ma’am. I’ll just use the restroom first if that’s OK with you.” The
nurse gave him a sidelong glance and walked away smiling and humming to herself.
Alphonse laughed, and went to the restroom. Sitting there grinning, he glanced
askance at the empty roll of toilet paper. “OOoooo… how do you do?”

            His eyes filled with smiles. Nobody asked about the bulge in his pocket when he
left the hospital.