Jesus' Son

The narrator relates that he likes to ride the trains and look at people through the windows. He’s in his mid-20s, and his girlfriend, Michelle, is pregnant. He takes his girlfriend to the abortion clinic, where the protestors flick holy water at them. As Michelle is taken in for the procedure, the narrator sits in the waiting area and promises he’ll never get anyone pregnant again.

When he sees Michelle again, he asks an offensive question, and the security guard kicks him out of the building. Once outside, he doesn’t know what to do, so he goes to ride the elevated train for a while. A man gets on the train, and the narrator randomly decides to follow him. The man goes into a laundromat, and eventually notices that the narrator was on the train with him. The narrator wonders if the man is Christ, then says, “I could have followed anybody off that train. It would have been the same” (79).

The narrator gets back on the train and rides around, unwilling to go back to the motel he’s staying at with Michelle. He hits on a teenager he sees, then asks to buy drugs from her. She takes him to the Savoy Hotel.