Gibt mir dein huddled masses

Walking to Hauptbahnhof from my apartment has become routine and commonplace, but what's commonplace in Munich is foreign and exciting compared to most people's commutes in the morning. It starts off going down the four flights of stairs in marble-encased stairwell that reverberates every sound made up and down the stairwell. I step outside and take a left, glimpsing St. Michael's cathedral that can be seen in many pictures of Oktoberfest, casting a moral shadow on the debauchery of drinking beer, eating pretzels and half chickens and slapping leather-clad asses. Often, the multi-colored sunrise sky canvases the panorama of the church and the not-yet-busy Landwehrstrasse. A bit of inspiration every morning that reminds me, no matter how bad my day will be, at least I'm lucky enough to see that looming, Gothic cathedral on my way to work.
I pass under the walkway of the Deustches Theather where I often see a man sweeping up cigarette buts and other debris with a broom that is well past its prime. The bristles have been worn down to the red stitching that holds it all together and I often wonder if the company is too cheap to buy him a new broom, or if it's just easier to sweep up cobblestone walkways with half of the broom. Maybe he just grew tired of having to sweep up the broken bristles from the broom in addition to the other debris. At any rate, it's a bit sad and comical. Most recently, I saw a big inflated yellow rubber ducky that said, I think, The Catholics are a cult, in German.
I turn the corner out of the walkway and walk left down Schwanthalerstrasse which is home to nearly half a dozen strip clubs in addition to hotels, video game and computer stores, etc. Most mornings, I'm welcomed by a breath of artificially fresh air. Clothes dryer air that is almost sickeningly fresh, but reminds me of the days, living in the States where everyone has a dryer and it's not as uncommon to smell dryer air. I walk through it and feel slightly fresher then I did before, as if my own clothes had been put in a dryer as opposed to picking it up off the floor, smelling it, putting it on anyway and spraying a bit of cologne on.
I wait at the stoplight crossing onto Schillerstrasse, where the entrance to Hauptbahnhof is. More strip clubs, bars, American style sports bars with shrines to Muhammed Ali on the walls, blasting random, American music onto the streets. "Kris Kross will make you JUMP JUMP!" "We built this city on ROCK AND ROLL!" Passing several Doner Kebap restaurants displaying proudly their over-sized cylindrical spits of meat, rotating while the onions and tomatoes marinate the lamb meat all day. It's most unappealing when the sun is shining in through the window onto the meat and its like seeing yourself in the mirror in a room with way too much fluorescent lighting. "Wow, I really didn't need to see my face in that much detail, thanks." The meat is sweats and rotates under heating lamps all day. I pass about four of these on my way to work. More common than Starbucks. One on each side of the street. Lucky me.
I walk down the stairs, taking two at a time, anxious to see how much or little time I have before my train comes. I walk into the musty-smelling station that arouses feelings of nostalgia. Thoughts of New York dust and city smells. Opening boxes of Christmas ornaments wrapped with ancient, yellow newspaper displaying articles about Operation Desert Storm and pictures of small towns of Christmas past, children in a Winter Wonderland and articles of better time to come. The smell of old, forgotten ornaments, given as a Christmas present to my parents at some fucking time no one can remember.
There sits a huddled mass of humanity on the other side of a set of stairs, coat over his entire body, strings of hair sticking out under the collar, short legs barely revealing the humanity of the being. The shoes are the most striking. Unnaturally, and no doubt, uncomfortably to large for the human-like form, sticking out from the drapery of clothing like two clown shoes. Jutting out in strange directions as if the feet themselves were broken or melted with the weight of too many nights slept uneasily in train stations or parks or foyers of businesses. There are several Starbuck's bags set out nearly five feet in front of him, as if he wanted them to be in peoples' ways. Bringing even more attention to the pile of rags with human features that sleeps soundly as people in suits and molded hair go to work.
Why did he choose Starbucks? Why does he have so many designer, post-consumer recycled paper bags set out in front of him as if he wanted someone to come by and throw them in the trash can? His obliviousness makes it okay to stare. He's dreaming of hot showers and steaming plates of food and a family to provide for, or maybe just a nice strong drink to help make sleeping huddled in a train station that much easier. He's not like the actively-begging Muslim ladies dressed all in black that often startle me as the come out of the shadows on my walk home from work, muttering, "bitte, bitte" with their hands or a paper cup outstretched and a deeply concerned, pious look on their faces. He just sits, like a modern art exhibit, waiting for someone to take a picture of him, blowing up the photo, putting fluorescent lights behind it and hanging it up in some posh art museum. Existing as a monument, being glared at sympathetically by rich people who have the luxury of pointing their fingers at poverty and calling it art, reminding them that not everyone has perfect teeth and thirty-two pairs Dolce and Gabana slacks.
I sit and wait for the train, sometimes with a one-Euro cappuccino, while all of these images race through my mind like a slide show. I sit on the warm train and read or write and wonder how I ended up here. How any of us end up where we are. I might have just as easily been a huddled mass trying to get a night of sleep in the train station. I sit and let the gentle rocking of the train lull me into a trance, a daydream of "could-have-beens," and "what nows." I watch the people on the train and wonder what kind of "huddled masses" were here forty years ago. How many "huddled masses" made their ways to the land of the free to change their names and hide their religions and thank their secret God that they can walk proudly through the streets and sleep comfortably in silence.