Note from Underground #9
I was done running my two errands. Things hadn’t really changed in the six months since I’d moved out of the place on West 73rd St. The construction that had bottled up Verdi Square all year was naturally finished, just in time. It was a perfect afternoon, the kind that would show up first in a Google Image Search of the area.
The trains ran local so I got the 1 headed down to my new place. It was a lazy Saturday. I sank as far as anyone could sink into my hard plastic seat, buds plugging my ears, cap pulled low, prepared not to think until Chambers Street.
A stop later, the doors opened and an insane woman charged one step into the car. Fifties, probably. Rumpled pink spring dress. Later I would notice the lipstick on her teeth. She screamed out, as if howling at the moon, “Does this train go to Canal Street?!?!”
At this point, she had worn out almost half the welcome that would soon force her to back off the train, if no one would answer her question. Time was nearly up.
Her exclamation shook me from my reverie. I was not expecting to be called upon to answer any question at all, let alone one with a fast-approaching time limit, let alone to defuse the ball of nerves inside that rumpled dress. My fellow travelers had much the same lack of response.
It would bother me most because I knew the train did in fact run to Canal Street. I would take the very train down from 14th Street, five years earlier. I couldn’t process the situation quickly enough, first recognizing that this lady wasn’t out to harm any of us, or herself, then having to acknowledge that her outcry was a fair question, and an answerable one, all within the shred of time between the ding and the closing.
One eagle-eared passenger was able to hack through all this resistance and answer affirmatively yes, lady, this train does in fact stop at Canal Street. Welcome aboard. Go ahead and reach back and call your friend to board as well. All is well now. You are safe.
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