Tag Archives: Notes from Underground

Note from Underground #10

I take for granted how relentless the New York City subway really is. A trip to Boston a few weeks ago reminded me that up there, the T stops running at about 1am, just in time for the widespread 2am bar closings. In France, strikes seem to be a monthly occurrence. New York is pretty good about its subways. Not so good that the price should continue to rise exponentially, but pretty good. Unless you’re going to or from Astoria, which is not so far-flung that service should be so terrible. But otherwise, pretty good.

So I understand when service on the weekends gets screwed up. When you’re hustling all manner of folk around one of the biggest cities in the world all week like a circulatory system, something’s gotta give and that’s often weekend service. Express trains become local, local trains stop running at certain stations, others are skipped in favor of shuttle buses. It’s an organizational nightmare or the wet dream of someone who’s not me — either way I’m happy not to have to worry too much about it.

But it’s always interesting to me showing up on trains different than the ones I usually take. It’s a Bizarro situation, like I’ve stepped into someone else’s routine, maybe unwelcomely. It’s a parallel universe, with a great number of people living their lives just outside your peripheral vision, with nothing necessarily separating all of you except your own habits.

Whenever a routine gets blown up, I pay a little more attention than I’m used to doing. The brain seems to seek both novelty and security, the new and the familiar. Awareness is the cost of efficiency. I looked around a bit more on that subway ride home than I usually did, which is not at all, except at my iPod, certainly not making eye contact with anyone. It started on the platform itself. I was standing more or less in place several feet from the edge for a few minutes before a couple of people showed up to my right. The A train arrived shortly thereafter and these folks committed what I consider no less than a crucifiable offense: As I stood pat, letting people already on the train get off, these two sneaked around to the side of the door and got on in front of me. It was lucky for me and luckier for them that there happened to be a seat for all of us.

Then, a woman got on rolling her bicycle alongside her. I’m never too keen on this juxtaposition. I’ve mellowed some in five years but here is my earlier take on THAT. It was nighttime, so I sort of understand, but to me it’s like driving a car until it runs out of gas, then having it and you towed back to your house. It works, but where’s the forethought? Where?

Finally, quickly, the third leg of the tripod: The homeless guy in the corner. Nothing against his being homeless, and even less against his passionate views on religion, it’s just hard to buy his metaphysical take on things when he’s also clearly peeing into a plastic garbage bag.

Three strikes, I’m out.

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.

Note from Underground #8

I rode the 3 train back uptown the other night. With nothing to read or listen to, I rested my eyes after what had been a long, tiring, trying, productive Presidents’ Day.

From my left, eyes closed, I heard singing, but not any of the usual singing – a cappella groups, wandering minstrels, talented lone panhandlers, Mexican bands, even literate youths passionately reciting along with their favorite spoken-word albums – none of those.

This was awful, awful singing. And it was loud.

The most striking part was that this was happening at all. Everyone around me did as I did, hearing the horror, locating its source, then looking away in embarrassment and confusion, trying to piece together any of the poor guy’s motivation.

Disturbing, too, was his level of confidence. He wasn’t just some guy singing more loudly than he thought he was, with us being too polite to call him on it. He didn’t look like much of a physical threat, so it also wasn’t the case that we evaded outright the suggestion of a lower volume.

He was just a headphone-wearing, average-looking guy, who was hardly normal. I’m sure he was challenging us to confront him. Maybe he was lonely. Surely he was a jerk of some kind. At the very least he wanted to impose himself upon on us, and thankfully his approach was mostly harmless, involved no actual touching and was not at all violent (though horrible dying barnyard animal sounds did come to mind throughout the experience).

Someone said something. It was a homeless lady, with a very small face and a very high voice. The train clattered on the tracks behind me but in the spaces between I could just make out what she said to the guy:

“You can sing loud, if you have a good voice. If not, you have to sing lower.”

She said lower with a great “lowering” gesture of her arms, hands spread, palms down. The circle of people nearest the confrontation all laughed in relief 1) that the man heard the message, even if he didn’t get it, and 2) that each person was in the end not the one who had to deliver it. Everyone was happy.

The lady of the moment walked in my direction and said to the girl to my left, “I needed a laugh today.” She kept moving, until she stopped at the middle of the car and gave her plea for alms. She didn’t ask merely for money – she also suggested that we part with any leftover food we had on us. It was a good strategy, and her recent heroics weren’t ignored – others gave cash as the same girl to my left reached into a bag and held out a small plastic container of Chinese soup.

The lady inched back over, held the cup with grateful hands and thanked the girl for her generosity. Almost as an afterthought, just before the lady put the soup into one of her many bags, she asked the girl with a certain assurance of the answer: “There’s no pork in here, right?” The girl shook her head. The lady nodded hers in thanks, then went on her way.

I thought the lady must be religious, asking about pork. I pondered what would have happened if there had been pork in the soup – would the lady have just declined it? How hungry was she? If not then, would she ever compromise her beliefs to sustain her body?

I stopped myself and just fixated upon the scene’s uplifting moral: Beggars CAN be choosers.

Note from Underground #7

New York’s new subway trains are cleaner, sleeker, brighter, and quieter versions of their veteran counterparts. The yellow and orange colors of decay and dying (think of Autumn) have given way to the hygienic gray and silver of the future, a Winter of Content!

The new trains are also one step closer to being self-aware machines ready to kill us all. They speak.

The older trains, of course, have human conductors that announce the current and next stops, the train and its destination, even if they pull a Fenster and mumble through the whole thing.

The city’s new AI trains seem downright educated, being polite and informative and enunciating clearly.

What throws me is that each speaks in two voices – a woman’s, and a man’s. The woman’s voice gives station information, this is…, the next stop is…, and so forth. Then, when she’s done filling us in, the male’s voice, authoritative and melodic, orders us all to “Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, Please!!”

The good cop/bad cop mentality has spread to mass transit. The calming, motherly figure builds up our confidence by telling us little stories, a bit about how the world works, keeping us calm by telling us where we are and where we’re going. The father figure then throws in his two cents, tossing his weight around, telling us what to do and what not to do. He says “please,” but his commands has already been given and for us the soothing female voice is already a far memory.

In the eyes of the MTA, we are all children.