Incident at 96th Street: The Third Rail

Today while I was returning from a practica at Dardo Galletto studios, the A train arrived just as I reached the platform.  I thanked my lucky stars for having a short wait.  Together with a herd of other New Yorkers I boarded the already full train.  I was soon cursing those same lucky stars.  Full trains and crowded platforms mean one thing:  the train is experiencing delays.  We sat on the platform for twenty minutes.  The conductor remained mute.  He made no announcements explaining the delay, no repeated promises offering hope that the train would soon be on its way. 

Finally, the doors tentatively closed.  They slapped open and closed five more times before they made a final, successful attempt.  The train sputtered to life, chugging slowly beneath the Upper West Side. Around 96th street, it stalled again.  Then it inched past the subway platform at 96th street.  Someone muttered something about a body bag.  I was wearing earplugs (the decibel level in the New York City subway system is above the level deemed safe in some factories).  I pretended not to hear, imagined that the man referred to some other body bag, somewhere else, at some other time.  I had my back to the subway platform.  I didn't try to look.  Everyone in the train remained silent.  No one crooned necks, no one played a peeping tom to someone else's tragedy.  There has been too much bad news lately, in the Middle East, in Japan, with the economy, hell, we might as well throw in China while we're at it.  Personally, I have been dealing with a coop board whose recalcitrance has got me questioning my faith in others.

After 96th street the train made speedy progress to 168th St., where a woman boarded, sat across from me, and asked, how long have you been on this train?  I replied, forever.  I paused to consider whether I should fill in the gap, and then did, someone said there was a body bag.  That broke the silence.  The woman next to me (who had boarded at 125th St.), added, someone jumped, or was pushed, onto the tracks.  I was on the C train.  They made us get off and go upstairs while they turned off the electricity [the third rail carries very high, usually lethal voltage], and retrieved the body.  The woman across from me, shocked and seeking communion in her distress, looked me directly in the eye.  Sometimes words fail me.  I stuttered.  I leaned forward, distracted.  As I did so, an item fell out of the plastic bag I held on my lap.  A man standing near me bent over and picked it up.  Without saying a word, he tapped me on the arm with it, returning it to me.  I had not realized the loss.

That brought back the silence.  Such is life in New York City:  the tragedies and triumphs of life lived in the open,  the fleeting, subterranean sense of community.

Resources for those affected by this, and similar, events:

Samaritans of New York: For those in crisis, for friends and family affected by the suicide of a loved one, and to increase awareness about this issue:
www.samaritansnyc.org
Samaritans 24-hr crisis hotline: 212-673-3000

For those in crisis, or needing more information about suicide and related issues:
LIFENET: 1-800-LIFENET
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cis/cis_lifenet.shtml

To find a counselor or therapist:
www.findcounseling.com

To find a suicide or crisis hotline in your state:
www.suicidehotlines.com

National Suicide Hotlines:
1-800-SUICIDE, or 1-800-273-TALK     

Early Morning Subway Ride

The subway car I chose this morning was half-empty. Strange for 8AM on a Friday. But I knew why before I walked in. A homeless man sat near one of the doors, the seats around him vacant. Riders grouped together at either end of the car, away from the stench. Urine streaked the floor, still wet. The man slouched behind a trolley piled with a suitcase, pillow, various dirty odds and ends: his portable home. He slumped, his head drawn down by eyes focused on the floor. A woman said: would you want to take him home, have him shower in your tub? No answer. With the train's progression toward downtown, more people piled into the car. Soon a woman sat one seat over from the man. He looked up, surprised at the daring of her proximity.

Subway Jazz

Saturday night, waiting for the A train (running late night local) at 59th St., I walked away from John Lennon's "Yesterday" sung as a durge, and into the cheer of "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay". Sometimes in New York, to change your mood all you have to do is walk a few feet down the subway platform. I sat on a bench listening to the old man croon Otis Redding, and thought, thank God for people who have the guts to sing their hearts out. They are a gift to us all.

Mariachis

Yesterday I was taking the subway down to the Upper West Side. Also on the platform were two mariachis in cowboy hats and pointed boots. As they waited, they tried out new combinations: a stretch of the accordion followed by the strum of a guitar. I've seen these guys on other subway trains, usually in groups of three. They walk into the car and, as the doors close, fill it with Mexico. But these guys were missing their third wheel. Sitting on the back of the bench, they looked lonely.

Cujo

On the subway I sat across from a woman in whose lap rested a bag with a chihuahua poking out of the top. The woman lovingly stroked the head of the animal, who rested contentedly, eyes closed. A garbled voice announced 181st St., and the dog's eyes sprang open. Two aquamarine opaque beams emerged from under its lids. The eyes searched blindly, then the dog closed his lids again as the woman's petting reassured him that all was safe. Between 181st and 190th the lids fluttered open and closed intermittently, revealing those ghostly orbs, a hybrid of cujo and yoda. There is someone for everyone, even for a blind chihuahua.

Jazzy Hair

Yesterday on the subway-- the slow weekend local from 190th street to 14th-- my mind wandered and I began eavesdropping. Beside me sat a young boy leaning on his uncle. All of the sudden, the boy reached up and stroked the older man's head. I want you to grow your hair out, the boy said while petting the man's closely cropped hair, I want to see your jaaaazzy hair again. The older man laughed, you don't like my hair? he asked. Nope, the boy replied, when you got married you had jaaazzy hair. You shouldn't cut your hair no more, I like it jaaazzy, the boy finished. It was a command made playful by the older man's laughter and the smiles of the elderly couple across from me.

Impotence

On the A line the other day I sat across from a middle-aged man busily absorbed in a cross word puzzle. He wore a black shirt boldy emblazoned with "IMPOTENCE: Nature's Way of Saying No Hard Feelings." That got me thinking. Was he a poster grown-up for Viagra? Why else would he broadcast something like that? He didn't look like he had problems in that department, not that it's readily apparent on the subway. But he didn't have the buggy-eyed look of someone who's down on his luck with the ladies. There was none of the bitterness about him common to those who have difficulties with the opposite sex. No, he simply looked seriously absorbed in his crossword puzzle. On the NYC subway you see everything, including an unassuming man in a loud t-shirt.