The subway was backed-up this morning and the 1 ran from 59th to 42nd, skipping my stop. So I got off at 59th and got on the next train. Conductor says: “If you can’t fit…quit.” Then after the doors closed and we were on our way he read us the riot act but he sounded amused. “And remember,” he summed up. “In order for the MTA to be on our way…you must get out of the doorway.”

I laughed. Nobody else around me did. Maybe they’d heard his act for too long to smile. Nothing but a group of angry, sleepy faces.

[Photo Credit: Jonathan Woods]

A husband and wife on the subway this morning, mid-thirties. The wife sits next to me. She is blond and her face is plain but she’s not unattractive. The husband stands in front of us. He is wearing a baseball cap and his full beard and strong hands can’t hide the fact that he looks like an overgrown boy.

They talk quietly. I read my book. Then I see her take his hand in hers.

“Your hands are so dry”

“They still have plaster on them.”

“You want some hand lotion?”

“No.”

“I have neutoagena.”

“That shit smells.”

“It’s oderless.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

My wife is always on me to use lotion and I still look at her like she’s got three heads. Sometimes, she puts it on my arms anyhow and after I squirm and make faces I feel better.

I look up at him. We exchange a look and a smile. Then I return to my book.

[Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography]

I looked up from my book this morning and saw the man sitting across from me reading “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy. I heard myself say, “Oh, wow,” as I’m always looking for an excuse to engage a stranger in conversation and a book is an ideal opening. But I stopped myself when I saw that he was maybe twenty pages away from the end of the book.

There’s just some things you shouldn’t do. Don’t interrupt an animal when they are eating. Don’t disturb your wife when she’s putting on make-up and getting herself ready. And don’t bother someone when they are almost finished reading a book. It’s not just uncouth. It could be dangerous.

Where a token booth once stood. Downtown side of the 50th street station on the IRT.

Roomier. But makes me sad when I think of the clerks who are out of work in the name of progress.

Coming straight from the underground.

Undercity via The Gothamist.

[Photo Credit: Steve Duncan]

Seen on the 1 train.

A boy and his mom reading a Tintin comic book.

A pair of sisters walked onto the train at 145th st this morning. I pegged them at eight and twelve. They both carried brown paper bags and the younger sister opened her bag and extracted a muffin. She raised it to her mouth with her right hand and took a bite. As she ate, her left hand lost interest in holding the bag and she dropped it to the floor.

Our eyes followed the bag to the floor and then as we reset our viewpoints, we found ourselves staring at each other. There was a fraction of an instant of panic in her eyes as she realized that I witnessed her blatant littering. She recovered quickly and replaced the panic with confidence, perhaps remembering that littering is not a crime and that I was not a cop.

I took her confidence as a challenge, though one I had no desire to take up. I don’t like littering, but I had already spent half an hour trying to get children to listen to me earlier this morning without any hint of success, and those children depend on me to delineate the borders of the DC and Marvel Universes and to unlock the cabinet containing the cereal. This little girl doesn’t need anything from me.

I did not accept her challenge, but I also didn’t want to let her off the hook completely. I searched for a facial expression that could convey disappointment and rejection at the same time. My go-to is a ponderous head shake, eyes closed, with a slight frown. Too engaging for this situation. I thought of an exaggerated frown. But it seemed like that was an admission of defeat rather than a dismissal.

I settled on a quick combo. A heavy eye roll and a weird lip scrunch. I wanted it to say “Whatever. Litterer.”

I don’t think it worked, and I’m sorry that somebody else to pick up the brat’s garbage, but I’m glad I didn’t get in an argument with a little girl.

[Brown Bag via stelladoll7]

As the subway train settled at its first stop this morning, a voice rang out. “Dyckman St! This is a downtown A Train to Lefferts Boulevard. Next stop is 190th St. Stand clear of the closing doors. Please!”

The voice did not come over the PA however. It belonged to a child. I scanned the faces of the other riders, some hadn’t flinched, no trace of amusement. But many others were smiling, a few even chuckling.

Each successive stop the little boy bellowed the information. Starting at 168th St, it gets complicated. He included all the transfers. His only slip up came when he started his 125th St call a few seconds too early. He stopped, regrouped, and delivered again in full when the train finally arrived.

At each stop he lost some support. A few of the initial smiles disappeared. New passengers were more suspicious, maybe because they weren’t present at the outset and weren’t sure how to respond.

There was one man, however, sitting with his back to the boy, and he was delighted. He was an older Black man, with a graying beard, a slim face and one of those fashionable knit driving caps that looks way cooler on him than on me. He braced himself for each stop and when the kid began shouting he broke out in a big grin. He nodded his head along with the accuracy of the information, like a proud teacher.

When there was a thinning of the crowd at one stop, I leaned over to catch a glimpse of the orator. It was one of my neighbors, six years old, named Jack. Thanks for the laugh this morning Jack. And for one guy at least, you made his day.

Today’s New York Minute is brought to you by Ted Berg.

My son has a friend who collects Metrocards. He is four. He keeps them in plastic baseball card sheets. When he  handles a card, he imediately flips it over to check the design on the back. He can probably distinguish every Metrocard back from the last ten years. He gets disappointed when he comes across a “common” back, the same way we’d be deflated by finding Buddy Biancalana instead of Don Mattingly in a pack of 1986 Topps.

He dressed as a Metrocard for Halloween. When the soccer coach splits them up for a little scrimmage at the end of practice, he convinces his team to name themselves the Metrocards.

His collection brought back memories from my youth. With an older brother blazing the trail, we had a lot of collections. One of the earliest ones I can remember was a collection of patches. My mom would sew them on my plain hooded sweatshirt until there was no space left. And then we’d get a new sweatshirt.

I had baseball patches, Star Wars patches, museum patches (Air & Space and Natural History), NASA patches, superhero patches, really anything that a kid might like that was available in patch form. In the winter, I insisted wearing the sweatshirt over heavier jackets so the patches would always be prominent.

How about you guys, can you remember something from your youth, maybe something a little odd, that you loved with your whole heart?

[Photo via Benjamin Kabak and secondavesnuesagas.com]

Another morning, another increasingly desperate search for the metrocard. I just can’t seem to get it under control.

I feel like a little kid who can’t think ahead so he keeps running into the same problems. An adult should have created a system to keep this from happening long ago, yet here I am looking for the damn card again.

Yesterday’s pants? Nope. Yesterday’s jacket? The spot beside the stove where we put things? Nope squared. The spot on the shelf, that graveyard of insufficient fares? I hope not, that would have been an insane place to leave it. But better check. Nope. Not next to the computer. Not next to the bed. Not on the vanity in the hall. Holy crap, am I infantile, senile or just the laziest dumbass on the block?

Here’s my problem. My wallet is magnetic, so keeping the metrocard in my wallet murders it. I learned that the hard way with a plump card, maybe forty bucks down the drain. So I keep my metrocard as far away from my wallet as possible. In the summer, that means my metrocard is in my pants pocket and my wallet is zipped up inside my bag. In the winter, there’s the additional option of coat pockets.

When I get home I cannot train myself to think about the card. Either it stays in my pocket, which would make for a relatively easy search, or I absentmindedly place it on the first open surface I encounter. The latter tendency spices up the mornings.

And everytime I say to myself, this is the last time I’m doing this.

[Photo via mynewyorkworld.com]

I saw a couple on the train this morning who were not shy about showing their affection. It was as if they were all alone, or perhaps they just get their kicks smooching in a crowd. Who knows?

Do you want to know a secret?

Here’s a good one via Kottke. Picture by Geoff Manaugh.

Picture this: I’m over-dressed in my goose-down winter coat this morning looking like the goddamn Stay-Puft marshmallow man. My backpack is loaded with gifts that I’m bringing to my family’s Chanukah party tonight. I’ve got two shopping bags, one with more presents, the other with the cabbage salad I prepared last night. By hand, dammit, I sliced four heads of cabbage–thin!–by hand.

“Why don’t you just use the machine?” said the wife.

“Tradition!” I say, referring as much to the masochism as the end result.

So I get on the subway with all my junk, neck still sore from leaning over the cutting board, and sit at the end of the car, next to the wall, so that I’ll only have a person to my right. In no time, the train is crowded. And then, at 181st street, the subway moment I dread–hot food.

Two people, two sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches. Nowhere for me to move. Trapped.

And they housed that shit by the time we got to 137th street. Believe it.

It’s hard to figure that it’s almost been five years since my Dad passed away. I got to thinking about him on the subway this morning when a man came on the train with a bible in his left hand and started talking about Jesus. The man through the packed car slowly and was ignored by the passengers. I smiled as I remembered something Dad once said to a subway preacher. Dad looked up from his book when the preacher got close, looked up at him and in a loud, clear voice said, “Sir, your arrogance is breathtaking.”

Ah, the old man was a good one.

Family time on the 1 train.

It’s cold in New York today. I saw a dude on the train on my way to working this morning. He was not wearing a coat. I looked down.  Sandals with no socks. Really, man?

When I got to work and, I said good morning to Big Lou, one of the security guards in my building. I told him about the guy on the train.

Lou said, “Well, you never know, he could have a foot problem.”

“No, Lou, I think some people are just Herbs.”

“You never know, Al. Who are we to judge?”

I stopped and looked at Lou and told him that he was right. I thanked him for pointing out the facts. Won’t be the last time today that I need correcting.

Good to have people like Lou in your life.

Sitting on the train this morning at 125th street, the light pours in from the east. It’s always good to have someone blocking the sun.

One small move on their part and:

Blinded by the Light.

Getting sick on a train is tough business. I’ve seen people pass out and throw up, usually in tight quarters. One time on a crowded train, a woman feinted into the unsuspecting lap beneath her. The person attached to the lap made a move to quickly give up his seat, but in his haste to make space he dropped her on the floor.

I’ve never been that kind of sick, but I’ve felt a fever creep over me in those hellish depths. It was winter, hat-and-scarf winter, and that icky warmth spread out from the center of my thick jacket. It traced the outlines of my shoulders and neck until it erupted in sweat down my back and out towards my hands.

I wrenched my scarf free. I would have left it for trash on the floor if there was enough space to let it fall. I jammed the wool hat in my bag and wedged the bag between my legs. I unbuttoned the jacket. Even the warm, dank subway car air was welcome inside the jacket.

I pivoted slightly so I could wiggle one arm free of its sleeve. And then the other. The jacket slid down into my arms and I folded it over and over until it looked more like a pillow. I tied the scarf around the jacket like a sweaty parcel. Then I reached down to reposition my bag over my shoulders.

I thought to myself, if there is snow on the ground when I get out of this subway, I am going to bury my head in it.

I stood there sweating for a few minutes, holding the jacket package and feeling eyes on me from all over the car. The train slowed down to approach 125th St. I had about a hundred blocks to go.

By 168th St, I was shivering.

 [Photo by Lesley Steele]

I stood over a young woman on the train last night. She had a narrow face and it looked like she was sucking in her cheeks. An open book rested on top of a big leather bag that was on her lap (the subject of what women put in their bags, and how often they change their bags merits its own discussion). Soon, I sat in a seat across from her. She was wearing black boots, and a long skirt and her hips were wide though I couldn’t make out her figure from the way she was sitting. I tried to figure out how a girl with a big body could have such a slender face.

As the train pulled into the 125th station, she closed her book and looked up. I saw that she was reading Diane Keaton’s new memoir.  That was when I noticed that her blazer and the big, decorated scarf that was wrapped around her neck. You know how some people look like their dogs? She looked like her book, a real Annie Hall. As I wished that I could take a picture of her, she looked at me. I raised my eyebrow and she titled her head, smiled, and walked off the train.

[Poster by Mike Oncley]