Welcome to the Subway

New York City is the only place I've been where I've had the definite sense that inanimate objects were actually living. Steams and gases rise through the streets. If you stare at the tops of buildings for too long - as only a tourist would - they start leaning down towards you as if to say, "yeah? so?" The whole place rumbles and burps like someone who's had too much bratwurst.

I had only been living in the New York area for less than six months, and I had joined the millions of commuters who made their daily pilgrimage across the George Washington Bridge. Many mornings I sat and waited on the GWB next to these people. From my seat in the bus, I sometimes had a good view of the skyscrapers downtown, but most times my view was obscured by smog.

I'm from a family of counters. So, on those smoggy days I would occupy my time by counting the number of people in each car: "One... one... one... one...." As you can see this got boring pretty quickly. So then on Riverside Drive I would switch to calculating the ratio of Cars With The Club vs. Cars Without The Club. The ratio was always somewhere around 5, and so then I would speculate, "Is this because the cars without the Club actually get stolen, or because New Yorkers are issued the Club upon registering at the DMV?" This is what happens to your mind when reading on buses makes you motion-sick.

So after six months, I was still getting used to the fact that "the City" assaults every one of your senses simultaneously. Every evening when I hobbled back across the bridge, I felt entirely exhausted. My fascination with the intrinsically chaotic design of the bridge entrance had worn off in the first few weeks, so I would sit quietly with my eyes closed, waiting for the sensation of silence to return to me. So this is New York, I thought.

But, I don't think that you can really say that you've lived in New York City until you've mastered the subway system. I'm also from a family of map readers, and so each day before my trips I would sit and study the possible routes: the 1, the 9, the A Train of Duke Ellington fame. Of course, studying the map never prevented me from walking in the absolute opposite direction once I exited the subway, but that's because I'm also from a family of "directionally-challenged" people.

Anyone will tell you that mastering the Subway requires more than just a knowledge of direction. In fact, there's a whole list of rules that "native" New Yorkers like to recite to midwesterners like myself, perhaps for our own good, and perhaps just because they like to tease the tourists. Here's a sampling:

1. Talk to No One.

2. If you have no idea where you are going, pretend like you do, but don't under any circumstances look at a map.

3. If someone asks you directions, give them some, even if you have no idea where you are going.

4. Don't establish eye contact with anyone over the age of five, and preferably have something - anything - to read.

5. Keep one hand in your pocket at all times.

6. Never sit in an "end car."

7. Never take out money/Never wear jewelry.

8. Master the art of staring through people.

   and of course my favorite:

9. If someone suspicious approaches you, gesticulate wildly, pick your nose, and talk loudly, working in comments like "Syphilis runs in my family."

Now do New Yorkers actually follow these rules? Well, yes, many of them do. And let me tell you, during my first year, I lived by them religiously (fortunately never having to do the syphilis bit). But certainly one of my favorite and most memorable experiences of New York City occurred on the Subway, when everyone seemed to break the rules.

I was heading down to a doctor's appointment at Lenox Hill on the East Side one spring afternoon. I had already mapped my route by the time I reached the 1 Train at Columbia University station. I hopped on the train, and proceeded to read the back of my pack of Wrigley's gum (in keeping with Rule #4). This became boring very rapidly, so I took up my next best hobby, which was to count the different types of shoes. Back on the buses in St. Louis, I used to surreptitiously study people's noses, but in New York, this is too close to eye contact. Shoes can be almost as fascinating, though.

I sat there quietly, practicing my best introspective scowl, when a large black man in a grey trench coat, a brightly colored hat, carrying a huge metal briefcase, and an intricately carved wooden staff entered the car. As he moved towards me, I couldn't help but to glance at this amazing wooden staff, and that's when he sat next to me, leaned over, and spoke directly into my ear. "Welcome to the Subway," he said. Oh, great, I thought. Here I am trying to be so cool, and this guy can spot the green Jell-O salad on my breath in the first thirty seconds. Is it that obvious that I'm a midwesterner? I decided that there must be some aura that I couldn't help - some aura that betrayed my corn belt heritage.

But rapidly my attention turned to the large metal briefcase that this odd man had then pulled into his lap. Oh even better, now I'm going to be blown up. These are the stories you hear about. Some wacko with a strange stick blows himself and a car full of people to bits, with only threads from a brightly colored hat and fragments of a young woman's Columbia ID left behind. I subconsciously pulled my arms tighter around myself, and resigned myself to staring intently at the black Nikes on the huge-footed man with the sunglasses across from me.

But before my neurotic imagination went too far, the Subway Guy started to open the briefcase. I wondered how obvious it would be if I dove under the seat right now, but then I remembered the years of chewing gum that must be caked down there, and so I sat still. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the case was filled with bright purple paper. The man took out a large handful of paper, closed his case, and then proceeded to stand up right in front of me. My dread took on an entirely different form. Here it comes, I thought.

I sat there, with my left hand placed dutifully in my left pocket, my fingers on the one loose dollar bill that I had pulled out before I left. I view this one dollar as my New York People Toll. I expect to give away one buck every time I go downtown. I usually find a deserving street musician, but occasionally someone catches me off guard with a creative request for the Russian Tea Room Pizza Fund. And so here I sat thinking, "okay, here goes the People Toll." Anything to keep the Subway Guy from bothering me.

And then the performance began. This man started with a song. A rather cantankerous song - I didn't recognize the tune, but whatever it was, I knew he was nowhere near it. I saw my fellow cynical travelers cringe and reach with disgust into their coats for their respective People Tolls.

And then he began to speak. "Excuse me, folks, my name is James, and I would like to welcome you all to the Subway. I'm from the Society of Love, and I would like to read you all a little poem." He then proceeded to hand out his slips of purple paper to everyone who would take them, including the emotionless, big-footed guy with the sunglasses. I wondered what he was thinking.

The speech continued. He did two dramatic readings of the poem, and then he said, "I am here to promote Love on the Subway. At the count of three, I want you to shout, 'Welcome to the Subway!' One, two, three!"

Silence.

"C'mon folks. You wanna stop crime? You wanna end wars? You gotta love one another. That's L-O-V-E, folks. And the place to start is right here, right now, with the guy sitting next to you. Say hello, introduce yourself, welcome them to the Subway. And believe me you'll feel better."

I felt like an outsider to this bunch, so I watched intently, curious to see what would happen next. I noticed some definite bemused grins developing... although the big-footed guy remained as stoic as ever.

"All it takes is a little effort folks. So let's start right here right now. C'mon. You can do it. All I want is for you to talk to each other. You can do it. So let's try again. Okay? One, two, three!"

And you know what? They did it! They actually did it. I don't know what kind of magic this man had under that brightly-colored hat, but people listened to him. This guy got a car-full of cynical, black-shoed New Yorkers to look up, smile, shake hands, and talk to each other. Even the big-footed guy with the sunglasses pulled out a fiver. One old woman wearing a babushka even shook his hand, smiled, and said "thank you" as she left the train. This feat was well worth the buck in my pocket. And as I reflect upon the fact that I fondly remember the Subway Guy five years later, that buck wasn't such a bad investment after all. And New York? Well, its best moments definitely happen when the humans are more animated than the buildings.