I used to think I had a knack for taking the crazy train. Then I realized that traveling the near-entirety of the A train twice every day like I do means that all trains equal crazy trains. The highlights:
My first crazy train experience unfortunately occurred on my maiden voyage up to my university in the Bronx. I boarded a Bronx-bound D train near my Harlem apartment, full of anticipation, excitement, and of course my standard, Midwest-issued naivety. As I look back now, I’m sure I screamed “White-girl-just-off-the-Midwest -minivan,” but I didn’t know any better then. Not long into the ride a black man took a seat unnecessarily close to me, seeming harmless at first. Soon, though, he began loudly ranting about Obama being his daddy. Being that it was just months from the election at that time, I had seen much of Obama’s family on the news, and was pretty sure this man was in fact not a son of Barack Obama. Therefore, I kept my eyes pointed straight ahead, feigning undistracted attention to my iPod. This quickly proved to be a near-impossible feat as said potentially-homeless man turned his face to within an inch of mine and increased his volume, adding rants about “this white woman” stealing his wallet. I found peace in the fact that the others on the train did not seem disturbed by this activity, so I continued with my “I can’t hear you” bit, as he carried on with his show. Then he abruptly changed his script to “You don’t know how it feels! You don’t know how it feels!” yelling it so many times that finally I meekly whispered, while maintaining my steely, forward-focused gaze, “I would never pretend that I do.” I’m sure my words made no impact, but regardless, the train arrived at its next stop and the man quickly departed. I debated feeling sorry for myself for being the randomly selected victim upon whom my friend chose to unleash years of enslaved angst, but decided that a weak response and resolved to shouldering a bit of reparation.
Fast forward five months to another interesting experience, this time during my daily commute home from work on the beloved A train. A man wearing dark sunglasses and a long, dark leather coat boarded the train about midway through my one-hour trip. Think Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus in the Matrix. For about 30 solid minutes this man repeated “Float like a butterfly sting like a bee. The D-O-double-G.” At first this did not strike me as odd. Many people sing or rap along to their iPods. Then I realized this many was not wearing earphones. Over and over again he loudly sang his mantra. Then it got weird. He stepped to the door nearest me (about 3 feet away), unzipped his pants and started peeing onto the train floor. I need for you to understand that this was a packed, rush-hour A train, and this man was creating a pool that quickly crept throughout the car. As the train slowed to a stop, sloshing the urine around a bit, Morpheus put the evidence back in his pants, and stepped to the opposite door just in time for a mob of people to board the train and wade squarely through his toilet, never noticing a thing. As the sweet smell of urine permeated the stale, subway air I clenched my jaw for the duration of my ride home, lest it drop into the sewer below.
All this talk of bodily fluids reminds me of the time I had a drink with a few friends down in the financial district and took a late train home. After the end of a perfectly lovely evening I somehow picked the train car containing a girl silently puking a large pile of vomit directly onto the subway floor. She went about her work very quietly, occasionally wiping her mouth with a tissue, only to go right back to increasing said puke pile. This went on for about 100 blocks before I eventually departed. One might ask why I didn’t exit to another train car, and the only analogy I can make is to that of watching a train wreck, which is just plain inappropriate when discussing subway experiences.
Of course, there are many other stories: the self-proclaimed “professional musician” with his bright green mohawk, measuring about 1-foot in radius, who sat down in the middle of my train car and began to scream and pound on his guitar, performing what he must have considered to be a song; or the homeless man who garnered the entire end of a rush-hour train car to himself by reeking of excrement and presumably pleasuring himself under a blanket; but now I’ve said too much so I will move onto discussing other happier topics.
