the voids

People think that there is a great void, or, a black hole that exists underneath the seats on the subway. They get on and, usually will be eating something and then throw the bag from which the food came underneath the seat, on the floor. Generally speaking, great care is taken to ball and crumple up the bag so that it is as compact as can be (presumably so that it will fit all the more snug in the black hole). This is the worst type of person, perhaps, in the world. First of all, littering is ridiculous in New York City – we have garbage cans on every corner. It is dirty, it shows a lack of any type of meaningful thinking: what is going to happen to the garbage after you throw it on the ground? How does this affect other people? Would I be happy living here if everyone acted this way? These types of socially responsible questions, which reflect a certain order of though, are nonexistent. Then there is the aspect of the people just not caring at all, or, feeling entitled to act any way they want. Now, when it comes to the subways, I understand that people might feel entitled to some services they are not necessarily receiving – like consistent subway service, for one. And, I also understand that it is perhaps a behavior that is born out of some sense of alienation to begin with. Still. It’s nasty and easy to not do. A woman, however, did it at 157^th street. From then on she looked like a pig monster to me. Every mouth movement of her chewing looked like something out of 2 girls 1 cup.

I got out at 96^th street to transfer to the express even though it wasn’t already in the station. I was running late and I knew it would be soon. The 1 train I had been on waited in the station until the 3 arrived. When the 3 pulled into the station, the 1 pulled out. Many people I’ve talked to see this act – the pulling out of one train while another arrives – as the most insidious of all train scheduling maneuvers. I would respectfully disagree, however, and say that the waiting in the first place is the most insidious.

Anyway, the 3 was running well. Aside from yet another woman balling something up and putting it under the seat (this time it was a Metro newspaper that was left on the seat for the next passenger, who was her but she didn’t want it), the ride was painless until we left 34^th street. As the train was passing by the 18^th street station, we slowed to a crawl and then stopped altogether. We were stuck there for three and a half minutes, during which time I contemplated just going in between cars and hopping off the train. I didn’t do it for a few reasons: the reason was not that I was afraid of the third rail – I’m not Ramo. The two reasons that i consciously thought of were a) if the train started moving while I was climbing out, it would have caused me an embarrassing death with perhaps my foot trapped in the train and my head bouncing off of each post separating the tracks. It was partially a romantic thought, that I should perish symbolically as a martyr for the cause of good train service and not frustrating people to the point where they are willing to do life risking stuff just to get to work. I would be an anti-capitalist, pro-commuter symbol in that way. But, without having written a manifesto beforehand, I would simply be a guy who died in a stupid way on the subway. I know how those guys are treated, and it isn’t flattering. The other reason was that I didn’t want my hands to get so dirty when propelling myself up onto the platform. It was too early in the morning to have such dirty hands – even for a farmer. The announcement made was that a 2 train was in the 14^th street station having trouble getting out. It is always the train ahead of you’s fault. This can’t always be that case, but that train makes an easy scapegoat as people are already a bit upset at that train for having left before they could catch it.

Later in the day, I was on the 6 train, which had an entire car non-functional. That is, an entire car empty and with its doors unable to open. This was during afternoon rush hour. Aside from being appalled at the low-budgetness of it all, I was actually a bit sad to see such a lifeless, white and grey prototype passing by, devoid of all the human happiness contained in its neighboring cars. Poor it.