The Subway Chronicles

It's time for another installment of Ask Ms. Turnstiles, where all of your burning questions about the New York City subway system are answered. Let's get down to business.      

Q: I heard that the cost of the subway fares increased this week. What gives?

A: Since you asked, this is the perfect opportunity to review the numbers: $2.25 = New cost of a single subway ride.

1 million = Number of curses you will receive from the Chinese Curses Lady if you talk on the subway.

4 = Times per week a conductor will close the doors in your face.

45 = Number of sick passengers per week.

0 = Number of other options you have to get to work.      

Q: Is it true that Ruth Madoff, Bernie's wife, was spotted riding the subway last week?  

A: Why, yes! Ms. Turnstiles thinks it's heartwarming to know that she's just one of us.    

Q: Ms. Turnstiles, why does one subway car feel like a meat locker and the car right next to it feels like the rainforest?  

A: You may have heard the recent news that New York City has earned the honorable distinction of being this country's safest big city. (City motto: We're glad we're not Detroit.) This hard-won achievement doesn't come without a no-holds-barred crackdown on things that put Gothamites at risk. After ridding the city of the dangerous criminal known as Trans-Fats and moving the menace to society called "Smoker" to back alleyways, Mayor Bloomberg has set his sights on arming you with the tools to avoid becoming a statistic. Here's how it works: You board the train and realize it's so humid you feel like you're breathing through a wet rag. Then you dash at breakneck speed to get to the next car before the doors close. After a few weeks of commuting, you'll be able to outrun any mugger. Thanks, Mayor Mike!     

Q: The woman sitting next to me is falling asleep and resting her head on my shoulder. Should I shake her awake? She's starting to snore.  

A: Ms. Turnstiles understands your predicament. She has been in this situation herself and take it from her, shaking the woman will only serve to have her snuggle closer to you. To remedy the problem, simply sprits a lot of perfume under her nose. You'll instantly create your own personal space and make you smell like you just left a cheap whorehouse, which serves as an added benefit of keeping your boss out of your cube for the rest of the day. It's a win-win situation.    

 Q: According to the television documentary, "Life After People," the entire subway system will rot and collapse five years after people are gone from the earth. What do you make of that?  

A: Ms. Turnstiles will answer your question with another question: If a subway system collapses and no one is around to witness it, why do you care?    

Q: Does your snarkiness on this subject have anything to do with the fact that you briefly dated one of the programmers for this show?  

A: Ms. Turnstiles won't dignify this question with a response, but if she did, she would have to point out, yet again, that the entire premise of the show is ridiculous. What tragedy could possibly elminate all 6 billion people on this planet simultaneously yet not harm any domesticated or wild animals? Or any vegetation? Or not damage any of the existing infrastructure? Put that in your pipe and smoke it bub.    

There you have it, Straphangers. Another informative and helpful edition of Ask Ms. Turnstiles. Until next time, when she will be taking more of your important questions, stand clear of the closing doors.

You ever had one of those rough days at work where the only thing you can mentally or physically manage after leaving the office is plugging in your earphones and choosing the song "Take This Job and Shove It" on your iPod?

Today was one of those days.

The good thing about riding the subway in a situation like this is that, if the trains aren't too crowded, I can actually decompress on the way home. The same cannot be said about sitting white-knuckled in bumper-to-bumper traffic breathing exhaust fumes. And as luck would have it, a seat opened up just as I was boarding the 2 train. I leaned my head against the wall, closed my eyes and went to my happy place.

There is a certain lulling quality to the rhythm of the train, especially when it builds up speed in the tunnel under the East River. (See "Cure Insomnia, Save the World" post.) So I was a little surprised and embarrassed, when I squinted one eyelid open to make sure that I wasn't somewhere in Bed-Stuy (which, if I'm being honest with you, I have done before), to be eye-to-bellybutton with a ginormous pregnant woman.

How long had she been standing over me secretly coveting my seat, her aching back and swollen feet longing for some relief? I got up quickly and she seemed grateful rather than annoyed at my obliviousness. After my self-satisfaction at helping my fellow neighbor wore off, I wondered why no one else in the vicinity had offered his or her seat.

That brings me to the unspoken subway code outlining who should get a seat, which I thought was well ingrained into the commuter's psyche:

• Pregnant women, if they are obviously pregnant.
• The elderly, but not just your average AARP member. We're talking white hair and possibly a cane. Sixty is the new 40.
• Anyone of any age who is infirm. This includes crutches, blind with walking sticks, and neck braces.
• A parent who is carrying a baby or has a baby strapped in a snugly. Not applicable if the child is in a stroller.

Not having ridden mass transit while pregnant, I decided to conduct an informal and highly subjective survey from the test group called Women I Know. I'm sad to report that apparently pregnant women end up standing more often than not. There is the understandable awkwardness of trying to decide if a woman in early stages of pregnancy is indeed with child or just, how can I say this gracefully, Rubenesque. But I was amazed to learn about the blatant disregard for weary travelers.

Of the hundreds of rides taken by my respondents while pregnant, they each could count on one hand the number of times a seat was immediately offered, and of the occasions they were given a seat, the generosity was bestowed either by a man of color or a teenager. (Teens do have a conscience...) Evidently white men rank lowest on the list of seat-giver-uppers, and women of all colors are not far behind. (Come on, women, help a sister out!)

One noteworthy incident involved a ride on the Metro North commuter train during which a woman was saving two seats on either side for her friends. Facing the prospect of standing for a 40-minute ride, my very pregnant friend asked for a seat to no avail. Finally a woman tucked into a corner relinquished hers, causing my friend to squeeze in front of several other people to get to it. The train doors closed with the "saved" seats still available.

Not long ago some Columbia University sociology students conducted a subway experiment. They had to approach seated New Yorkers, look them in the eye and ask them to give up their seats without any explanation. This, I think, is third on the list of things most feared right after public speaking and death. But here's the kicker: with very few exceptions, every person gave up their seat, no questions asked! Whether the students were tailed home and given a once-over, was not reported in the results.

Riding the Q train, crossing the Manhattan Bridge

Twenty-something woman talking on her cell phone:   I'm just exhausted, like really stressed. (Audible sigh) I know I just need to slooww down...I dunno...If I could just get some kind of disease. Not like a really nasty one or anything. Something where I could just sleep for like a week...Right, like mono. You know anyone who has that?

A couple of months ago my mom's friends from Tennessee were touring New York for a few days. I met them for lunch and spent most of the time giving them subway directions to the fifty-two sites they had on their checklist for the following 24 hours. Their next stop was Chinatown — not so they could eat or buy silly souvenirs — but so they could say "We've seen Chinatown."

Mere steps from the entrance to the West Fourth Street station, we encountered a slice of life, New-York style. A toothless, bedraggled man, who had a sixth sense that they weren't from ‘round these parts, asked for some money. He was, for the most part, harmless but did get in their personal space (and being from a more rural area, their personal space is about ten feet more than a New Yorker's). Despite my attempts to keep them moving forward, they stopped and began a conversation with him which only served to egg him on. When I finally wrangled them underground, they were concerned.

"Are you going to be okay?" they asked.

Oh, I'll be okay, you "I ♥ New York" t-shirt-wearing, unzipped-purse-carrying, white-sneaker-trotting tourists, but you won't if you keep staring at complete strangers.

If you've ever visited New York and thought you blended in so well that you passed for a local, I'm here to tell you that you didn't. We spotted you a mile away. In fact, you might be following all of the standard local protocols: no eye contact, no chattering on like teenagers, and, for the love of God, no shorts. But still, you're not passing. It's got something to do with presence and an uncertainty, I guess.

But this is not a bad thing. My mom's friends later reported that they thought the New Yorkers were incredibly nice. "We only had to glance at our map on the subway and several people would offer directions." I've witnessed this myself, although it's less about generosity of spirit than it is a love of New Yorkers to be able to tell people where to go.

Then I take a trip to Tennessee, and the shoe is on the other foot. The locals look me up and down and know I ain't from around here. What is it? My dark clothes? My near-galloping pace? We pile in the car to drive to a diner a distance shorter than I walk to the subway station. Then we stuff ourselves and drive home again. I feel slothful, but a few more days of this and it becomes old hat. I can easily fall back into my old habits of living in the suburbs. I might be willing to trade being an outsider for the smoothness of living in a less densely packed town. Life is so much easier here — from laundry to getting around to taking my dog out.

But then where else, except New York, would I be riding the 4 train and see one woman wearing a surgical mask, another one with a t-shirt that reads "Friends don't let friends get mullets," and my one of my favorite musicians, Delta Dave Johnson, belting out the blues on his guitar and harmonica from his wheelchair?

It has come to my attention that if I want to find a boyfriend I need to move to the suburbs. Why, you ask, when I live among a city population of eight million? Let me explain.

Recently I was surprised to learn of two friends who had met their beaus the old-fashioned way: in person. What makes their stories even more remarkable is that they both met their boyfriends while riding the train, specifically the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit.

Their experiences reminded me of Cliff Bond's essay which I'd published on The Subway Chronicles website last year about his chance encounter with the woman who would become his wife. He noticed her sitting on a bench waiting for the uptown 1 train, sucked it up, and mesmerized her with dazzling small talk. This seems to be such a rare phenomenon these days, I chalked up his experience to random luck or fate or (insert your choice of cosmic who-ha) and forgot about it.

I'm sure plenty of people have first spied their significant other across a crowded subway car, but, and this is key, you have one shot to work up the gumption to introduce yourself. The father of your children could easily get off at the next stop while you're still figuring out if you would sound like a total loser to say, by way of intro, "Is this an express train?" (Of course the answers are, yes, it is an express train, and yes, you do sound like a loser.)

There is less pressure on the suburban commuter trains. Since these trains run on a specific schedule, most people catch the same train every rush hour, so you end up commuting with the same group day in and day out. We all know "subway schedule" is considered the definition of oxymoron, though I will say that through some strange force, I'll occasionally find myself seeing a very cute guy four days in a row. The entire time, I'm thinking, How can I break the ice? I know. I'll ask him if this is an express train. Then, as if in a payback for my waffling, I don't see him again for three months, after which time he's wearing a wedding ring.

So, for all of you who aced the analytical portion of the GRE:

If a NJ Transit train leaves Secaucus at 8:27 a.m., traveling at 20 miles per hour, and I am on a 2 train leaving Grand Army Plaza at 8:31 a.m., and the cosine of the hypotenuse equals the square of the moon in the seventh house only when the year of the rat is divided by the sound of a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it, when will I intersect with the man of my dreams?

A. The day trying to get from the West Village to Alphabet City doesn't involve three train transfers, a pedi-cab, a surly car service driver, and hiking boots.
B. When you stop looking. That's when you'll find him. (Thanks, Mom.)
C. When someone can actually understand the conductor's announcements.
D. When a woodchuck could chuck wood.

(You didn't think I would leave you high-and-dry without an array of multiple choice options, did you?)

Son: But I want to sit doooowwwwnnn!

Grandmother (mostly to herself): Oh, hush now. You got young legs. My legs are old and tired. When you're old and tired, then you can sit. Complaining to me about sitting when you as good as new. I got things to complain about. My back aches and my feet ache. And I got the gout. Boy, when you got the gout you can sit. Count your lucky stars you don't have the gout.

I recently purchased a white noise machine. This magical little contraption emits a constant whirring that sounds like the "TV snow" when stations used to sign off for the night. I set it up near my front door and it quite successfully blocks most errant hallway noise. If plain white noise isn't your thing, know that you can pick up a variety of soothing sounds. The nature-inspired can listen to the sounds of the rainforests (gorilla mating calls included) and New Agers can be calmed with Anasazi flutes. Since this machine is for my dog, who gets a little riled up by strange noises in the hallway, I didn't think he'd have the appropriate appreciation for "Sounds of the Orca."

These machines are nothing new to many New Yorkers, who have to find some way to drown out all kinds of street noise, especially in the summer when windows are open and neighbors (read teenagers) find it reasonable to hang out on the corner talking trash, etc. until 3 a.m.

(In a strange paradox, give a New Yorker the silence of a remote B&B and he will lie awake interminably because it's too quiet. It's just him and all that empty stillness. And for the love of God something make a sound!)

Enter a new genre of soothing vibrations: the sound of the subway. This would be a compilation of a subway car gliding down the tracks on a ride that never ends to lull you into peaceful slumber. In this version of subway nirvana there are no annoying PA announcements, no ear-drum-splitting brakes, no bing-bongs of the doors closing. Just you and the gentle clickety-clack rhythm of the train. What I call the "Kick-It-Up-A-Notch" edition would include a device to tenderly rock you to dreamland complete with the shimmy and shake of the F train.

I can't claim this idea as entirely my own. Last weekend my friend M. was visiting from the West Coast. She'd lived in NYC for years before relocating to what I like to call the Groundhog Day City. (Here is my synopsis of every morning I've ever experienced in San Diego: 1. Alarm goes off. 2. Open curtains. 3. See perfect blue sky, nary a cloud. 4. Feel gentle breeze of 70-degree temperature. 5. Repeat.) As we rode the Q to Union Square, M. noted that she forgot how easy it was to nod off listening to the hum of the subway. Now if she could just package the sounds of the subway she could cure her insomnia for good.

Coming soon for $19.95 to a station near you.

"Attention, police. Attention, police," said an extremely calm voice over the loudspeaker at Atlantic Avenue. "Your presence is needed on the uptown 5 train holding in the station at Nevins due to suspicious activity. Attention, police."

The doors on my 2 train close and the mysterious voice is sealed out. We move to the next stop which is Nevins Street, where I assume I'll catch a glimpse of the po-po and so-called suspicious activity.

Level one suspicious: The smart-looking businessman with his hand down his pants a la Al Bundy while staring at a pretty woman on the 4 train. (Aside: she snapped his suggestive pose with her camera phone and his photo was blasted over the front page of the Post the next day. Explain that to your wife, buddy.) Level ten suspicious: Staring through the train door window while a firefighter on an otherwise abandoned West 4th Street platform stares back at me. He's in full gear complete with oxygen mask shaking his head and waving the train conductor not to open the doors.

Am I concerned about the activity at Nevins Street? I really can't afford to be. If something truly horrible were occurring, what exactly could I do about it hundreds of feet underground and somewhat trapped inside a metal can? I think this is why New Yorkers are so good at what we like to call "business as usual."

And that, Ken Wheaton said in his essay in the Subway Chronicles book, is due to conditioning. "We've simply reached and are able to maintain a transcendent state of subway existence. After all, if a New Yorker did start considering all the things that could possibly go wrong, he'd never get to work."

It's rather Zen, if you think about it. Whatever goes down, the subway commuter's brain is always in the present. A few years back, my stepdad stepped in front of a suspect who was trying to evade the lone cop chasing him down the Jay St./Borough Hall platform and pinned him on the stairs leading to the street. Once back-up arrived, we boarded the next arriving F train and never talked about it again. There is no dwelling on the "what ifs."

My train arrives at Nevins and the voice again says, "Attention, police," as if he were announcing a golf game. I look through the window to see what I can see. Absolutely nothing. There's no police, no suspicious activity, no firemen on the platform (though I would not be entirely upset about this. It must be a job requirement that all FDNY recruits rate in the "Oh my god" category of the hot department. They have a calendar. Here's one more reason not to ban photography on the subway.)

Where was I?

Right - the non-existent suspicious activity. My train moves on to Hoyt Street, and one stop closer to the office, back to business as usual.

Guy #1: So then I'll transfer to the D.

Guy # 2: Don't do it. That D train will fuck you over every time, man.

Homage to Overheard in New York, a favorite eavesdropping website of almost everyone I know. It has snippets of conversation submitted by readers who overheard them on the street, or in the elevator, or more often than not, in the subway. As Lawrence Block wrote, "You don't often overhear a lot of interesting things when you're driving around in your car. Overheard in Los Angeles? No, I don't think so."

I'm having an uneventful train ride home. Peaceful, even. I cross the platform at Chambers Street to a waiting 2 train. The doors close and a man from the opposite end of the train car shouts, "REPENT!"

What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a subway preacher.

The subway preacher is a unique type of busker. He's not trying to entertain you like the strolling mariachi band or the guy who plays Big Band-Era hits on his horn. Nor is he pleading his sad story in a bold-faced attempt to get donations. No, no. The subway preacher is simply sharing information which is, to be direct about it, that you're going to hell.

On this evening, my subway preacher is a fire-and-brimstone type sporting a thick Jamaican accent. Since it seems that I'm stuck in a traveling pulpit, for the subway preacher does not change cars at each new stop like the musicians, I figure I'll make the best of it.

"The answer is not in your fancy house or your fancy purse or your fancy car. No, mon. The answer is not in any of those things."

He seems to be saying that we place too much importance on material things. That's something I can get on board with, but then he crosses the proverbial line in the sand.

"You think you can listen to the devil all your life and then follow God to the kingdom of heaven? No, mon. It doesn't work like that. Let me tell you how it works. You will all go to hell. You have to break free of your devilish ways. Tell that demon inside you: "You are not welcome here anymore.' Repent, earthly children, REPENT!"

Um...

"God made Eve for Adam. He didn't make Adam for Adam. That's the devil taking up in you."

And because New Yorkers can't keep their mouths shut, a woman protests about this recent comment. The preacher rains a barrage of Bible quotes down upon her. This scene reminds me of a woman affectionately known to F train riders as the Chinese curses lady.

The Chinese curses lady, who eerily resembled Yoko Ono in her giant glasses phase, had one big pet peeve. She did not like anyone to talk on the train. The subject matter wasn't important.

"So, I heard it's going to rain later today."

"One hundred curses on you," said Chinese curses lady. "You call the Chinese name from the devil? One hundred curses!"

Inevitably the offending person would glance her way, realize the lady's elevator was not rising to the top floor, and continue the conversation. "I forgot to bring my umbrella and I have to go way uptown."

"Five hundred curses on you," said Chinese curses lady.

I've seen people move to another part of the train car to get away from her, but she would not be deterred. She would simply follow them, sending curses their way the whole time. For months, I'd traveled unscathed until one day I made the mistake of talking to a friend before I realized she was there. From behind me, her voice boomed, "One thousand curses on you." Whoa. That's a lot of curses. Don't we usually start at 100?

My friend began talking, oblivious to the blight now on our auras.

"One million curses on you." That's some bad ju-ju.

Meanwhile the subway preacher continues railing, having moved deftly from homosexuals to George Bush — the transition easier than one might think. I alight at Grand Army Plaza while he still has the devil on his mind.