Upon moving to New York exactly one year ago, the only constant I could count on was that I’d be hauling myself on a 15-minute walk through an isolated section of Bedford-Stuyvesant to the Myrtle-Broadway stop on the J train every day. Being a fresh-faced New Yorker and an obsessively polite person, the subway intimidated me. I came from Philadelphia where the subway was a secondary mode of transportation, so the etiquette and environment of the MTA was not exactly second nature. The idea of exposing myself as a rookie or coming across as a tourist was none too pleasant. One of my first warning shots came from a man wearing a backpack on a crowded L-train one afternoon who demanded that I “take off my f&$%*ng backpack.”
The combination of aggressiveness and hypocrisy hurt my brain a little bit so I just apologized and did as I was told. But between my daily hike through the various elements followed by the 45-minute commute, I came to dread the train unless it was carrying me toward a bar. It wasn’t until one snowy February afternoon that I came to view the subway as the most odd and exciting cross-section of humanity one could ever hope to find.
I boarded and slumped into a seat, put an "Animals As Leaders" album on shuffle, and fished a book out of my bag. The man sitting next to me looked like he was headed for the office, wearing an unremarkable suit and sporting thinning hair with a little too much gel. He was antsy, tapping his feet and wringing his hands. We’ll call him Happy Feet. I’d gotten through about four sentences in my book before he spoke up. Another man across the way was wearing Chuck Taylors, and my neighbor began to excitedly barrage him with questions. Where’d you get them? What are they called again? This followed by several exclamations of “Wow!” and “Cool!” Judging by his confounded excitement, Happy Feet had apparently never seen Chuck Taylors before. A little unusual but OK, maybe he doesn’t get out much and is therefore unfamiliar with what could be called the most common and recognizable style of footwear available. Our little train rattled along, and about two stops later, Happy Feet decided he was thirsty. He reached into a black plastic bag, pulled out a Budweiser Lime-A-Rita, and proceeded to drink all of it in three or four heroic gulps. As Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “Django Unchained” once said, “You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.” I closed my book and paused my music to focus on the circus unfolding next to me at 12:30 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon.
A few drops of sweet green nightmare leaked from the corners of his mouth and disappeared into his lap as he polished off his breakfast, followed by a soggy baritone belch. Smacking his lips with proud satisfaction, Happy Feet swapped the exsanguinated corpse of his can for a fresh kill, choosing this time to sip delicately and savor it. He deposited the empty can on the floor which immediately rolled away down the length of the car, as if it were escaping. I’m no stranger to seeing folks drinking in public, but it was the brazenness and odd beverage choice that gave me pause. Happy Feet had struck up a conversation with his neighbor, a middle-aged woman with a thick Boston accent. They spoke closely and in hushed tones, so I couldn’t quite hear what they were talking about. Whatever it was, it was a very specific and very tense meeting of the minds. Between Marcy Avenue and Essex Street, Happy Feet must have gotten a little sleepy, and nodded off with his head on Boston’s bare shoulder. The screech of the brakes at Essex roused him, and suddenly he appeared full of inspiration. While people came and went at the station, he hurriedly searched through his battered briefcase for something. As the train pulled away, he found his prize and held it up to the light for inspection. I thought, what is that, a pen? No, it’s something I’ve never seen up close before. Please just be a weird pen.
As he put one end to his lips and a lighter to the other, I came to realize that Happy Feet, with his suit and Budweiser Lime-A-Rita breakfast, was now smoking a filthy little crack pipe next to me in broad daylight in a moderately crowded subway car. He puff-puff-passed the pipe to Boston, and after exhaling an impressive cloud of chemical smoke, he clapped his hands together and let out an ear-splitting “Woo!” While they got their fix, I scanned the faces of the other passengers for a reaction. A raised eyebrow, a quick did-you-see-that/yes-I-saw-that acknowledgment from somebody, but I received no such affirmation that what I was seeing was actually happening. I wondered, is this normal? Am I naïve for being completely dumbstruck by this bizarre carnival of consumption?
The male half of the Couple of the Year tapped out the ash from his little glass pipe, and the woman began to berate him. She alleged, in her thick Southie drawl, that he was holding out on her. “How could you do this to me?” she bellowed. “You’re my boyfriend, we’ve been together for ten years and you’re going to do that to me?” He reassured her that he knew a guy downtown, that they’d go stock up right now, he promised. Just before the doors closed at Chambers Street, they hurried off onto the platform and out of my life forever. I was almost wistful that I wouldn’t get to see how that story ended. By now the train was empty except for me and a handful of stragglers. I locked eyes with a man a few seats away and finally got what I’d been waiting for. He looked at me, raised both eyebrows, and said “I’ve lived in Queens my whole life, and that was hands down one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen on the subway.” At last, I had confirmation that I’d been witness to the strangest that the New York subway system has to offer. Everybody seems to have a weird subway story, and six months in I finally had mine, the gold standard to which I will hold all future MTA interactions.
After that day my anxieties melted away. I learned to treat every trip on the subway as an opportunity to experience all of New York’s boundless eccentricities. From the pole-dancing hat flippers and churro sellers to the train car preachers and mariachi buskers, I began to appreciate and look forward to my commutes. To be clear, this piece is not meant to mock Happy Feet and Boston, or trivialize addiction; in fact I wish them well and hope they found help. Instead I mean to thank them for helping me finally feel like a real New Yorker, and whenever my roommate suggests taking an Uber home at 2 a.m., I always resist, hoping that somebody on the subway might change my life one more time.
