On Board #7

Explanation.

August 13, 6:51 p.m.

N Train – Times Square to Pacific St.

“I think I’m 6’2″ now,” says a young man who is, at best 6’0″. He’s standing against the center pole in the car, shoulder length hair hiding his face. “Stop standing on your tippie toes,” he tells the girl standing up against his front side. Even while cheating, her eyes barely top his rib cage.

“How tall are you,” he asks a friend standing nearby (“I dunno, 5’10”, 5’11″”). He walks over and they stand back to back.

“So…how much taller am I?” he asks the girl. “Anyway, I’ll probably end up 6’3 or something.”

On Board #6

Details here.

July 29, 10:00 a.m.
Q Train – 7th Avenue to Times Square

He waits for the train to pass. It’s especially noisy right now, at 9:55 am, as two B trains pass in opposite directions.

So the busker waits, then pricks his guitars in the opening notes of a bluegrass ditty. He’s sitting on a three-legged drum seat, no drum set in sight. He has shaggy blonde hair with a few dozen strands hanging down over his eyes and a dozen more forking off from his sideburns out over his brown glasses.

Another train, a Q, passes on the opposite platform. He pauses.

He’s in a red plaid shirt and holds his guitar on his lap, resting on jeans torn at the right knee. A Manhattan bound Q approaches. He looks up from his guitar and stops playing.

The train is crowded this morning, but there’s no music. There is one man with a bike, an older bike, splotchy silver coating and 12 speeds. He forces it to the side as several women depart at Atlantic St., then apologizes for hitting another rider with the right handlebar while accommodating a boarding stroller.

Two vehicles – the bike and the stroller – now squeeze against one door in the car. The bike is owned by a tall black man, made to look taller by the peak of the black bandanna covering his head, an accessory the extends seamlessly southward into a full black beard that cascades into a three inch waterfall of hair raggedly cascading off his chin. He wears a black and gray and white camouflage t-shirt and classic blue jeans, no wash or stylings, cuffed two inches above his tan, low-rise work boots. White shin-length socks peek between the gap. He has long fingernails, two centimeters beyond his right thumb, and a dark green cell phone pouch attached to a fraying messenger bag strap. In the middle of his camouflage shirt, there is a color picture of a green bird in a forest walking by a sign that reads, cryptically, ‘KUKUS’.

We cross over the Manhattan Bridge and he pulls out his phone, which doubles as a walkie talkie. He makes a call, seeming to notify someone, somewhere, of his location. His phone tweets a minute later and he pulls it out, looks at it, but then places it back in it’s worn pouch.

By now, the woman with the stroller is seated. It’s a bulky stroller, but not unreasonably fancy. She is Hispanic and wears a white t-shirt and jeans. Her baby looks comfortable, reclined in a nearly horizontal position, raised just enough to expose spiky hair sticking straight up. He mauls a pacifier, and looks up and around with seemingly no expression. His mom sits, seemingly quite happy with something. She’s well prepared: a bottle, a few toys in the basket beneath, a baby-blue cotton blanket draped over the handle that matches the dark blue stroller and the navy blue shirt the child wears.

They exit at Canal St., and one stop later the bike is gone as well. It leaves a large open space in what was once a loosely-packed sardine can of a car. Now, only a young Asian woman, probably Chinese, stands in the door well. She’s dressed for this strangely cool New York summer, a short-sleeved button down shirt that nadirs in a sharp V just above her waist. It’s in pastel plaid, with lime green and baby blue and magenta and peppercorn – and a light brown thrown in for some earth tone. Her cuffed jeans, designed by Lucky and all-white Chuck Taylors suggest either work or play today. She has her earbuds plugged in and, like many this morning, appears to be staring off at nothing.  As I leave the train at 42nd Street, she remains immobile, lodged in the corner of the door and the hand rail, barely having moved a step since I first saw her, after the bike and stroller were gone.

On Board #5

Confused? Look here. Then read on:

August 12, 6:41 p.m.
B Train – 42nd Street to 7th Avenue

Three Asian men board the train at 42nd street, painters by trade if the splotches of white – and only white – paint on their shirts and jeans and hands are to be believed. They are all roughly the same age, around 35, their faces wrinkled much older by jobs that are unkind to skin.

Two of them sit and converse in what your reporter guesses is Korean, both wearing navy blue hats, one with a Syracuse logo, the other a large “NY” in the front and a series of “New York”s curling from the brim, strangely bent like a cycling cap, to the Velcro strap in back. The other man stands five feet away silently grasping the center pole with his left hand and a thin silver pole nearly as tall as the subway’s, but half the diameter. He also holds a piece of corkscrew piping that looks like it connects to some machine somewhere, and suggests perhaps some drywall work – electricians? – more than painting.

The train holds for several minutes at Broadway-Lafayette, one stop short of their destination. A southbound V finally appears across the track (no one leaves or boards our car). The three men look out the window at nothing. The train waits for several more minutes, the V long gone. Finally it departs, and drops the men at Grand St. – one can only hope this is home, not work.

Now a South Asian man, around 60, is the only man amid sundresses and business suits with paint splotches on his clothes. His are white and maroon and a splash of peach.

On Board #4

Our first guest contribution to On Board comes from Tim C., a B-Line expert up in Boston. You can read more from Tim – on, among other things, the Yankees, Hanson, and Infinite Jest – at Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun.

On Board details here. Send yours – words, pictures, videos, thoughts, music – to reeves.wiedeman@gmail.com.

August 10, 2009
Green Line, Boston College to Copley

5:43 I have two superpowers. One is to always walk into an elevator on the side where the buttons aren’t. The other is to roll up to the Boston College T stop as a train is pulling away. If only I could harness these powers for good, and not evil.

5:46 One of the two guys in the back car with me has the same pair of blue high top Chucks as me. Except his are laced way cooler than mine. He’s also sitting in the seat immediately adjacent to his pal, which strikes me as odd in an otherwise empty train.

5:50 I notice that me and the two other guys in the back car are all wearing sneakers, jeans, and polo shirts. We should start a band.

5:53 The Mt. Hood Road stop hasn’t existed since December 2005, but there’s still a sign there advertising its absence as part of a pilot program to remove certain street-level B Line stops. I wonder if it will ever make a return?

5:55 Death. Taxes. People cramming into the first car of a Green Line trolley.

5:58 This particular T driver is my favorite kind. He only opens the front door at first, leaving the back doors closed long enough for anyone angling to get in there to resign themselves to going in through the front door and actually, you know, paying their fare. Kudos, driver!

We’ve also reached the point in the ride where I can no longer stretch my legs out on all the empty seats next to me. I almost made it to Harvard Avenue.

6:09 The train just passed a “No Left Turn” sign. However, it was much closer to the tracks than it was to the street, causing me to briefly wonder “How the hell could this train even MAKE a left turn?” Hoo boy.

6:12 I never stop being fascinated by the Guy Whose Phone Rings Really Loud But It Takes Him at Least Ten Seconds to Realize It. You’ve seen this guy before, right?

6:14 This dude just got on the train wearing a tshirt with the silhouette of two flying creatures. I hoped against hope they were pteranodons. Alas, they were only sea gulls, or ospreys, or something.

6:18 The Hynes Convention Center stop used to be the Hynes Convention Center / ICA stop. When the Institute of Contemporary Art moved to the waterfront, the station took its current name. However, instead of recording a new automated voice informing riders they’re entering the Hynes Convention Center stop, they just lopped off the “ICA” from the old recording, so every time the announcement comes on over the PA, the end has this halted, choppy quality that makes you want to say to the automated T robot “Pardon? You were going to say something?” Still haven’t gotten used to it.

6:19 Copley. This is my stop, folks.

On Board #3

Details here. Entry No. 3 here:

August 1, 2009

L Train – Union Square to Bedford Ave.

The man’s playing an accordion, amen. 50 years ago, when he was 20, one assumes he would be trolling the streets of Green Point speaking a New York-tinged Polish. Green Point is where the arriving train on his left side is heading as he nods ever so slightly to his own music. He wears tight jeans shorts frayed just above the knee and a white t-shirt below a round head flanked by two upwardly-mobile puffs of white hair. As a man drops a few coins into the metal pail he has attached to a rolling cart, the man simply continues to nod gently on his stool.

Fifteen feet away, sitting at the end of a bench, is a man in a blue dolphin suit, nodding much more emphatically. His bespectacled face is clearly visible through the costume’s mouth, though one imagines he would rather hide. He’s vibrating rapidly, vaguely sexually, holding a sign reading ‘FREE BOUNCY RIDES.’ . A sexual deviant, a prankster, the loser of a bet – all seem likely. Black flip flops expose dirty feet as he waves his left hand rapidly at anyone willing to make eye contact. None take his offer, but one, then two, then five people pull out their digital cameras.

Inside, the only train to Williamsburg – and Green Point, and beyond – is packed. Those with room to read have The Economist held to their face, The New Yorker in their right hand, wrapped around a railing, and The Way The Crow Flies, a novel, on their laps. Little talking ensues, as everyone appears to be alone: no children, no friends, no families, no couples. Two teens do start talking, quiet and indecipherable at first, and then louder and more indecipherable. One stands up (his friend is seated) and starts to dance in a black polo and blacker jeans. Otherwise, there is only the rumble of the crowded train beneath the East River.

At Bedford Avenue, a third of the train departs. There is another accordion player here, an aspiring white Rastaman in woven black cap, tan button down polo, black shorts, black socks, and black shoes. He’s lethargically rapping over his accordion to a tune that, to the untrained ear, could have been written by a Polish man from Green Point.

On Board #1

On Board

A new feature begins today, here at Meanderings. It’s looking for a name, so suggest one in the comments, but the idea goes a little something like this: people in major cities spend a lot of time on mass transit; by my rough estimate, most New Yorkers spend an hour per day, 7 hours per week, 30 or so per month, and a dozen or so full days per year on a transit vehicle of some kind. That’s a lot of livin’.

So, hopefully with your help, we’ll be chronicling those 12 days of life. This is not meant for “Weird Shit That Happened on the L Train.” This is meant for the everyday, the normal, the poignantly average.

For my part, for now, this will mean short stories, typed out on my iPhone during subway rides to and from various places. They’ll be entirely written during the ride, lightly edited to rid them of fat-fingered nonsense, and presented here for you. Some will be long, some short, some funny, some sad, some engaging, some boring – and all of it will be true, as best a passive observer can tell.

I hope to add one per day during the week, and hope you’ll help me by sending yours along (E-mail: reeves.wiedeman@gmail.com). Photos, songs, writing, painting, etch-a-sketch – from New York, and especially, elsewhere – are all encouraged: whatever tells the story of 1/24 of your day.

Here you go:

July 31, 9:48 a.m.

Q Train – 7^th Avenue to Times Square

The fans are out in the 7th Avenue station today, where a muggy morning above ground has turned into a blast furnace. One woman has her head covered in a multi-colored wrap and furiously flaps an all black, lacy fan. Another has one that wouldn’t be out of place in the Met’s Asian collection. Or, for $2 bucks, on Canal Street.

The Q train is a welcome force before it’s even visible or audible, as the 40-miles per hour’s worth of air compression blows through the station.

It’s even better inside the air-conditioned car. Two native Brooklynites in t-shirts are talking loudly across the train. We’re in one of the newer cars with fewer seats and more space for standing, so the two men, both overweight and in their 50s, must speak up to reach across the aisle. They talk about a dentist. Gary – in all black, from bandanna to shoes – is looking for a referral. He’s not on Medicaid, but his union pays part of his fees, so he’ll have to pay 50 dollars in deductible. He wants a good dentist, and one that will take cash. Frank pulls out his wallet, wondering if he has a business card for a guy he goes to in Brighton Beach. He’s wearing classic blue wranglers and white sneakers, with sunglasses hanging from two silver chains around his neck. Gary reaches into his backpack and pulls out a stick of Trident gum, ear phones, and a small notepad full of drawings, mostly still life’s and landscapes, some in color. He pulls out a blue pen and starts sketching.

Gary puts his wallet away after a fruitless search. At DeKalb, several women get on board and block the space between Gary and Frank. They hadn’t been talking for a minute or so, and Frank leans slightly to the right, peaking around the women, and says to Gary, “Hey, have a good day.”

Most in the train are looking down as we cross the bridge. Two men read newspapers, both the Times, but different sections. A 20-something couple read separately, their backs against each other. They had held hands, briefly, in the station. Now she has a book, while he has a magazine and large studio headphones striping his shaved head. He pointed to an article in his magazine when they entered the train, and she smiled, but they hadn’t spoken since. A middle-aged black man looks down as well, but outside the train, southward along the East River, and down at the Manhattan-side projects that both sit below and rise above the bridge.

Frank jumps up suddenly after we go back underground. He had been texting someone in the bridge, apparently to get the name of the dentist. He crossed the car and opened his flip phone in Gary’s face, telling him “That’s the guy.”

“Thanks,” Gary says, genuinely, writing the name on the back of a drawing. He underlines it, twice. Frank steps off at Grand St., and Gary goes back to drawing. It’s a seaside scene, 5×7 in size. Sit yellowish sand sits beneath a smattering of gray clouds framing an orange sun. There’s a lighthouse on the right side of the drawing, and from this angle it’s either slightly covered by the clouds or the clouds are actually smoke billowing from a yet-to-be-drawn multi-alarm fire in the tower. Both seem possible. The waves are drawn in blue and white streaks, and there’s already one sailboat. Gary is finishing a second one that will fill out the scene, but flips his book shut at half-mast as West 4th street approaches.

The car’s other, younger, only slightly more amorous couple has taken a seat. She leans in to him, her right knee against his lengthy thighs. They remain silent as does everyone else in the car: one person reads Pynchon, another the Daily News. A 40-year old woman holds a pale blue suit jacket in her lap as she scans pictures on her digital camera.  The couple departs, along with most of the train, at Times Square. He walks four steps ahead, even up the stairs, and keeps his earphones in, only taking them off above ground. He holds the door for her then keeps walking ahead. At the intersection of 42nd and Broadway, they stop, turn, say a few words, and kiss. They disappear into the crowd, together.