Subway Days and Nights in New York

Subways- Days and Nights
By Howard Giske

“Will you move over”, you could saaaay excuse me” she said in a vaguely threatening tone. I felt a large hand squeeze on top of mine. The heat and sweat from the mitt oozed onto the back of my hand, in the midst of the crowd, only lessened by the blast of air from the icy refrigerator overhead. It’s just a big 30ish guy grabbing the riding pole.

It makes me wish that I had become a big- CEO and had a chauffeur drive me everywhere. Other days, after rush hour, riding the subway is like sitting in someone’s living room, or a train dining car, with lots to see and listen to. After rush hour, a group of four young men and a young woman get on. They all seemed to be Puerto Rican in appearance, speaking English with a New York accent. The men had short hair, and all were well groomed. The woman was dressed in a creamy white blouse and well-fitting dark pants. As the group bantered about their daily activities, it was the loose sort of loud conversation of men bragging about their exploits, slightly restrained by the knowing eyes of the woman. Several of the men had razor short crew-cuts that made me think they were in business or in the military. Being in the subway isn’t so bad, it can be an experience to see people relaxing and talking.

Then, one day, I entered the subway from downtown at 4am. An odor of garbage or of putrefying fish hit me. She was wrapped up in a heavy brown coat, although it was the late spring. Yellow brownish streaks in the front of her coat seemed to be an advertising sign for adversity. She was about 70 years old or more and she was trying to get some sleep. Her companion, quite possibly her daughter, seemed OK from the waist up, but I saw the lobster claws sticking out from the cheap torn rubber sandals. You had a sense that the pair’s destination was none other than eternity.

I moved to the other end of the car and saw some rather dirty young men. They gyrated in their seats from an unknown beat, vaguely dancing. Small white seashells in their ears with silver threads took them on a voyage to an unknown country.

I closed my eyes, drinking in the steady beat of the rolling train, the low thunder exploding every instant. I drifted off for some time, then, thought I smelled something. I looked down and saw a small river slowly rolling underneath, carving out small bits of new territory to its wet empire.

I looked over in the corner at a young man, holding his head between his knees. The white youth had reddish unruly hair, and wore a green tee shirt, with the emblem of an unknown rock band. As he took another spasm that rolled through his chest and to his throat, he heaved more sour juice on the floor, creating a pooling river bed. Directly across from me, a 40-ish man in a business jacket gave me a knowing look and a smirk, which I answered in kind. What can you expect at 4am on a Saturday night?
----------------------------------------------------30---------------------------------------------