(Originally
published 6/23/12)
Angels
touch some people, or so I have heard. No such luck for me today. I was,
however, touched by a rat at the 14th Street subway station in lower
Manhattan. I have spotted these ubiquitous rodents there before, running along
not only the tracks but on the narrow platform as well. Suffice it to say, this
location is not a good place to panic, shriek “eek,” and bolt like a pinball.
I always
seek out the last car of the subway train for my trip home, which usually gets
me a seat, but also happens to be near a garbage dumpster. While resting my
weary bones against this thing several hours ago, a rodent with an
exceptionally long tail scurried past me and then returned for an encore over
my foot in concert with an arriving northbound Number 1 train. I feared my new
friend might join me for the ride. Happily, though, the creature had other
plans. While I am not a superstitious sort, this kind of close encounter in an
excessively humid, urine-smelling underground subway lair did not bode well for
the future.
Placid subway
rides can turn on a dime into a ride from hell. All it takes is one passenger
or multiple passengers to make this nightmare a reality. Foremost, you do not
want to ride with a deranged soul who could kill you. That did not happen
today. You also do not want a malodorous individual, who has not bathed since
the Clinton administration, to sit nearby. That did not happen, either. No,
this group from hell were a couple of boorish families who never missed a beat
in behaving ill-mannered. The subway car was their playground. If I printed out
a transcript of what I heard on the ride from 96th Street in Manhattan until I
exited in the Bronx a few miles later, there would be no periods in it. While
standing only inches away from me, one woman painted her nails on the journey.
I still have a headache.
I could see
the disgust on the faces of the rest of the subway car’s passengers—a New York
City melting pot if ever there was one—even though they were, to the untrained
eye, stone-faced. Typically, straphangers, including me, prefer not to confront
boors, who live by their perverse coarse codes. In other words, they will
scratch your eyes out for telling them to temper their crassness.
As the
train inched closer to where I called home, and this shrill and loathsome brood
did not exit, I grew increasingly anxious. I dreaded the thought that they
might live near me and that I might see them again. When I heard one of them
inquire as to where they were getting off, the reply sounded a little too much
like my station. I was prepared to stay on the train. Turns out, I was mistaken
and exited where I intended to exit.
Walking
ever so gingerly down this elevated subway station’s steps, I was greeted by a
woman I know from my neighborhood. She asks passersby for quarters, even though
she insists on at least a dollar’s worth of them. I said testily, “Can you at
least wait until I get down?” The “quarter lady,” as she is known in some
circles, said she wanted to get something to eat from a local fast-food joint
called Popeye’s. I gave her multiple quarters, and she promptly hopped on a bus
that pulled alongside her. She did not use the change to pay the fare, I saw,
and the bus was poised to take her a long way from Popeye’s! Damn that rat. Angels
do not ride the subways. Who can blame them?
