Subway

I’m at the Brooklyn Bridge subway. On the platform. It’s warm and sticky and a godsend from the howling wind and chill of NYC above.

I’m at the Brooklyn Bridge subway. On the platform. It’s warm and sticky and a godsend from the howling wind and chill of NYC above. The platform is nearly empty, just a couple of people waiting and an old lady, head stuck in a book, looking like she’s lived here all her life and has had all her life manipulated and shaped by the city she calls home. She’s reading Homer’s Odyssey - you can’t make this stuff up.

From behind one of the rows of ‘soldiers on parade’-like black cast iron girders which rise, studded with rivets, vertically from the platform, someone is hiding - there is a flash of blue denim and red hoodie - it’s some kid who’s hiding from his girlfriend - trying to be funny - she’s not finding it amusing though, she seems worried, or scared or perhaps this is just her resting face.

A wind picks up and electrics crackle, rails rumble, there’s a train coming - a local which stops everywhere - the corrugated stainless steel caterpillar of it sweeps my hair back in a gust as it reduces speed - I note the guard - with his striped shirt, peep from the open window of his carriage and reach his hand to push some button. The train slows to a crawl and a carriage passes me with the Star Spangled Banner and the number 9966 a rotational number that piques my interest lightly. 

The doors open and announcements are made, and I step into the carriage without the need to wait for anyone to leave. The train is as sparsely populated as the platform - the orange plastic chairs are plentiful - why couldn’t they have cushioned ones like in London or Paris I wonder - because they’d be ripped up, torn out, and used in fights … clearly. 

I sit as the train moves off and, local expert as I am, still manage to get thrown against the stainless steel tubes which barricade us in and give us support. I sit with a bump and take in my surroundings. 

To my right a guy who appears a cross between Rambo and Billy Idol - bleached hair in a black bandana, dark shades, and a waistcoat open to reveal his white hairless chest. Who knows where his eyes are looking - who knows whether this is how he dresses or whether he’s going to a party or is a strippergram who IS meant to be Billy Idol. He is sitting alone on a bank of chairs (unsurprisingly given the slight Rambo connotations)

Further down past the middle set of doors are a Puerto-Rican couple - he’s big - fat - sleeping, snoring, his head leaned at an angle onto the shoulder of a small wife or girlfriend who is immaculately dressed in a raincoat, patent leather heels, and a headscarf which could be Hermes, but is likely knock off. Her handbag has a similar providence. She looks unamused, not at her husband, but at the attention that he is getting, or they are getting, from everyone else around them. 

No one is talking. No one is on their phones, no one reads a book or a paper. The tension is palpable here amongst us. Are we all scared of each other or nonchalant? It’s hard to tell the difference. We astutely and resolutely all appear to be ignoring each other whilst measuring each other up.

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New York City, November 2018 - Nikon d750

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