LEARNING ABOUT HUMANITY ON

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
By Chris Gethard
I just saw the most talented subway performer Ive
ever seen. She wasnt doing anything specialjust
singing along to karaoke tracks playing modern pop
songs and Motown classics. But her voice was
incredible. Jaded New Yorkers removed their earphones
to listen. Upon completion of each song, the people
inhabiting the platforms on both sides broke into
applause. That doesnt happen. The stereotype of New
Yorkers is that were people who avoid warm human
interaction, were always in too much of a rush to
enjoy simple things, and that were just generally
rude. Today, New York reminded me that beautiful
things often happen, and that the most beautiful
things are often simple.
This runs counter to almost all of my experience on
NYC public transportation. Any notable moments spent
on a subway usually do nothing more than expose human
awfulness at its most pronounced.
My first realizations of this came as a New Jersey
youth who took the PATH train into Manhattan. The
PATH is a subway that carries the public of the
Garden State into lower Manhattan. Since many people
in New Jersey are convinced that New York is a crime
riddled nightmare where cars get broken into
constantly, a lot of people drive to towns with PATH
stations and go from there.
I used to park my car in Harrison, a small town
between Jersey City and Newark. To take it you must
transfer at Journal Square to continue on the Newark
line, and one thing I quickly learned was that anyone
on the Newark line late at night was someone to be
wary of. They were either a person down to cause
trouble, or someone who would be unsurprised by
trouble and was ready to step up and deal with it.
When it comes to public transportation exposing the
shittiness of humanity, the PATH train stands out for
being the place where I saw not one, but TWO separate
incidents where people picked physical fights with
mentally challenged people. The first instance
involved a man wearing a silk short-sleeved button
down shirt covered in dollar signs and pictures of
dice repeatedly waking up a sleeping man who appeared
to have Downs Syndrome.
The afflicted man would yell in terror, and the silk-
clad gangster would then laugh and clap and try to
get everyone else on the car to laugh and clap. We
didnt laugh and clap, probably because we were all
wondering if there is a point to being alive.
On the second occasion, I was on a weekend train that
had to stop in Hoboken. A clearly challenged man
stood with a ten-speed bicycle. A Hoboken dickhead
businessman sat in a seat facing his bicycle. If you
dont know Hoboken dickhead businessmen as an
archetype, congratulations. Theyre a lot like other
dickhead businessmen, but theyre even more insecure
about trying to be shitty alpha males, since they
live in Hoboken. This guy wore a suit, had a real
shitty moustache, and looked generally like the kind
of guy who would have fingered a sleeping girl in
high school just to see if she would wake up and
protest.
The troubled guys bike was shaking, as bikes tend to
do when held on train cars traveling at high speeds.
It hit the businessmens knee, and in his coke-addled
state he jumped out of his seat and grabbed the
mentally challenged man by the shirt.
Touch me again with that bike, he snarled, and Im
going to fuck you up.
The challenged man looked at him, emotionless, and
shouted, SIR, I WILL VOMIT ON YOU. Sir, I promise,
I WILL vomit on you.
No one else on the packed train said or did anything.
New York subways are not the same as the PATH, which
has an omnipresent feeling of despair about it.
Subways in the city are used so heavily that theyre
not always fucked upbut when they are fucked up,
theyre really fucked up. I first realized this when
I was in college, when I still hadnt spent much time
on the subways since I am a Jersey kid who would
rather walk 150 blocks then admit he is nervous about
taking subways and show weakness. A group of
teenagers descended upon the car, making noise,
jumping onto seats, and just generally behaving like
groups of teenagers did in 80s movies.
One of the kids took out a matchbook and stuck it in
between the laces of a passed out homeless guys
shoe.
Whoa, stop, I said.
OR WHAT? one of the drugged out teens shouted at
me. The friend I was with put his hand on my shoulder
and shook his headthese teenaged kids were fucked up
on something and looking for trouble.
We got off at the next stop and as we exited the car
we heard screaming and laughing at what I can only
imagine was the heightened shittiness of a homeless
mans life via unnecessary foot burning.
Two of the scariest moments I ever had on a train
came shortly after I moved to Astoria. The yellow
line services the area and goes above ground after
Queensboro plaza. I lived at the end of the line, on
Ditmars Boulevard, and the commute was always a pain.
The train was constantly delayed, and since there was
only one line that ran through the neighborhood,
everyone on the train tended to be stressed out and
avoid anything that would cause a train to stop.
I once took a train home around seven at night, on a
brutally hot summer day. The car was full of tired,
dehydrated people making their way home from work.
Each person looked more exhausted than the last, and
they all looked extremely annoyed at the fighting
family in the center of the car.
A mother, a teenaged daughter, and a toddler-aged
girl all occupied the center of the car, and the
mother and teenager were having the kind of screaming
match only a mother and teenage daughter can have.
Their fight started pretty loudbut that was merely a
foundation. As we came above ground, they were lacing
into each another. The daughter told her mom, I
cant believe how stupid you are, the mom made
threats about grounding and vague references to a guy
who was trouble and steering her daughter in the
wrong direction.
They made their way towards an exit of the car and
continued fighting as the train rumbled on. We got to
the next stop and the toddler did the logical thing
one does after walking to an exit, and stepped off
the car.
Only, that wasnt their stop. The mother and teenager
didnt budge. And because they were screaming in one
anothers faces, neither noticed that the younger
sibling was off the train car.

Every single person on the car realized what was
happening a split second too late. The toddler turned
from the platform and looked to her older sister and
mom, slightly confused. She was just about to open
her mouth and say something when the doors started to
close.
The people nearest the mom and teenager jumped from
their seats. One said Hey, wait
But it was too late. The door closed completely and
the mother and teenager stopped fighting and threw
themselves against the windows of the subway door.
Mom! the toddler shouted and reached her hand out
towards the glass as the train began moving.
Stay right there, the mom shouted, dont move!
The toddler chased the train car.
Mom!
Dont move, dont talk to anyone, just stay right
there! the mom reiterated. Then, the train was past
the edge of the platform.
An eerie silence fell over the car. Wed gone from
grimacing as this family screamed, ruining our
collective commute, and now each person was wide
eyed, shocked, and unsure of how to react.
The teenager turned to her mom. What do we
We run back, the mom interrupted her. We run back
and we get her and we pray no one takes her before we
can.
Everyone on the car heard that grim statement of
intent. No one knew what to do. We just waited until
the train pulled into the next station, when the mom
and teenager sprinted off the car. The doors shut
again and there was a large chorus of people exhaling
for the first time in minutes.
I checked the paper the next day and there were no
reports of a train platform kidnapping in Astoria.


That wasnt even the worst thing I saw on the N line.
On another trip home, I was on a completely packed
carthe type where youre involuntarily making
physical contact with multiple human beings. This is
one of the grossest facts of life about New York
City. We pack ourselves into steel rectangles and rub
thighs, butts, and armpits every once in a while when
the trains are running slow.
At each stop, a few people got off, and the effect
was like loosening the notch on ones belt after
Thanksgiving dinner. Every time five or so people
stumbled off the train to head home, everyone else
had a little bit of breathing room. And the looks on
the faces of the people who got to exit was one of
total satisfactionthere are few things as
uncomfortable as an overly packed car, and few
moments as gratifying as getting off of one.
But to the horror of myself and many others in my
area, as people exited and we were able to loosen up,
and as peoples bodies were no longer obstructing our
view, we saw something no one ever wants to see:
A dead body.
He was a black kid, no older than 19 years old. He
was stretched out on his back over three seats, his
head hanging at an awkward angle over a steel bar
that marked the edge of the seats. His left arm hung
limp towards the ground, above a skateboard that was
flipped over where it had dropped from his grip. His
hoodie was pulled up, obscuring his face, which
seemed weird on such a hot day.
As he came into view, I went rigid and my face was
overtaken by fear. But as I looked into the eyes of
the people closest to the body, I saw a similar look
on all of them. And via the unspoken code of New
York, I was able to tell what all of them were
thinking.
Look, this kid is going to be dead if we call the
cops now, or if we wait until Ditmars and call then.
Doesnt matter. Nobody do something stupid and hold
this train up for an hour. Well call at Ditmars so
we can all get the fuck off the crowded ass train.
Dead is dead, now or later.
It was New York at its coldest.

I didnt call the cops. No one did. With each stop,
the car became less crowded and more people realized
what was going on. The hardest-souled among us were
glowering at everyone else, pragmatists to an inhuman
degree. Examining the faces of others on the car
revealed a spectrum of emotions, with myself and a
few people on the far other end from those leading
the unspoken charge.
I started to cry; it was one of those rare and awful
moments in life when you know you are failing
yourself but still remain too frozen and confused to
take action that will correct the situation.
You should be calling the cops, I thought to
myself. Why arent you the one doing something?
The car pulled out of Astoria Boulevard, one stop
from the end of the line and home. I looked down and
continued quietly crying. I looked up at the boy.
Heroin? I thought to myself. Probably heroin.
Then the train swayed in the wind a bit, and the body
tumbled off the seat to the floor.
And woke up.
The reactions of those on the car were varied and
profound. Some people burst out crying. Others burst
into grins. A few laughed. Those who had been
dictating the dont call vibe looked down in shame.
The kid was clearly completely drugged out of his
mind. He sadly pawed the ground looking for his
skateboard, grunting in pain and holding his hand up
to shield his eyes from the light. He slid onto his
back due to the momentum of the train, then propped
himself up and sat on the floor, staring at the
ground.
He was fucked up. He had looked as dead as dead gets.
For all I know, he had been ODing and came out of it
and maybe for a few minutes actually was dead. Im
glad he wasnt, though myself and everyone else on
the car that day still got to see sides of ourselves
as if he had been.
Public transportation is like a magnifying glass that
shows you civilization up close. Ive seen good
things on the train too. Strangers comfort each
other. Old friends reunite unexpectedly. People who
clearly just fell in love make out in corners.
But there are also creepy masturbators, violent
maniacs, and troubled souls. The bad you see in NYC
is troubling to know when it rears its ugly head.
But today, I had none of that. Yes, sometimes this
metropolis involves watching kids wind up in danger,
or assholes trying to light a mans feet on fire, or
a train car collectively ignoring death for the sake
of personal convenience. But today was about a girl
no one would normally notice singing beautiful songs,
and everyone stopping to actually listen.