The Subway Delinquent

Proof, that I am a dangerous criminal!

My family was known for many things when I was growing up, but being on time was not one of them. As hard as we tried, I cannot recall a single event to which we were not anxiously rushing. My mother would try to combat this by setting our clocks fast by several minutes, but the only thing that came of this was that each room of our house had its own slightly different time zone. When it was 8:15 in my parents’ bedroom, it was 8:17 in the kitchen, and 8:19 in the car. In reality it was 8:05 and we were scheduled to be somewhere by 8:00. On Sunday mornings we were always late for church. This never stopped my mother from making a grand entrance and saying hello to folks in each pew as we made our way to whichever unwanted empty space was still available.

I would like to say that the embarrassment of chronic tardiness has pushed me to rebel in a more punctual direction as an adult, but it has not. Try as I may, I’m always running behind. Luckily for me, New York provides a myriad of plausible explanations for such things, many of which are even true from time to time:

“A street protest closed down my normal route, and so I had to take a detour.”

“A sewer line burst, causing fountains of liquid filth to flood lower Manhattan.”

“My train started running express for absolutely no reason and skipped my stop!”

Because of the unpredictability of the city, New Yorkers have adapted to a culture of leniency, for the most part, when it comes to planning. If you make dinner reservations for 7:00, it really means 7:15. If you tell someone you will meet them in 20 minutes, it really means up to 45. If you say you’re on your way, it means you’re still squeezing into your pants. We understand and accept this, all the while, still hoping that we’ll become our perfectly punctual selves, next time.

On a recent Friday morning, I found myself several minutes behind schedule as usual. Was it my fault that the coffee girl was in training? With a steamy to-go cup in hand, I was power walking with determination. As I bounded down the subway stairs to the turnstile, I felt the dribble of my hot beverage absorb into my woven gloves, and quickly turn cold. I rifled through my pockets to find my MetroCard, swiped and saw the dreaded green letters flash on the grimy display; “SWIPE AGAIN AT THIS TURNSTILE.”

Every New Yorker’s heart sinks just a little when this happens. It normally means that the card reader at the turnstile is gummed up, but if you switch to another terminal, the machine will likely “think” you are up to no good and refuse your entry. In good faith, I swiped again, only to see the same message. I swiped a third and a fourth time, with the same result, until I swiped a fifth time and saw the worst of all the turnstile messages: “JUST USED.”

My heart was racing. I could hear the train approaching the platform below. When “JUST USED” appears on the screen, it means the machine “thinks” you have already entered at that station, and you are now just trying to let your friends enter with your card. You are prohibited from trying again for 15 minutes. In a normal case, I would have gone to the attendant in the booth to explain the situation and have them grant me a manual entry, but there was a line of at least a dozen old ladies buying single-fare cards with change being counted out of sandwich baggies. I did not have the luxury of time to allow senile and bespectacled octogenarians to finish with their archaic ritual. The rumble of the approaching train was growing stronger and the pace of everyone else in the station was quickening in response.

I had two choices. I could follow the rules; wait my turn in line behind the grandmothers of Brooklyn and be noticeably and inexplicably late to work, or I could take matters into my own hands. I had indeed paid my fare. It was a mere malfunction of technology that caused the problem I was now facing. As the train could be felt slowing to the platform below, my morality shifted toward the quicker and more devious of my options. My heart raced. I looked at the line of old ladies at the booth, half of whom appeared to be sedated, and I looked down at the train doors below me which were now opening. I steadied my hot dripping coffee cup in one hand, and hoisted myself over the cold metal of the turnstile with the other. In one swift maneuver, I flew over the turnstile with the gracefulness of a groggy toddler.

No sooner had I crossed the threshold, then I heard a shrill voice yelling in my direction, “Sir! Sir! Stop! Sir!”

Much to my dismay, my little insurrection was witnessed by two subway police officers lurking in the shadows. The levels of New York City Police presence range from the riot squad holding shields and wielding assault rifles, to traffic cops moderating left hand turns in the middle of intersections to the subway police which have little more respect or authority than a high school hall monitor checking your bathroom pass. The particular individual I was dealing with embodied all characteristics of the classic NYC “Sir Lady.” If you have never encountered a “Sir Lady,” let me explain.

Sir Ladies can be found in airports, movie theaters, train stations and anywhere else that human behaviors are tightly monitored by rules of conduct that may not necessarily have legal consequences. They are uniformed, often uncomfortably in ill-fitting pants that betray the shape of even the fittest of humans. They are given just enough power to be obnoxious, but not enough to carry a weapon and they take themselves very seriously. Sir Ladies are required to look unamused at all times, and more often than not, they have a walkie-talkie holstered at their hip that choaks out static and microphone feedback.

My heart was racing and my stomach felt like it had sunk to my knees. The train below me was being filled and would soon pull away, leaving me behind. I walked over the the Sir Lady and tried to explain the situation as politely as possible. Before I could finish a sentence I was interrupted with, “Sir! Do NOT talk back to me. Just stand here for a minute while I do what I need to do! Give me your ID.”

She was enjoying the power trip.

She retrieved the walkie talkie from her hip holster as I handed her my Driver's License, then started yelling to a supervisor sequestered away in some unseen corridor. “Yeah, we’ve got a jumper!” she explained to a muffled voice on other end of the conversation. “Yeah… No, not a runner, just a jumper… Yeah.... Uh huh… Nope… Yeah… Ok.”

By this time, the train below me left the station and all of the passengers exiting were enjoying the show. It’s not every day you see a nerdy little man being detained by the subway patrol. I was trying my best to look as though I was not thoroughly embarrassed, but I suspect that my strawberry-colored face gave me away. Any time I shifted my weight or scratched my head, the Sir Lady would give me the stink eye. I tried to continue drinking the coffee in my hand, but this act drew her suspicion and so I stopped. How could I be so insolent as to consume coffee in her lofty presence.

After 10 minutes of mysterious walkie-talkie conversation, she pulled out her ticket pad and a pen. A scratchy unseen voice had given her the green light to proceed. It was obvious that she relished the opportunity to fill out a ticket, and she was going to savor the experience. With a smirk, she handed me a very illegibly written ticket from the Transit Adjudication Bureau. Without another word, she walked away to continue her noble work of “crime fighting” in other corners of the subway.

For my crime of acrobatics, I owed the city of New York $100.00. In nearly 6 years of living in New York, I have always managed to stay below the radar of the Sir Ladies, until now. I am officially a criminal, hardened by the harshness of the city. I have disturbed the peace, and been found guilty in the eyes of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Despite my attempted justifications of the turnstile card reader malfunction, she still described my crime as “jumping over the turnstile to avoid legal payment of fare.”

What have I learned from this experience? What wisdom have I gained from my brush with the law? It's hard to say. Will I change my ways in an act of atonement for my sins? Sure, if it’s convenient. Will this teach me to be more punctual and reduce my risks when running late? Who knows. What I have learned is that it’s always necessary to thoroughly assess your risks before committing a small victimless crime. Look around, especially in the shadows where the Sir Ladies may be hiding. My mistake more than being late, was being sloppy. For that, I am truly sorry. I hope that the citizens of New York can sleep more soundly knowing that justice was served.

My closest and dearest of strangers...

Anonymous portrait, captured somewhere underneath New York City...

I have said, on many occasions, that riding the Subways of New York is a much richer source of entertainment than one would ever find from cable television. Being that I do not have access to cable television, I see the inherent reasons to question my credibility in making such a statement, but I would argue it to the death, regardless. I have recounted stories of humor and woe, mere moments in the lives of others witnessed while moving from one place to another, and I've told narrative tales of things which people are willing only to divulge to strangers in moments of vulnerability, happiness or anger, but the truth of the matter is that the best tales are those untold by the folks who seem to just blend in to the background...

Moving about the city via the Metropolitan Transit Authority is a mess of sensory chaos that closely resembles the lunch room of a junior high school on the day before Spring Break, amplified by one million impatient people trying to get to work on time using a system designed to best-accomodate a significantly smaller population. Getting everyone on the train in the morning is much like trying to squeeze toothpaste back IN to the tube. With so many sights, sounds and smells (yes, smells of every sort) occurring simultaneously, it is a wonder that transit passengers are able to even remember where it is they were going to begin with. Generally when the homeless man is screaming and ranting about his missing foot and all of the people to blame for life's inequalities on one corner of the train, an obnoxious teenager is blaring intentionally-offensive music on a loud speaker at the other, and in between are the haggard and frazzled folks just trying to keep it all together so that they don't murder anyone by the the time they get to work. It is generally in the faces of these people, forcing themselves to disconnect from the massive orgy of events going on around them, that I find something very real and beautiful; perhaps something more human that is expressed when the pressures to engage with others around them are taken away.

A few months ago, I jumped on a certain chic and electronic bandwagon and purchased a mobile device, which needs not be named lest everything in the world eventually become branded, but this unmentioned gadget (for which I have great affinity) has allowed me the pleasure of capturing images relatively quickly, easily and, in many cases, "on the sly." Prior to obtaining this new tool, I would always look about the train on my way from here to there and see the most captivating scenes of the most mundane of life's available moments, and wish for a way to share them. I have found in life, that my inability to easily connect with others has only increased my fascination with watching them from a safe distance and making observations. With as much time as I spend eavesdropping and staring at strangers, one would think I could write an anthropological study, but I've yet to draw any solid or insightful conclusions about my fellow human beings. In my quest for understanding, my prize is generally just additional confusion, however, without a full understanding, there has been at least an acquired appreciation for the aesthetic of the strangers I see around me, just passing the time until they are required to be productive again.

Now, each time I get on the train, I'm looking more intently than ever before, because I've started to document the beautiful nothings I see all around me. I take portraits of people I don't know, people who don't know me either and who are (most often) unaware of my presence. Discretely, I snap silent images of other passengers who strike me during these moments in limbo when we're together. Some are happy and hopeful, others look like the most sorrowful to ever have been thrust about underground, but many are just trying to get through their days with as much pleasantness as life can afford them. In these moments when people are so inwardly focused, it's like seeing them in a state between sleep and wakeful life. For whatever reason, I feel such a strong attraction to these moments and I can't stop my compulsion to capture whatever it is that I find to be so lovely. There is a comfort in being a part of this phenomenon. To be a part of a big swirling soup of the most diverse of human experiences all stewed together inside of a moving train for minutes at a time before the next scene change is something I hope never to take too much for granted.

Although my ethics have been questioned and issues of privacy have been brought forward, I feel like my anonymous portraits of my dearest and closest of strangers on the train have been one of my most effective ways of embracing my city and my love for its citizens. Perhaps I'm deluding myself to think that they're anything more than a mere annoyance brought forth out of sheer boredom, but I feel like my intentions can hopefully be felt in the images produced thus far (be they as low quality as they must, given that I am in no way a real photographer, nor will I ever claim to be). I'm just a friendly subway stalker who steals moments of the lives of strangers. I'm sure one day I'll have grown tired of paying attention to the others around me, but for the time being, I can't help but explore their beauty.

To see more of my subway portraits, click the image below for a public album: