Every day, twice a day, I rush through a packed Grand Central.

But not last night.

I arrived at the station around 11:15 p.m., having just missed the 11:08, and forced to wait for the 12:08. Needless to say, I should’ve checked the schedule. I blame it on my L.I.R.R upbringing–you simply showed up at Penn Station whenever the Billy Idol concert finished or night of drinking at Back Fence Inn came to an end, and there was almost always a train within the next 15 minutes.

Not anymore.

It was weird to see GCT so empty, to hear it so quiet.

The novelty wore off after about a minute, and I was just a guy in a train station, wishing he was home.

I figured I’d get a beer at the little Two Boots bar downstairs, but everything on that level was closed. A few people read newspapers down there. The homeless sat and slept. Five Mexican men, off work for the night, sat at a table and drank cans of Tecate.

I went upstairs and walked around the concourse. A cop buggy flew by, almost hitting a woman. The cops braked near the subway entrance and bolted down to the train platform. One of them shouted something accusatory at a middle aged man who was buying a ticket from the machine. The guy barely flinched.

I walked around some more. I found a little tickets-only (read: no homeless) waiting room that looked brand new, with shiny wood benches and a set of restrooms. There was a Departures screen showing every last stop in the system, not just the hubs.

I thought about getting a drink at Campbell Apartment, but didn’t have the $42.

The clock crawled along. It felt like 4 in the morning. I snatched a schedule and stashed it in my bag, then grabbed a backup and put it in my pocket before boarding the midnight train to Hawthorne.

Sorry for the boring post.