Mon 25 Aug 2008
8:16 hurtling toward Gotham this morn.
Conductor comes around for tickets. The man in front of me is Hispanic, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He’s snoozing.
“Tickets, please,” says the conductor, a normal looking man, about 40, black.
The Hispanic man wakes up. He doesn’t have a ticket.
“Where you going?” asks the conductor. All eyes gradually shift to the scene. It’s more interesting than the Monday Journal.
The man mumbles something.
“Fourteen dollars,” says the conductor. “You owe me $14.”
The Hispanic man mumbles again. The conductor walks away to punch more tickets.
He returns about 10 minutes later.
“Fourteen dollars,” he says, then in Spanish (catorce?). “You owe me money.”
The conductor is not rude, not disrespectful. Just direct.
“Next stop is 125th,” says the conductor. “Where you trying to go?”
The rider mumbles something about Mt. Kisco, then “Plezz.”
“Pleasantville?” says the conductor. “Mt. Kisco? You’re goin’ the wrong way.”
The conductor realizes he’s not getting money out of the man. He walks over to the vestibule and writes something on a ticket receipt. He returns to the Hispanic man.
“Get off at 125th Street,” he says. “Tell the conductor you’re going to Mt. Kisco.”
He hands the man the receipt. That’s what it says, Mt. Kisco–so the Hispanic man can simply show it to the conductor.
“I’m not going to charge you,” says the conductor, and walks away.