It was the 6:33 to points north last night, and we had the pre-M8 shitbucket train.
I got a seat on the Stenchbench and we were about to depart. A trio of exceedingly tall folks got on–parents in their 50s bookending a girl of about 20. They looked around, looked confused, struggled to find a good place to sit on a crammed train.
After some mumbled debate, the man and the daughter took two seats near the can (the equivalent of obstructed view seats at the new Yankee Stadium), the woman sat one aisle up and across the aisle, and they commenced their journey.
I heard them chatting. They were French. The man, who was about 6′ 4″ and looked like he could’ve played second row for Perpignan back in the day, tried to make a call on his cell phone. He wore crisp designer jeans and a black overcoat. His profile looked, frankly, like Bernie Madoff’s.
On the window of their three-seater was a young man in a buzz cut and a double fist’s worth of beer–an ambe ale in a plastic cup, a 16 oz. Lite bottle waiting in the wings. Recognizing his seatmate was not from our neck of the woods, Buzz told Madoff he’d have to wait until the train was out of the tunnel to his use mobile (Blackberry Hill, in commuter parlance).
Madoff smiled and nodded. The train did emerge from the tunnel, Madoff made his call, and began taking in the scenery in Harlem. He was extraordinarily interested in the dour tenements, looking past his daughter and Buzz at the graffiti covered walls, the Triborough Bridge (or whatever its new name is), as only a visitor to New York can be.
As urban gave way to semi-urban and then suburban, Madoff took it all in. He even asked Buzz a few questions about the local landscape, and Buzz was more than happy to play tour guide.
At one point, around Bronkers, Madoff got up and walked to a different car. (Not sure why. The bathroom was three feet from him, and his cell worked fine from his seat. Just a different vantage point, I guess.)
At that point, Buzz started chatting up the 20-year-old daughter, a leggy brunette. Surely Buzz had seen Vacation II–didn’t think the new Rusty kid was very good, but thought European girls were hot. He asked if it was her first time in New York; she said it was. I couldn’t make out the rest of what they were chatting about, but the language issue didn’t seem to figure in. He greedily gulped his Lite beer as he thought of the next pearl of New Yorker wisdom to pass along.
When Madoff got back in the car, Buzz clammed up and focused on his beer.
Madoff did indulge Buzz a bit more, and asked about this mythical stop known as North White Plains.
Madoff made a second break for another car, giving Buzz plenty of time to ask the Frenchie for her number. He wimped out.
When the train pulled into North White, the three Frenchies stood up. Madoff nodded a good-bye/thank you to Buzz, who did not see. Madoff tried it again while standing in the aisle, and Buzz nodded back with a smile.
The doors opened and our tourist friends were off to see what delights the travel guides may have skipped in North White Plains.
sounds like an eventful ride. i tend to get boozy on train rides myself.