Straphanger Joe is a Person of Interest

Recycled Rubber

I came through the glass doors two days ago and headed towards the turnstile, my wallet already out and my card ready.

An officer stood by the turnstiles, leaning against the silver gate, his hat at a cocky angle. I saw him at the same time he saw me. I smiled and he pointed to my backpack. I stopped a few feet from the turnstile not sure what was happening. He pointed from my backpack to a place beyond my left shoulder. I looked behind me and saw a plastic folding table, behind which stood two other men in blue with their hands on their hips.

I looked back at the officer who had pointed at my bag.

“Bag check,” was all he said. Three women and a man walked past me and through the turnstiles, business dress. He didn’t stop them. I was wearing a blue t-shirt, jeans, sandals made of recycled rubber.

I was terrorist material.

I shrugged.

“Sure,” I said and headed over to the table, swinging my backpack off my back.

“Open it up,” one of the cops said, obviously bored, as I put it on the table.

I smiled at them both. One nodded.

Without getting too close he gazed over the edge of my bag and looked a little inside, squinting. He motioned me to be on my way with his hand, then stepped back and crossed his arms across his chest.

I pulled my backpack on again and walked past the same officer who’d stopped me moments before. I smiled at him and he smiled back, then motioned at a young kid with a backpack to go have it checked.

“Bag check,” I heard over my shoulder.

I’ve seen the police at the Roosevelt Station many times on my way down into the subway, but this was the first time I’d ever been stopped or actually seen them stop someone – in this case me. Usually the cops are like wallpaper – part of the scenery. That day they were bas-relief. I wonder why I got stopped? Maybe they saw something in me that was, well, dangerous?

Today, this morning, on my way to the same turnstiles, I saw the same cop. He didn’t seem to remember me. He stopped a young dark-skinned man who was trying to pass through the turnstile in jeans and a t-shirt a few feet ahead of me. I walked up to the turnstile right in front of the cop just to see if I’d get searched this time too. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt again, and sandals too — same ones, made from recycled rubber.

The cop took one look at me. As I took out my Metro card, he said, “That one doesn’t work.”

“What?” I said, ready to head over to the table with the two cops again for my bag search.

“That one’s not working.” He pointed to the turnstile in front of me. The one my card was about to be swiped at. There was masking tape across it.

“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”

I moved over one, passed through the revolving bars, and headed down into the bowels of the earth, where a new F train waited for me.