I heard it yesterday and then again today. It could be I’ve missed it before while in a straphanger fog. But two days in a row means it’s probably real and not an illusion.

Yesterday I was on the F train coming home at about 6:36pm. The train was sparsely populated with lots of empty seats. I looked up from my book when the announcement came on because we were stopped between stations at the time and I thought the announcement would be about a delay on the line. I pay attention to delays.”Ladies and gentlemen,” the conductor’s voice began. “A crowded subway is no excuse for a crime of sexual misconduct.” There was more, but I lost some wondering why he was talking about a crowded subway when the car wasn’t even a quarter full. I looked around to see if I was missing some large grouping of people all pushed together somewhere out of my line-of-sight. The conductor might also have said, “sexual harassment crime” instead of “sexual misconduct,” but that could just be me, hearing things, because I’m taking my agency’s, mandatory all-staff-must-attend, yearly workshop on sexual harassment in the workplace on Friday.  I looked for a pen to write down what I’d heard, but by the time I found one the lines were already fading from my memory. There was something about, “… report the crime to your nearest MTA official.” It could have been farthest MTA official, or nearest police, or farthest transit officer, but I missed it so I don’t know.

Today at 5:38pm, on a half full V train sitting at 23rd street, an announcement came on the loudspeaker that sounded like it was a canned PSA. “There is no excuse for sexual misconduct on the subway. If you believe you have been the victim of a crime please contact… ” I missed the rest while I wrote the first part down. I have to learn how to write faster. This time there was nothing to do with a crowded subway and it was followed by an announcement on the train intercom, right above my head about delays in front of us and all trains going express on the F line.

A cityroom blog at the NY Times from October 2, 2009 has the full quote. It seems the campaign was originally a subway advertisement PSA. It said, “Sexual Harassment is a Crime in the subway, too — A crowded train is no excuse for an improper touch. Don’t stand for it or feel ashamed, or be afraid to speak up. Report it to an M.T.A. employee or police officer.” There’s some cause and effect. A June 2006 incident following a July 2007 poll of 1,800 straphangers stating that a large proportion of women had been harassed or assaulted, culminating in the written PSA in September 2009, a slew of handouts (neither of which I’ve ever seen) and either a verbal PSA or a conductor taking the initiative and doing a live version in March of 2010. A four year odyssey to try and address a problem that’s been around since the beginning of time. The problem, as usual with these kinds of campaigns, is it puts the onus on women to do something about it. Don’t feel ashamed or be afraid to speak up, the PSA says, as if the problem is that women aren’t speaking up rather than men behaving badly. Why not a message to all the people who see it happen and don’t say a word, saying, Speak up - don’t allow sexual harassment on the subway. Or, Don’t let men get away with this abuse. Or better yet, why not address the perpetrators with, Sexual misconduct on this train is a crime and won’t be tolerated. Don’t do it or you’ll end up in jail.

Maybe that will be next years campaign.

There’s a poster in front of me showing two guns, one red the other black with the caption, Which is real and which is a toy? above it.

These public service ads have been out since since December but every time I see them I stop and ask myself, Which is real and which is a toy?I look at them and think, this is too obvious - the black is real and the red is a toy. But then I read the sub-headline which says, It’s not the one you think. So the obvious answer then has to be the red gun because that’s not the one you think, which is the black one. But, if my original thought is that it’s the red gun, because why have the ad in the first place if the answer has to be the red gun, then… it’s not the one you think makes me think the obvious answer has to be the black one is the real gun. But, what if they’re both real? It doesn’t say that can’t be, but then why ask which is real… if you don’t want people to make a choice. No, it has to be one and not the other. So the real one has to be… the red one. Unless… it’s the black one in which case it can’t be the red one.Where is my train?

At this point, waiting for the F to arrive I’ve already spent way to much time thinking about guns, something I’d rather not do since I don’t believe anyone should have one, unless they’re a superhero who has only good in his or her heart. Though why a superhero would need a gun because they’re, well, a superhero, I don’t know… unless they’re The Punisher, or Batman. They use guns of various sorts, I think. Or… Hell Boy. Yes, he uses a big gun - a very big gun.

I checked on the ad in a piece from the Daily News and they report that indeed, the red gun is the real gun and the black gun is the toy. It seems City laws require toy guns to be painted red, yellow, or blue (bright colors indeed), only, surprise surprise, gun dealers have caught on and painted real guns the same colors. I’m not sure what all this means other than guns, toy or real, mean trouble. How do British Police officers do their jobs without guns?

Can you image a British ad with a picture of a nightstick - what the English call a truncheon - one red and one black with the caption, Which is real and which is a toy? It’s not the one you think.

There’s a heartbreaking Page 1 story in today’s NY Times about a 13 year old boy who, fearing a scolding at his Bensonhurst home, ran away and spent the next 11 days riding the rails. Francisco “Franky” Hernandez Jr. eluded both the police and his frantic parents until a transit officer paired the boy up with the picture on a handmade “Nino Perdido” sign at a Coney Island station Oct. 26.

Franky was diagnosed with Asperger’s, sort of a high-function autism condition, in recent years. He’d run away on the rails once before; in January, Hernandez–also in trouble at school at the time–rode the subway but returned home five hours later.

The story offers a tragic look at a mother’s efforts to connect with an Asperger’s child, who typically has extreme difficulty expressing emotion, and a school system’s apparent inability to find a productive environment for such a kid. It doesn’t make the NYPD and the city’s extensive surveillance system in the subways look so hot either.

The boy rode the D, F and 1 train and subsisted on food purchased at newsstands: chips, croissants, jelly rolls. He drank bottled water and used the bathroom at the Stillwell Avenue station.

Franky’s mother, Marisela Garcia, isn’t about to throw away the stack of Nino Perdido signs she made last month.

“It’s not easy to say it’s over and it won’t happen again,” she said.

Blade Runner

I’ve been driving a lot this week – three days into Manhattan instead of the subway. My son goes to school on Long Island and this week my wife was working in Manhattan so… I got to take my son to school, then drive in to work.

The world is very different on the LIE heading in to the Midtown Tunnel. I’ve driven in to Manhattan before and even during rush hour, but it’s been a while.

The entrance to the Tunnel is still ominous, dark and dirty. This morning it reminded me of the Los Angeles in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Perhaps it was the overcast sky and lightly falling rain, or maybe the bumper to bumper traffic. Looking forward there was the dingy skyline of Manhattan. Looking to the left and right should be Queens, but all I saw were cement highways, off ramps, and solitary green faded signs announcing the last chance to leave before the tunnel.

There was a sea of oversize billboards to the left and right of the Expressway above the cement, floating in the sky, surreal.  There was an Abercrombie and Fitch ad with two ripped, bare-chested men on it and there were two billboards just before the tunnel that flanked the two men, one for Rick’s Cabaret and Steakhouse (code for strip club) and Scores New York – The All New Legendary Gentlemen’s Club. 

Leaving the interesting juxtaposition of the words all new and legendary aside, Scores’ billboard was the real headliner. It had a silhouette of a pole-dancer front and center and dark silhouettes of hands rising up from the bottom of the billboard, like the undead, fingers splayed, reaching for her.

Behind and to the left of the Scores billboard was a giant screen that ran advertisements – television commercials without the sound.

I was listening to NPR.

And the rain came down.

Tomorrow I’m back on the F.

I can’t wait to be underground again.

–Joe Lunievicz

[image: pennways.com]

–Joe Lunievicz

Subway Surreal 

F-train. Friday Afternoon. Rockefeller Center stop. 

A book, The Wisdom of No Escape, by Pema Chodron, lies open in my palm. She’s a Buddhist monk who lives in an abbey on Cape Breton Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. She writes a lot about suffering and loving kindness. What a combination. It’s quiet for a moment except for the hum of the subway machinery.  

A gust of wind enters through the door and swirls into a circle. I don’t know where it comes from — we’re underground. A large sheet of multi-colored newsprint floats up, out of the reach of a man sitting next to the door. It floats up. He watches it, as if amazed that it’s left his lap.

It floats one way then the other, rising to his eye level, then settles to the Earth, landing on the floor to his left, in the open doorway, half in and half out. The man stares at the paper.

The buzzer sounds and the doors begin to close. The man hesitates, as if unsure of what has happened. Maybe he’s wondering just how important that piece of paper is. Maybe he’s just realized he hasn’t read that page yet. Then he reaches down for the piece of paper, bending over the side bar.

The doors shut, crushing the center into a butterfly, wings on either side. The man’s fingers miss the paper. The doors open three times quickly, closing after each opening. The man reaches, misses, reaches, misses, then makes contact and pulls the sheet of newsprint into the car as the doors close one final time. 

I feel like I’m in a Buster Keaton silent film.

The man settles the paperback onto his lap, smoothing it out and snapping its crease back into shape as if nothing has happened.  The train pulls forward with only a few minor hesitations.The Wisdom of No Escape calls to me. 

–Joe Lunievicz  

iPhone, iGame, iSubway

What caught me first was the name of the software company – Goorusoft.  

It couldn’t have been the wanton violence, mayhem from the shooting cannons, the sensation of rolling waves, or the sound of wood as iron cannon balls cracked decks into splinters.

Horatio Hornblower, here I come.  

I’m not usually a sucker for video games but this one got me. Warship puts you at the helm of a sailing ship out to fire broadsides against all enemy warships (which means everybody) in the age of sail. You move the iPhone to turn the ship and tap the screen to fire a broadside. It’s incredibly hard to clear a screen – Hell, the iPhone is so small it’s incredibly hard to see the screen.

And I’ve only cleared one area out of eight, and I only did that once. The first version of the game came without instructions. Thank God the updates came in and clarified what you were supposed to do – other than try not to get four ships in a row sent to Davy Jones’ locker. Here’s the problem. Warship has gotten in the way of my serious subway reading and my straphanger observing. I get on the F and lose myself in the rolling seas and incoming broadsides. Next thing I know it’s Roosevelt station and time to get off – half an hour gone.   

I’d sworn a while ago I’d never be one of those guys playing a handheld video game on the subway, earphones in, thumbs pounding away at the control buttons and toggle switch, oblivious to the world.  Better to be reading a Kindle. So, I’m not. There’s no toggle switch. Just a tilting screen, like a rolling ocean’s surface, and a tapping thumb on the screen – one thumb, not two. And you have to wait until your cannon has been reloaded before you can tap again or you’re just wasting your thumb energy. Today I decided to be a little more aware of my surroundings on my trip home. Or at least try to be. I was on my second ship when the F train came, the platform on 23rd Street not too crowded yet. I had to do something while I waited, didn’t I?  

I couldn’t look up from the screen – or I’d get hit by the three Santa Maria-size Spanish warships closing in on me in area 3 – the North Sea and the English Channel. Just what were the Spanish doing there? Was it another armada?

Don’t get caught up in the story line, I told myself. Just fire another broadside.  So, only bumping into one person, excusing myself twice, and getting through the car doors, I almost fell when the train jerked to a start. I took a wide stance with my back to the door, my backpack cushioning me as I smacked against it every few feet. I thought I smelled the ocean. No, it must have been someone’s aftershave or perfume. Maybe it was sweat. It wasn’t important except that it threw my steering off and my ship went down in flames. Crap.  I looked up and two women and a man were right next to me. The train was crowded. The guy was looking down at my screen. Where’d all the people come from? My ship had appeared again and already two cannon balls had made splinters fly into the sky in my wake. Crap again! I dipped the screen to the left, tapped to fire and ran for open sea. 

The woman to my right watched me. I saw her in my peripheral vision. My elbows were a little wild so I tucked them in against my ribs and squinted against the screen glare. Forget about her, I told myself. You’ve got a ship to command. Damn the glare.

Where’d my ship go? There it was. I held the screen a little further away trying to get a bead on the action. Use the force, Luke, I told myself and escaped from a closing knot of enemy warships, taking out one ship but starting to smoke from the damage I’d taken in the skirmish.

Dodge and weave, dodge and weave. I took out another ship then reinforcements appeared from three sides of the board – now that’s not fair! Damn those game designers. There was nothing to do but pound away as I steered between two of them taking broadsides from both sides. My ship sank and the word failed, appeared across the screen.  I looked up and the car was packed.  My heart was pounding in my ears. 

People pressed in around me. Don’t touch the phone. I need space. Give me room, the commander of my ship yelled inside my head. I looked at the station we were passing – 65th Street. How did we get into Queens? Was there time for one more game? We hit the dark tunnel between 65th Street and Roosevelt just as I tapped the word Sail, and my ship appeared on the rolling ocean waves of the North Sea once again.

This time those Spanish ships were going down.  

Huzzah!

–Joe Lunievicz

Dog and a Pack

It’s the F train but I’m only traveling from 23rd Street to 42nd for lunchtime yoga. The train’s not too crowded but I’m standing anyway. When I’m not teaching I sit a lot at my job so when I’m on short trips on the subway, sometimes I just like to stand. A woman gets on behind me with a large German Shepherd on a leash. 

I didn’t know non-working dogs could travel the subway. I see them sometimes but rarely.

Checking the MTA website, here’s what Article 1050.9 h 1. & 2 says:

1. Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (2) of this subdivision, no person may bring any animal on or into any conveyance or facility unless enclosed in a container and carried in a manner which would not annoy other passengers.

2. Paragraph (1) of this subdivision does not apply to working dogs for law enforcement agencies, to service animals, or to animals which are being trained as service animals and are accompanying persons with disabilities, or to animals which are being trained as service animals by a professional trainer. All service animals and animals being trained as service animals must be harnessed or leashed.

Okay. She should have been busted – that’s settled — but on with the tale.

The woman is wearing black cargo shorts, a brown baseball cap, a green tank top and has on a large, stuffed, army backpack. I can’t tell what’s in it but it’s big, it’s packed and it’s ready to burst. Her light skin is burned red at the shoulders and throat. She has red freckles on her cheeks.

She walks over to the two-seater and stares down at the seat, contemplating its availability. A man sitting on the other seat smiles up at her. I can’t tell if they make eye contact or not because my line of sight doesn’t give me an angle on her face. The guy does the ‘subway shuffle’, moving himself a little further into the corner of the seat, as if he’s taking up too much space – which he isn’t.

He’s a tall, thin, black-haired, iPod holding, white t-shirted, jeans-and-black-converse-sneakers twenty-something. His smile disappears and his eyes go wide as she seems to ignore him, turns around — presenting her back and backpack to him — and sits down.

Her backpack pushes way past the imaginary line that separates one kingdom from the other, invading his space and then conquering it. He is caught by surprise and can’t get out of the way quick enough. The backpack makes him turn sideways and pushes into his chest pressing him into the wall.

The woman leans forward to pat her dog on the head and the guy gets a breather but then she sits back and presses him into the wall again.

I smile. I can’t help myself.

The next time she leans forward, the guy squeezes out from behind her and switches to the empty seat across from him, shaking his head and adjusting his ear buds. The woman’s dog sprawls down between the ends of the four two-seaters taking up the whole passageway, panting. Nobody can get past the critter, even if they wanted.

I get off at the next stop. The dog lifts its head and his gaze follows me out of the car.

–Joe Lunievicz

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.

Kindle Hunting on the F

Two sightings in one week.

Two days ago I was standing on the F train, late afternoon, crowded enough to stand, but not so crowded I couldn’t breathe, when I spied what appeared to be a black leather cover about the shape and size of a Kindle. I couldn’t believe it. All this time I’ve been waiting to see one on the F and there it was.

I walked carefully across the car to get a closer look – not too close, because this is New York and staring at people doesn’t go over too well. I stepped on one person’s foot and had to apologize twice during the short passage.  

I stopped ten feet away.

I gazed at the leather cover and then… away. There was something wrong. The cover was flat and not shiny. Up closer it didn’t look like the same kind of leather I’d seen on the advertisements and on my wife’s machine. There was no cream colored interior. I was pretty sure the device the cover was holding was silver with a black/gray screen.

It wasn’t a Kindle. It was a Sony.

Advertisements galore, but no Kindle. Instead a Sony Reader had infiltrated my ‘hood. I looked at the owner. He was Caucasian, maybe 30, balding, had a belly, carried a black messenger bag, wore a white shirt, no tie, black sneakers, and glasses. I wasn’t sure what it meant but I filed the description away in the back of my brain.

Then this morning, on the F, I went into work early, caught the train about 7:35. There were seats available on all cars. That all by itself was amazing. At 8 or 8:30 it’s a mob scene.

I stood for a moment, looking to see whether I could sit or not. I did a quick seat-or-stand scan of the car. There were no pregnant women standing – no women at all. A couple of guys were leaning against the door but they were young and healthy, clearly choosing to stand. There were no elderly straphangers waiting for seats to open up.

I was good for a seated passage.

A seat next to a man, thirties, balding, glasses, white shirt, black pants, black messenger bag, slight belly, but wearing black shoes, was sitting down at a two-seater by himself – and, I shook my head to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, he was reading a Kindle.

It wasn’t the same guy from two days ago but it could easily have been his brother or twin. I hesitated another moment then sat down next to him.

There was something different about this Kindle. It was bigger, wider – more like the size of a large hardcover than a trade paperback like the Kindle my wife has but still won’t let me read. Yes. It was the new model – specially designed for folks who want to read larger items like newspapers or magazines. It’s the exact same looking model only bigger.

I couldn’t help myself. I stared at his machine. He glanced at me then back at his Kindle. I stared some more. I had to hold my hands in check so I didn’t reach out and touch the thing.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but is that the new larger sized Kindle?” I asked.

He nodded.

“What do you think of it?”

“I like it,” he said. “I only just got it but so far it’s pretty good.”

“How does it compare to the smaller one?”

“I don’t know. I only have this one.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to your, you know, reading.”

He nodded and smiled at me, then shifted a little away, just enough for me to notice.

I nodded slowly, smiling myself.

There you have it folks. First the advertisements for the Kindle — then a Sony Reader. Now, finally, after months of searching for one on the F train coming into or out of Jackson Heights – the Kindle had arrived.

And both electronic books were being used by bald white men in their thirties, with small bellies and black messenger bags. Keep an eye out. You never know where they’ll turn up next.

–Joe Lunievicz