I know a lot of people who ride the LIRR regularly. There are also millions of people I don't know who ride it regularly; every day in fact, as they commute to and from work in Manhattan or wherever it is they are choosing to go. Many of these rides are totally eventless and click by quietly as issues of the Times and the Post and the Journal are digested, gallons of coffee are consumed, faces are applied with a deft expertness and text and e mail messages are sent to anxious recipients.
The trains in the LIRR are actually not bad in terms of condition and provided environment. Frequently, you will get a clean train with a high-backed seat and you can ride in relative comfort to your final destination. And by "you", I mean everyone but me. Now I don't claim to have any monopoly on train experiences, because due to the infrequency of my rides, I'm certainly not going to have the biggest trove of stories. That said, it does seem like every single time I ride that train, something totally effing bizarre happens. Today was no exception.
Today started with an annoyance known as my VW Beetle, which is nearing the death of its life-sucking lease. In a great mood to rid myself of its annoyance, I skipped onto the train at around 10:30am to go out to Long Island and return it. Anyone who knows me, knows this was an extremely momentous occasion. So I cruised into Penn Station right on time, bought my ticket and went down to the platform at track 17 to board the train. There were only a handful of people there, which was fantastic because that meant my own seat and possibly my own section of seats, where I would ride undisturbed and read the paper. But ahhh....no such luck.
Of all the cars on this very long train, a man comes to sit across the aisle from me. He is either going to or coming from work, toting a white hardhat, workboots, black jeans and a wifebeater tanktop, from under which I can see several interesting, violent and slightly fading tattoos with the look completed by two thick, silver chains around his neck. Let it be known that I have no problem with tattoos and actually sport some myself. 'Nother subject though.
Upon choosing his seat, he turned to me and began talking. I had not made eye contact with this man, nor did I intend to, but there he was, talking and talking, as if willing me to listen to his meandering, nonsensical shit. I learned, again without even making eye contact, that he was staying with friends in Manhattan, but was on his way to Long Island to pick up his Social Security Card from another friends house and from there would go back to Queens to open his union book and pay his dues, since he had secured a union job and was straightening his life out.
The reason his life needed straightening out was because he had recently been released from jail, where he'd done a 60 day stint for slashing the tires of his neighbor, who apparently had been stealing checks from his mailbox. I inwardly noted that taking said neighbor to the cops for mail tampering would have been a better course of action, but what do I know. So the tires were slashed, the amount added up to a felony and off to jail he was carted, losing his apartment in the process. He also peppered in that he had previously had a drug problem that centered around Angel Dust, but that he was totally clean and never wanted to mess with that shit again.
Angel Dust, for anyone who doesn't know about it, is some seeeeerious shit. It makes one angry, exceedingly deluded and extremely violent. People can pull off things like lifting cars and scaling un-scalable surfaces on it. I suppose that since I was clad in work attire with makeup on and a decent handbag, that my new friend thought I had never seen a hard day and had no idea what he was messing with. He staunchly maintained his sobriety, though he did admit to slipping up and smoking it over the weekend. Roight. Looking into his eyes, I could scarcely make out a pupil and by his speech and behavior, it was plainly obvious that the dude was lit as hell.
So there were a couple of references made to the fact that he was not a murderer, though he had threatened people when on 'the dust' and that all he wanted to do was make movies. He even busted out a zed card with his photos, measurements and agency information and told me to keep it. At that point, we had come to a stop and he jumped up out of his seat and asked me to watch his things. He then came back quickly, retrieved them, and I heard a tussle with the conductor as to whether he was getting off the train or remaining there. I heard nothing after that, the train's wheels began to roll and I relaxed, thinking the fiasco was over. Not so much, actually.
I heard the sound of heavy steps at one point and thought that he was coming back down the aisle, but didn't see him until he came sauntering in from the opposite direction at the next stop. Whaaaa???
"I'm a stuntman!" he declared. "I just ran across the top of the train while it was moving and then came in the front door! Lost my hardhat, though."
"Tough break." I replied, not looking up from an unnecessary story about Brad Pitt attending a Yankees game.
"Hey! Wanna take a picture of me doing it again? This time, I'm gonna run front to back. Yeah!" He was emphatic in his enthusiasm.
"No way," I said "We'll both get arrested and I have too much to do today to deal with that."
He seemed to be discouraged enough to sit down, but then when it was announced that the train would be delayed at the stop for another two or three minutes, he became re-invigorated, begged me one more time to take the photo (I again, declined), and ran off toward the front of the car. Thinking peace was at last mine, I settled back into my reading and waited for the lurch of the train so I could continue on my quest.
It was at that moment that the announcer came on again to tell us that there was a "problem" with one of the passengers on the train and that we would be delayed until the police arrived. Not to worry though, the passenger in question had "run away", so no one was in any danger. And there we sat. For upwards of a half hour, we sat, sans scary, trouble making passenger in question and waited. He had jumped off the far side of the platform and into a field of tall weeds and run away. We had to wait for the cops for that? He ran away; just start the fucking train and let the rest of us get on with it.
As the cops arrived, most of the passengers had left the train and were talking or sunning on the platform. I decided to join them for a moment and as I exited the train, I realized the card in my purse may actually help this circus to move along. I walked up to one of the conductors and shoved the card into his hand.
"This the guy you're looking for?"
"Hoooolllyyyy shit. It is!" He was looking at me with suspicion in his eyes. "You know dis guy?"
"No," I said, "He was rambling on while I was trying to read the paper and he handed this to me."
"Whaddayou, dis guys agent uh somtin?" He was laughing now, and the other conductors and a couple of cops had come over to check out the card.
A zed card is a card that is handed out by modelling and acting agencies to prospective clients. It has a person's height, weight, measurements (down to the shoe size) and a few photos to show different looks. This guy had basically handed himself to the fuzz. I turned on one heel and started back to the train, amid the stares and whispers of my fellow passengers and the cops behind me discussed the stupidity of my new friend. It was at that point that the clog was unblocked and we were given the okay to roll on down the line. I haven't checked the blotter to see if it was noted or if he was caught, but something occurred to me at that moment.
I used to commute on the Metro North every day. An hour and fifteen minutes on the train, one way, every single day. I rode that train to work, back home, and even in the wee hours of the morning after nights out in the city. Nothing like this ever happened on that train. In fact, nothing that would even be considered noteworthy happened on the Metro North in all that time. And then it dawned on me....
All those people were going to Connecticut.
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