Fly Catcher

I know it's a cliche to say that "Only in New York" would one find oneself in certain circumstances or witnessing certain situations but sometimes there's just no good explanation for what you see. With however many millions of New Yorkers riding the subway 24 hours a day the City's public transit system is more like a common medium that New Yokers use to commune with one another than a method for getting from Point A to Point B.

One weekday evening around 8pm heading home from work I ran down the staircase of the 23rd Street station at Park Avenue South to catch the 6 train uptown to home. I always ran down these stairs assuming that my train was either just pulling in to the station or was going to be very soon and time was of the essence. However, this time, no train awaited me and I paced the platform near my waiting spot where I knew the doors of the train would open and I wouldn't have to walk in either direction along the platform to board. Within a few minutes, the train pulled in and I boarded. When I board a train the first thing I do is decide how badly I want to sit down. I could be willing to push aside pregnant women for a seat, dead-set on standing regardless of how empty the car or be somewhere between these two extremes only sitting if someone sitting right next to me got off.

There are many unwritten rules for train riding. One of them is that when a train car is crowded - you don't occupy more than one seat by spreading your legs or torso across the seat bench. You pull yourself in and allow others to sit. Sometimes, however, this rule is broken by drunk and passed out homeless people. In all their glory they stretch out and dare you to tell them to sit up. For someone to blatantly disregard the most basic of the unwritten subway rules sends the message that they don't really care about any of the other riders and are a bit of a loose cannon. If you do approach them about sitting up there's no telling what they might do. They've already set the bar pretty high by carelessly spreading themselves across 3 seats- who knows what other kind of lunacy they might try to pull off? It was this kind of communal thinking that helped explain a very peculiar sight on one of the seat benches on the Uptown 6 train on this particular evening. A sleeping African-American man, probably in his late 30's had spread himself across one of the shorter benches on the car that consisted of only 3 or 4 seats. His feet were pressed up against the wall end of the car with his body spread across all 4 seats and his head and shoulders resting on the railings that helped form the doorway on the side of the car facing me. The car itself was actually pretty crowded with other passengers but they made a respectful circle around this guy and didn't bother him at all despite the valuable space he had claimed for himself. I followed suit and was struck by how this reclining man was actually laying down at what seemed like a very precarious angle. His head was actually resting on a corner of the railing by the door with his mouth wide open and his sharp bicuspids exposed for all to see. His legs were brought together and bent at the knees balanced on the edge of the seat with both of this knees actually hanging over the seats themselves and his feet leveraged against the wall of the car. The part of his body that seemed to be most effective at keeping him in one place was his right arm that was wedged securely between the seat back and the front seat railing that joined the ceiling by the doorway.

As the train continued northward a post-work hush fell over the passengers leaving the only audible sounds the train rattling ahead at untold speeds and the soft, wheezing and slightly gagging snore of the main laying down on the seats across from me. This man and his open mouth, still frozen in a silent scream was completely oblivious to his surroundings. He had to have been drunk in order to sleep so soundly given his position and the number of gawkers he had attracted. I wondered how long he had actually been on the train - maybe he had been asleep since Atlantic Ave. - or even better somewhere out near Brooklyn College. As the train made its stops and more people boarded I enjoyed cataloging all of the strange looks this sleeping man earned from new passengers. But despite the stopping and starting and numerous passengers boarding and de-boarding this guy did not move an inch. By the time we got to 68th Street I started to give serious consideration to the fact that this person might be dead and the snoring I heard just some air backflow that had made its way into the car through an open window. With 86th Street quickly approaching I cautiously approached the doorway to the subway platform away from this sleeping passenger and prepared to embark. Before I could do this however I was gripped by some perverse curiosity to look into this guy's mouth and to see how far down his throat I could actually see. Maybe someone else at an earlier stop like Astor Place had a similar idea but had actually dropped some kind of a note or other token of good luck down there for me to find. If it was a twenty-dollar bill or something I figured I could fish it out with a pair of tweezers or something. I cautiously peered into this guy's mouth but to no avail - it was completly empty and dark. I of course, held my breath to guard against any hammer-wielding bad breath but after a quick glance I had enough of this curious sight.