Tag Archives: m train

NYC, Stories

M Train, 5:11pm

I’m on my way home. I read a book for a while, one I can’t decide if I like or not. Then I tire of trying to figure what side of the fence I’m on and clamp headphones to my ears. The book is replaced with a Jean Shepherd radio show from 1966. I know where I stand on Shep.

In this episode, Shep talked (among other things) about one of his first radio gigs: hosting a remote from a funeral parlor on the south side of Chicago. One of the funeral parlor’s employees would play hymns on a Wurlitzer organ, with Shep occasionally interjecting a pitch for the sponsor’s services. In his retelling, he promised his audience the tale was the god’s honest truth, even raising his right hand as if swearing on a Bible. It was the radio, of course. The audience had to take his word on that gesture as much as they had to on the truthfulness of his story.

I’m standing near a door. A young man seated in front of me gestures, trying to get my attention. He might have been doing it for a while. I was so wrapped up in Shep’s funeral parlor tale I wouldn’t have noticed. I yank out one headphone, but don’t quite catch what he’s saying. So I yank out the other headphone, but his words are no clearer. I ask him to repeat himself.

“Elmhurst?” he says, pointing a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the station we’re about to leave. It is in fact Elmhurst Avenue. I don’t know why he won’t turn around and take a look for himself out the window to his back, but I confirm that yes, this is Elmhurst. The doors have already closed. If Elmhurst was his stop, he’s too late to catch it.

But it seems it’s not his stop. He says something that I can’t quite make out. It unsettles me because I can’t understand why I can’t understand him. He has no thick accent and he speaks clearly. And yet, something about the way he talks interferes with understanding. His words are slow to register in my brain. I ask him to repeat himself.

“[BLANK] got shot here on Saturday,” he says. “He was killed.”

I can think of nothing to say except, “I hadn’t heard about that.”

“It was on the news,” the young man says. His voice remains flat and distant. The look on his face matches. He’s not trying stir up sympathy. He’s disseminating cold, raw information that he feels I should know. He could be telling me when this station was built, or how many people live in this Congressional district.

I paraphrase myself, “I’m sorry, I hadn’t heard about it.”

“It was in the papers,” he says. “In the metro.” He adds corroborating evidence, but maintains the same level of emotion: zero.

My stop arrives. I line myself at the door, anxious to leave. The young man speaks again. “Woodhaven?” he asks, investing the street name with only the slightest hint of a question mark as he jabs a thumb toward the platform behind him. He says Woodhaven like it stands for a complete phrase all the world should know how to respond to.

“No, this is Grand,” I say. The doors should be open by now, but they’re not.

“Woodhaven?” he asks once more, as if he hadn’t heard me.

“Woodhaven’s the next stop,” I tell him. But he keeps staring at me. He doesn’t want to know where he is. He wants to tell me more about what Woodhaven signifies to his mind, what information it conveys to him that he must share with this train, and he says something. I hear words and I see his lips move, but none of it makes an impression. I’m sure what he says makes sense, but not to me.

“Woodhaven’s next,” I say as I rush out of the train, though I know it’s not what he wanted to hear. And then I add, “Sorry,” as the doors close. I couldn’t leave without saying that I could not help him.

NYC

Dress for the Scam You Want, Not the Scam You’re Running

m&ms.jpgI remember my first encounter with M&M kids. This was just post college, would’ve been around 1999/2000. I was on Broadway in the upper 90s, wandering around on my lunch break, when I was accosted by a couple of pre-teens who said they were selling candy for their basketball team. I gave them a buck and walked away with some Peanut M&Ms I had no intention of eating.

I also remember that, in the exact second the kids were out of earshot, I was immediately counter-accosted by some VERY CONCERNED woman who said to me, “You don’t REALLY think that money’s going to a basketball team, DO YOU?!” I shrugged and told her, “If it’s not, there are worse scams.”

To this day, I have no doubt that few–if any–of the kids who sell candy in this city do so for actual charities. But again, if it’s a scam, to what end? My only theory is that it rids Hershey of every last horrible pack of Peanut M&Ms, since that’s the only brand these kids ever have. And because Peanut M&Ms are an abomination.

However, I think this scam–if that is, indeed what it is–has run its course. Because the kids doing it have gotten progressively younger over the years. That suggests to me the real scam is some older scammer convincing naive types that The M&M Job still works.

But I got the real evidence of its demise last night. As I rode the M train home, I heard a kid make his pitch through my iPod headphones. “Scuse me, ladies and gentlemen, sorry to disturb your conversations…” I couldn’t see him from my vantage point–I sure wasn’t gonna try and make eye contact–but he sounded a little older than the usual M&M kid.

Shortly thereafter, my fellow subway riders cleared a path for him. I found this odd, because people usually ignore the M&M Kids. Plus, this car was pretty packed. But I found out in seconds why they cleared the way for him: He reeked of weed. This guy didn’t look nearly as high as the Stoned Man I saw at Toys R Us last December, but he smelled much, much worse.

Any dedicated scammer knows that a scam can only succeed when the scammer appears sincere and respectable. You don’t want the public at large to suspect you’re using their money for personal gain or nefarious purposes. Or to go roll up a fatty and laugh your ass off to Friday.

Once a scam has passed hands from skilled actors to young kids to degenerates, the scam is dead. I expect The M&M Kids to completely disappear from the city by year’s end. And it’s all thanks to the Cheech and Chong enthusiast I saw on the M train last night. Thanks, mysterious stranger!