Sparks Fly on the Uptown 2

A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I boarded an uptown express train at 42^nd street just looking to get home. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were walking into one of the most confusingly intense semi-showdowns that we would ever experience.

In the city, nobody really talks or looks directly at each other on the subway. This ride was dead silent, except for one man who was especially disgruntled, pacing back and forth, looking real steamed. As we skated past 86^th street, he exploded, pounding the top of the car with his fist and declaring that he was “SICK AND TIRED” of people always "grilling his shit" day in and day out.

It sounded serious. We had so many questions. Who was this guy? Who was grilling his shit, and why? What does that even mean? We waited and listened in silence along with the rest of the train, but that was about as clear as the situation would get.

The man carried on with other equally nebulous statements of anger, lamenting that “bitches don’t know” him, yet they “keep stepping” to him. He then extended an open invitation to all passengers while pounding his fists, saying that if anyone wanted to fight him, they should get off at the next stop. I was immediately relieved, knowing that the next stop wasn’t ours, and waited and watched from my perch next to a German tourist, like a nature photographer watching a tiger on the hunt.

The trip took much longer than expected, and the man, feeling the momentum of his threats waning, restarted his pacing and fist pounding, exclaiming “I cannot WAIT to get to this next station!!” and reminding us (in case we forgot) about the promised fight that lied ahead. At this point, the man’s friend, who did not share his anger, trudged over and pleaded “please man, if you get off, I’m not coming with you. We waited a half an hour to get on this train!”. But the man would have none of it, and when the train stopped at 96^th street, he stormed out like a man on fire.

I held my breath. Would anyone get off? Would fists start flying? Would there be blood? What happened was as anti-climactic as it was intriguing. Everyone who needed to get off did. Men, women, and children, as matter-of-factly as ever, walked right past the fuming man as if he hadn’t said a word the whole time. When the train rolled out of the station, a tall older man in the corner of the car spoke up. “I just bumped into him on my way in. I wasn’t going to fight the kid over it! Maybe 20 years ago, but not today…I’ve got to go see my nephew’s basketball game today!”

So there was a true slice of New York. Young anger, older wisdom, confrontation and voyeurism, floating in a sea of indifference.

- Varun and Daven