I was doing my laundry one afternoon in my apartment building. It was a hot summer afternoon and I could here the jingling of bells signaling that the shaved ice vendor was passing. As I quickly stuffed a last load of laundry into one of the industrial sized dryers, a small girl with straight hair and thick glasses approached me to seemingly study my haphazard laundering technique. Her neck was craned forward; her brown eyes fixed on the machine. “Hi, what’s your name?” I asked her. “Ruby. Yours?” “I’m Brooke… Ruby, why don’t you help me out and put in the quarters for me.” I handed her a few quarters and she eagerly popped them into the slot and proudly surveyed the waterfall of soapy water falling onto the clump of clothes.
“Ruby, what are you up to today?” A precocious child, Ruby proceeded to give me a dissertation on how life at home had changed following the birth of her baby sister. “My mom is up a lot with my sister. She is pretty tired because she isn’t sleeping that well. She is cranky too. My sister cries a lot. My mom is tired but that’s okay.” A social worker in training, I responded: “Sounds like your mom is tired.” Having not watched TV with commercials on a TV screen in over a decade, I wasn’t prepared for her response. In a matter-of-fact, robotic tone Ruby replied, “Yes, she is tired. But it’s okay. When you are tired, you can take Ambient PM to sleep soundly. It is commonly prescribed by doctors and my mom can get a prescription from her doctor. I think she should get a prescription from her doctor.”
My mouth hung open as I pieced it together that drug companies were running drug commercials and Ruby, presumably sitting in front of the screen in the afternoons, had become one of their audience members. I responded, “That’s nice Ruby. You know, I hear camomile tea works well too.”
-Brooke Conley, Brooklyn
It was a the winter of 2008, the world was fresh with possibilities and the Dow was above 12,600 (its now around 7,600, but I’ve lost very litte because of my accute trading strategies - no money in the stock market at all.). It was my first trip to New York City. My first “Only in New York” showed me the generous spirit of humankind, going the extra bit for a fellow in need, and stomping out the indifference, apathy and meanness that sometimes consumes that spirit.
During my first trip to NYC, my girlfriend and I were having problems maneuvering our luggage through the turnstiles at Penn Station. A massive crowd came and went and still we were unable to push the bulky baggage through - so we went over to a transit worker and inquired about a door we saw next to the turnstiles. The transit worker uttered a few things under his breath but didn’t move a muscle to help.
I gawked at him for another second and then went back to the turnstile to jam my bag past the pronged web of steel and confusion. We were getting frustrated, but a few more kicks would have had it.
All of a sudden, though, we noticed a clattering of aluminum cans approaching from behind us. A homeless man, shouldering a large bag of beer and soda cans, stood to survey our sad situation.
For a well-traveled but ultimately naive Coloradoan like myself, what he did next simply stunned the senses.
He simply threw his bag over the turnstile, then leaped over himself…without paying…in front of the idle transit worker!
The homeless man then walked around to the door we had eyed earlier and let us through. The transit worker remained nonplused. The guy yelled at the transit worker, “You *@%ing dick!” and then turned to us and asked if it was our first time in the city - I nodded.
“Welcome to New York City, the greatest place on Earth!” he said walking away with his bag.
-Jeff Smith, Brooklyn (www.civsourceonline.com)
Kindle Count on the Subway:
5
this morning, on my commute to work, a man toting a cello and a small collapsible stool boarded my subway car. as he walked from one end of the car to the other, all passengers with headphones on (like me) removed them in anticipation of quite the performance event.
the cellist stationed himself and began to play. luckily for him, the train was not very crowded and he could easily find a place to set up. everyone watched. surely no one had seen anything quite like this before.
a man sitting across from me (who appeared to be a fellow commuter) pulled a small camera out of his messenger bag. he squatted in the middle of the car and began to take a picture. immediately, the cellist stopped playing (he had made it through just a few bars), collapsed his stool, and got up. the camera-man confusedly stood and retreated to his seat. the cellist walked up and down the car, presenting his hat for money. when he reached the photographer, some kind of altercation ensued. while i couldn’t hear exactly what was said, hand gestures led me to believe the cellist was reprimanding the camera-man. the photographer reached into his pocket and audibly said “i’m just trying to tip you, man,” and the cellist walked away.
i mean, sure, it would be irritating and weird to have a stranger take a picture of you if you were just riding the subway, minding your own business. but this man boarded the train with intentions of playing a large classical instrument, for money. did he seriously not expect someone to gawk and want to take a picture?
Kindle Count on the Subway:
4
