There was a white sky at dusk.

There was a white sky at dusk. I headed home through the dimming light thinking grateful thoughts of how, next week, this time of day would be even brighter and how many miles could be run in the park before getting on the train.

Down the stairway, through the turnstile, down the next stairway and, while untangling my headset, I wound my way around the people on the platform to the point where the second door of the first car of the A train would stop. It's the kind of thing you learn to do here, stand where you know there will be a door on the train that will open just for you, near an empty seat just for you, even during rush hours.
We settled in for the twenty -six minute ride to Washington Heights. New Yorkers read at every opportunity. They read while on line at the Post Office, they read while waiting for a bus or a train, they read while they wait for their order to be bagged at the deli, at Starbucks, at the news stand. Yes. They are reading something else while the news stand guy puts their new Lucky magazine in a plain black bag. (The same bag you get at the liquor store.) They read hard cover books, they read newspapers, they read flashy magazines and pulpy looking novellas in every language, so it was no big deal when the train stopped just before we got to 145th Street. Everyone had plenty to read.

Stopped trains on the way to work are more of an annoyance than stopped trains on the way home, I don't know why, they just are. Trains stop all the time, we should tell tourists that. There should be signs up in the stations that say "You will seldom get to your destination without the train making some unexplained stop."

This stop continued for longer than normal.
There was, of course, no announcement.

Finally, the train budged and then, twenty five yards later, stopped again. This time the PA crackled something about a stalled train in front of us. We moved again and with a few clicking noises switched over to the local track and proceeded to ooze into the station.

There was an announcement. Someone had thrown themselves in front of the D train which had been in front of us. The train we were on was not going to the north end of Manhattan but was turning right at the next point and heading to the Bronx.

Joy enthused.
We all stood on the platform and waited for a train, any train, to come. None did. We read our books. We did the suduko puzzle. We read the back pages of the newspaper, the arts section, the section with the recipes for Salmon with Dill Sauce. We leaned out over the tracks looking for the glimmer of a headlight.

I gave up and walked upstairs. I figured I could hoof from 145th and St. Nicholas which is where I emerged. 145th and St. Nicholas is not like 145th and Broadway. Broadway has stores and shops and lots of people walking about, St. Nicholas at this spot is a canyon of worn tenements and the only people on the street were stranded passengers like me.

Taxis are a rarity this far north. What you looking for is a Lincoln Town Car. You just wave them down. There is no meter, just you and the driver, you tell him where you want to go, he takes you there and then tells you how much. You pay and add a little tip. That is if you can find a town car.




Ten minutes went by, okay, maybe five, but still... it's dark. No cars. I asked a couple of women how far north they were going. To Inwood, said one, the other named a street one block from mine. "If we get a car, we'll split it, okay?" I said and I got on my cell and called Kennedy Car. I love Kennedy Car, you speak a little Spanish and the guy sends a car to where ever you are. We got a car in two minutes. (The Heights are crawling with towncars.)

We piled in with another guy on his way to 179th and Broadway. I'm up front with the driver, the women and the guy in the back. They are all much younger than me.

Here's where this becomes a New York Story: in the next fifteen minutes, the time it took to get from 147th to 186th, the three of them shared just about everything about themselves. The dark haired woman was trying to gain weight so she could have a baby. The guy was newly married and he and his wife were thinking about moving to North Carolina. The other woman, after calling her husband to say she was on her way, asked what names had been picked out for the baby and, a surprise to me, there were some: Yuki- if it's a girl, Micah -if it's a boy unless the husband thinks that too ethnic. Mother-to-be has too little body fat because she is a professional ballroom dancer. (Ballroom is about as hard as jogging, I thought to myself.) Other woman says she wants to buy an apartment before having a baby and tells first woman about some healthfood drink she should try if she wants to bulk up. I missed the name while pawing through my wallet for some cash.

Woman and I get out at 181 Street, she has to walk up the hill to Fort Washington, I have to walk down the hill and over a block. I give the driver a big tip. Four stops is a lot, okay three stops, but he was very good. Goodnights all around.

All in darkness now, I walked down Broadway wondering if there will be a Micah or a Yuki, wondering if the guy will leave New York for Durham, wondering who it was who threw himself in front of the rush hour D train. Over to the West there was still a slice of white sky.