I was very excited to discover a new way to get from the UES to Penn Station - well, new for me. Like a dope I’ve been taking the 6 down to Grand Central, the S over to Times Square, and then the 1 or 2/3 down to Penn Station. Of course the most logical way to get to where I’m going is to take the 6 to 51st Street and then the E to Penn Station. Uncharted territory! Just call me the Christopher Columbus of the transit system.

So I’m sitting there all self-satisfied, wondering why the E isn’t packed like the 1 or 2/3, when suddenly the E fills up with fucking lunatics.

I know I’m sheltered, mostly just riding the 6 between 77th Street and Grand Central - or when I’m feeling adventurous, all the way down to Canal Street! - every day, and maybe I’m just not used to so many loonies all at once in such a short period of time. But you be the judge.

It didn’t start off badly. Just an annoying know-it-all older guy lecturing an even older woman (his mom, maybe? god I hope not his wife) about big pharma and some gene that was trademarked and that Johns Hopkins wanted to use but couldn’t. Fairly interesting except that he’s amazingly loud, even over the rattle and screech of the rails.

Then he starts to go on about some movie - “I know you had a hard time understanding it,” he tells the woman, “and I want to help you,” and then proceeds to blather about the intro being a prologue or some such shit, I don’t know.

So he wants to help her, right? At least to understand this movie. But at their stop, he basically leaves her in the dust. He bullets to the door, she tries to get up on her own, and almost totally falls. And this lady was not a hearty soul, lemme tell ya. She looked like a strong breeze could snap her in two.

THEN, I hear from the other end of the car, “Next stop 42nd Street!” and I think this is actually very helpful because I was just wondering to myself what the next stop was. I think maybe the conductor has come out to tell us this, like they do on Metro North and NJ Transit. But it’s not a conductor. It’s this Rain Man type person who has a subway map all open and who repeats over and over, “42nd Street next, just one more stop, 42nd Street next.”

NOT ONLY THAT, a homeless type guy comes in, and he’s not just homeless, he’s a crazy, lecturing type homeless guy. Apparently when we buy the Daily News, we’re helping Joel Steinberg. “YOU HELP JOEL STEINBERG WHEN YOU BUY THE DAILY NEWS!” We also help the “big shot lawyers” and any child killer out there, and DON’T WE KNOW THE DAILY NEWS IS A COMMUNIST NEWSPAPER, and that you gotta hate America to buy the Daily News, and he has a habit of talking loudly and then SUDDENLY SHOUTING so that everyone turns to look at him, and I see everyone look at him because he’s standing not 2 feet away from me and I’m trying my darndest not to make eye contact. For the first time in a long time I feel like, Oh my God, I’m seriously about to be attacked.

Meanwhile Subway Rain Man guy has lurched across the train, subway map unfurled, muttering, “42nd street next, just one more stop, 42nd Street next,” which is just about what I’m thinking except my stop’s 2 away.

Maybe I just need to get out more. Immune myself to the crazies like they’re bacteria.

Related posts:

1. A Missing Persons Report (and a first post)
2. Smelly car on the F train, beware straphangers
3. Penn Station: The More It Changes, the More It Stays the Same
4. who’s got two right feet?
5. Above and Below