Underground, Above and Beyond: The Casually Edited True Life Subway Adventures of Hershey Browne

My Baby Takes the Morning Train

A crowded or roomy subway car is, for the most part, completely random. Yes, sure, common sense tells us that a rush hour train will be more crowded then its off-peak cousin that pull up at 11am or 9:30pm, but one can take the same morning train at the same time on two different days and have completely different experiences. One day you can comfortably commute with a full luggage set and favorite cocktail table arcade game, the next day you are the patient at an amateur proctologist's conference. Where am I going with this? Not very far - just a couple of stops into my morning commute this past Thursday. (Now that I think about it, this past Thursday was Holy Thursday but the story is in no way connected, and as a Jew I don't know enough about the holiday to draw any comparisons or symbolism - I open the floor for those who wish to).

So...it's one of those crazy-ass crowded mornings. I squeeze into the train like a fat guy's tucked-in shirt. I get a couple of glances and grunts but feel as though I was within the limit of an understandable amount of people within a crowded train. I glanced back at the disappointed, inviting conversation but my glances were met with diverted eyes. Next stop, a couple more people get on and at this point we are at full capacity with the only room left for crowd surfers and spiders. Following stop, doors open, woman with a baby in her arms and stroller at her waist. No room, but the woman, her baby and the stroller wants in.
"Excuse me, excuse me, I need to get in!" People just stare at the crazy woman like she's ordering auto parts at a Chinese take-out.
"You all gotta move in so we can get on!"
"Hey lady," rose the voice of reason somewhere behind me. "Train's full - take the next one."
"You take the next one - we gotta got on this train." Just then, the woman, baby in arm, shoves onto the train, the stroller jamming into my shin like a dull lawnmower blade.
"Holy shit!" I screamed. I'm not one to swear in public but couldn't hold back. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" By this time I was somewhat aware of my language and used 'hell' instead of 'fuck' to find a happy medium between keeping it clean and trying to make my point.
"You jus' gotta move in and then nobody gets hurt."
"What? Really? You're serious?" At this point the crazy woman had shoved herself into the subway car by pushing the stroller into my shin forceful enough that it was now at a high enough angle to allow herself to be within a few inches of me. The stroller was almost standing upright between us and the baby was above it, in her left arm and pretty much in my face as if it was about to give me an eye exam. In general, I love babies but not when the baby's stroller is digging a dent into my leg. Plus, this baby looked mean. Ya know how a baby can look mean? This was an ugly, mean-looking baby.
"I'm serious about getting into the city, so yeah, I'm totally serious and if that's not good enough for you, you can suck my ass!" Ok, this was really funny but at the time I was failing to see the humor in it, and besides, this was not the first ass on my suck-list.
"You know what...fuck you!"
"Fuck me? Fuck you!"
"Fuck you, fuck your stroller and fuck your baby!"
"Fuck my baby??!!! Fuck my baby??!!!" And then the strangest thing happened... "Clarence, punch the man!" And before I could comprehend this, before I can wonder who names their baby Clarence, the baby swings his arm and gets me right in the eye. If it got me somewhere else I would have been fine, but a little fist in the eye, no matter how light, freakin' hurts. Now I don't know exactly how old this baby was but he couldn't have been much more than a year and the whole scenario has not stopped blowing my mind even three days later.

I just stood there, squeezed between countless people, a stroller digging into my leg, baby Clarence staring me down as if to say 'you want more bitch?' and his mother behind him, her Paulie to his Rocky. My eye was stinging and starting to tear. All eyes and ears were now on me. I realized that I had been beat. Albeit, completely unfairly and unjustly beat, but beat all the same. Even if I was a fighter, I could not hit Clarence the ugly baby or Paulie the suck-ass mother. All I could do is let the tears run from my eye. And sing. I belted it out as loud as I could. I even think I heard a girl in the distance harmonize under her breath. Usually I would have tried to locate this girl to see who she was, see if there was any possibility for a spark, but not today, not right now. Right now it was all about singing....

My baby takes the morning train
He works from nine till five and then
He takes another home again
To find me waitin' for him....