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

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

Like most New Yorkers, I always followed the unwritten rule to mind my own business on the subways – to keep my eyes, hands and thoughts to myself – but over the years things have changed. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time in my life on subways and just feel completely at home, or maybe it’s just because how else I am going to pass the freakin time on my commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back every day? I read enough at work and I am so sick of every song on god’s most beloved invention of the past ten years, the ipod.

Yesterday I was on the F train, heading home. I like to listen to other people’s conversations and I don’t give a crap if they know it. I’ll often stare at them as if I’m a third member of the conversation without much to say. So it’s a couple, probably in their very early 20s. The girl looked Puerto Rican and the guy was some sort of white. They were having what seemed like a manageable argument. I couldn’t tell how long they had been together and that disappointed me, as I like to think of myself as some sort of all knowing dickhead when it comes to figuring out people without knowing anything about them. Anyway, the argument was something about how much he was spending on a gift for someone. I was much more interested in them than the conversation itself and I started getting lost in the way they communicated rather than the words they were actually saying and then it hit me – they reminded me of my parents and the way they used to argue when I was growing up. The guy also looked like my dad a bit, sort of like the creepy Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. My mom is a Sephardic Jew so it was a similar contrast in skin color. Anyway, all of the sudden the guy turns to me and asks “what the fuck are you looking at? You staring at my girl or are you some sort of homo looking at me?”

“well, this might seem weird,” I started, “ but you guys actually remind of my parents…”
“your fuckin parents? How the fuck can we look like your parents? How old do we look?”
“no you just remind me of them when I was growing up. The way you were arguing..”
“you know what? Fuck you! Come on Lisa, let’s move over there.”

I said nothing more and let them walk away but as I turned my head there was a girl staring at me. As soon as we caught eyes she diverted hers to the floor that she wanted me to think she had been looking at the whole time.

“I was staring in on their drama, you can certainly do the same with mine.”
“Uhmmm, I’m sorry, I uh…well it was just weird, ya know?”
“yeah, I guess my life is.”
“weird?”
“yup”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen something like that before.”
“You’ve probably never been on the train with me before.”
“No I don’t think I have.” It was at this point that she gave it away, that she liked me in some sort of way. Just the way she said it, the look she gave. My friend describes it as the feeling that you already know someone. I think that’s bullshit but get what he’s saying. I think of it more of liking someone a lot really quickly and not being able to be shy or guarded about it.
“Hey, my name’s Hershey.”
“Hershey? I like that. Is that your real name?”
“Well, my birth name is William Herschel Browne but my mom called me Hershey right from the start. It was her father’s name. He died six months before I was born.”
“Wow, you really don’t mind telling strangers a lot about you, huh?”
“What’s your name?”
“Uhm, this is weird. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with this. Besides, my stop is coming up.”
“Can I buy you a drink?....maybe just a coffee?....”
“I think it’s a little late for coffee.”
“OK, then a drink?” She stared at my eyes for a few minutes, trying to figure me out but I just smiled back at her and tried to make her feel as though I’ve never done anything like this before either.
“Well, OK. Just one drink and then you go home.”
We pulled up to the Carroll street stop and walked off together.
“I’m Allison.”
“I’m Hershey.”
“I know.”