TIFU Choosing an empty car on a crowded subway

This happened yesterday in NYC. I took the A train uptown from 59th St as I always do coming home from work. It was relatively busy for a Saturday and there were lots of folks on the platform and already on the train. So, when the car the pulled up closest to me (in the middle of the train) was nearly empty, I was pretty stoked to get a seat.

Stepping onto the car, I noticed all of the windows were open, which is weird for a cold January day. Then, as the doors closed behind me, I smelled it. I imagine it would have hit me sooner, but masks delay these things I guess. The smell was a putrid mix of primarily urine with notes of vomit and a distinct fecal finish. “Oh no,” I thought.

My eyes dart around the car to find the source of this olfactory abomination. The first thing I find is one of the benches has been… used. This long seat was defiled. It, and the floor around it, were covered in what was unmistakably bodily, but not immediately specifically identifiable. The smell is making me wretch in my mask.

I find a seat. I realize that I am now trapped in this car on the long stretch on the express like between 59th and 125th. That’s when I notice the man who without a doubt was responsible for the state of the car. He is drunk and unshowered. He is stumbling (dancing) to music only he can hear around the car. Stomping through his own mess and tracking it throughout the car. By some feat of gravity defiance, the man does not fall over when the train lurches to the side.

I am not completely alone on the train with this man. There are others who made the mistake of getting on this empty car on a packed train. We were all greedy, foolhardy. 125th approaches. I weigh my options: I can leave this car and run to another. There’s a small chance I don’t make it to the other car and miss the train. There’s a large chance I don’t get a seat. The alternative is me quite possibly being alone in this car on my way to Dyckman/200th. The man is now banging on the windows. I decide to risk it.

I dart out the door as soon as it opens and one of my fellow passengers has made a similar choice to me. Two people on the platform attempt to get into the car. We tell them they don’t want it. We tell them not to. They do not listen. Me and my new compatriot make it onto the next car on the train, now without seats but considerably more comfortable. We laugh when we realize why we’ve moved cars. We are brothers.

145th St comes. The two people we told not to go on that cursed car now enter our car. They avoid eye contact with my friend and I. We tried to warn them; they, as greedy as we once were, saw the promise of an empty car on a busy train and took it. But everything in life has its cost, and they realized that empty car was indeed empty for a reason.

We all learned something on this day.

TL;DR Got on a subway car that was empty for a reason. Didn’t realize until too late.