Resolution

On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness, and the gift of privacy. The capacity to give such curious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

E.B. White - Here Is New York

It's the people. There are so goddamned many of them that you can pretend they aren't there, and on public transport, that's what most people do. But there are those who stand out for any number of reasons. And for those who take time to think, even briefly, about them, there are always unanswered questions.

A homeless guy and his smell take up a whole subway carriage. The stench burns your nostrils and causes unwitting passengers to run into neighbouring carriages at the very next stop. How long has it been since he washed? Is he ill?
Who knows?

A woman's outfit is unusual enough to make you wonder if there's a kind of colourblindness where not only the distinction between red and green is blurred, but also the difference between blue and yellow, orange and pink, purple and brown, trousers and feral cats. What is she doing? Is it a statement? Intentional? Or not caring?

Or like the guy on my train yesterday, people can just act weird.

I was on the 4/5 uptown, stopped at Fulton Street. There had been a train just before the one I was on, so it was mostly empty. I was reading. Rapid footfalls got louder and louder and a man in a black suit with wildly messed-up bedhead-style hair fell into the carriage as the doors closed. He stumbled a little, so everyone else in the car looked up, then feigned indifference - de rigeur subway behaviour. The guy sat down opposite me. He seemed incredibly agitated, sitting forward in his seat with his elbows on his knees, wringing his hands, sitting back, sitting forward, checking his watch...over and over again.

So, as with everyone who stands out from the crowd, I asked myself, "What's his hurry? Why was he so desperate to run all the way along the platform into this carriage? Is he on the run? What happened to his hair?" and twenty seconds later I went back to my book. New York leads to a short curiosity-attention span.

By the time we reached 59th Street and Lex, where I transfer to the Queens train, it was twenty minutes later, and the guy was pacing back and forth in front of the doors. When they opened, off he ran again, bounding up the steps that were directly in front of that set of doors. Ah, I thought, idly, that's why he ran along the platform. He was way ahead of the crowd, and I lost sight of him.

There was some sort of delay on the N/W/R line, so I stood on the platform and peered down the tunnel with the rest, reading and watching a rat between the rails. By the time the train arrived there was a huge crowd, and the train was crammed full. At Queensboro Plaza, the first stop in Queens, the conductor announced that the train was going express - meaning we would skip the next four stations.

Off we went, and ten minutes of slow rolling later everyone was disgorged at Astoria Boulevard.

Krissa had a girls' night out last night and I was planning some quality GTA time, so my first port of call was the deli on the corner under the subway station. I picked up a few cans of beer and made my way to the checkout, where someone with a frantic voice was talking loudly.

"Do they come in a smaller box?!" said the wild-haired suit from the train.
"No, no smaller." said the cashier.
"And they're five dollars?"
"Five dollar fifty."
"Are you sure you don't have like, a little packet?"
"No, sorry."
The guy rummaged in his pockets really urgently, dropping a couple of receipts in the process but not caring. He looked up in hope.
"Do you take credit cards? You take credit cards, right?"

I edged around him, startled that it was the same guy.
The cashier stood with that classic posture of newsagent sales staff everywhere; hand on something someone wants, tilting it slightly forward on the shelf but not actually lifting it until they see the money.

It was a box of Imodium.

And so my questions were answered.