Evil on the Train: a True Story of 3AM and the Blues

3 AM blues on the F train to BK. The heat drew my eyelids towards the ground, darkening the bleariness, the spin around me, my eyes red, hat crooked, head nodding to some tired melody beating in my ear. Hat crooked because at 3AM alone on the train, who the fuck cares? The twin losses of inhibition and ambition inspire lunatic fashion nonsense. Head nodding, limp walking, ba-doom-ba-pa, why not? Not a rattle to be heard in the distance of the high ceilinged tunnel, tiles cracking, water dripping in the still. Club music still pounded at my head, the same head pounded back at me: “had-to-drink-that-last-one-dumbass-boom-ba-da-pa.” Drunk. Thick heat, strong beat, the bass-line played and the heat sat.

…get down, James Brown screamed into the abyss, de-de-de-de-dee-ba-dow, with my girlfriend…Yes you did…

…that ain’t right…hurl and cuss…de-ba-ba

…wanna fight…

And then she came down the stair like Persephone into Hades, calm, composed, not belonging to this dungeon beyond time. She sat on the bench in the heat, bored.

…payback…is a thing you got to see…

hell…never do any damn thang to me…

At 3AM, subway platforms are stages of defeat. The night has ended, cab money swallowed by the dark, and it has come to this: waiting, sitting, maybe 10 minutes, maybe 90, maybe to fall asleep and end up in Coney Island bathed in dawn’s sweet glow, sleeping near an unconscious homeless man so far from home that a kind of fleeting camaraderie is born, you and he, the family of the screeching metal abode. Drunks throw up waiting on night trains. Sweat and exhaustion inundate time. Construction workers look on in quiet indifference as they close down the tunnel that seemed to surely hold the any-minute-I’m-home-promise. At 3AM you ride the train with the blues.

But she was there.

Not so porcelain-pretty as to seem arrogant or unapproachable, she was a 3AM platform’s dream. Her features were intense. Tall with long, dark hair, casual, warm: she was the ultimate defeat. Head nodding two seats away on the bench, I would never talk to her. Only crazy people and slick-talking frat-boys talk to people on trains. Despite the futility, it’s creepy, desperate, invasive. It’s the kind of thing that sends generations of people into the seclusion of automobiles, watching their strip mall paradise fly by through the windshield at rush hour. Was my pluck responsible for the suburbanization of the world?

I wouldn’t talk to her because I couldn’t, because no matter where the inhibitions go, the cool has to stay. I wouldn’t talk to her because I could never make first moves, because I was weak, and awkward, because I hate to be in control of anything other than me, and the music that pounds out of my stereo.

But…I should, right? I should take the leap, where was the downside—I would never see anyone on this train again. Why not? Do it!

--But how? No, impossible. I would, but it won’t work.

--Bitch, that’s why you’re going home by yourself.

How then?

--Go say hi.

Creepy motherfucker.

--Home Alone, Bitch. They made a movie about you!

Could I just take off the headphones and stare at her?

--And you just called me creepy? I guess it’s better than nothing…bitch.

…do ba da…big payba…The music died. I sat and glanced at her, head pounding. The train rattled into the station and we boarded. F to Jay street, A to Nostrand, bing, stand clear of the closing doors.

An hour later I had her phone number and was madly in love. I found myself believing in Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I was a 3AM winner, taking this fine girl to dinner. Out late, couldn’t sleep for a week, my head nodded only to happy beats.

Two weeks later it was over, God was dead and I was waiting, heart broke with heat stroke, for the A train again. Fuck it. This time the music played. Because at 3AM, all you want is the blues.