To sit down on the train

Jack tried to sleep standing up but couldn’t. At the front of the line waiting to board the next train, he bore a substantial responsibility. The move into the crowded subway car would start with him. He would be the first salmon trying to swim against the flow of humanity as they attempted to get off the train. If he tarried too long he’d get bypassed. If he went too soon he’d get trampled. It was a delicate game.



The man behind him smelled of alcohol and tobacco. Twice he swayed into Jack. He was like a sailor on the deck of an imaginary ship in heavy seas, moving with the rhythm of his own ocean, occasionally steadying himself on the great ship’s mast. Only there was no ocean, no deck, and no ship. There was only the platform of the Shinsaibashi subway station on the Midosuji line in Osaka, Japan. There was no mast, only Jack.



Looking to his right Jack saw his counterpart. She was attractive, young, and obviously unused to the pressures of being the first person in the queue. Jack watched her text a friend, maybe her date waiting at another station down the line. He tried not to look at the lady. Inside his head he heard his mother’s voice telling him not to stare, it’s rude to stare, staring is not polite, etc. But he felt he was being very cool about the whole staring business, smoothly looking at her as he turned to check the time or to see how many people were in the station.



Long before the train arrived Jack heard it. The platform was already a maelstrom of sound, but there is something distinct about the noise of an approaching train. It starts as a far off, muted roar, like the sound of the ocean in a seashell, only steadier. The roar gains strength until it fills the station. All other noise begins to diminish as people stop what they’re doing and focus on getting on the train. He turned to his left and saw the light of the front of the train, a glow on the distant tunnel wall that slowly grew as the train rounded the slight curve. Jack readied himself. It was almost go time.

The man behind him weaved a little too hard and for a moment Jack felt himself moving across the bright yellow stripe that is the demarcation line between the safe side of the platform and the place where an oncoming train might knock your head off. Jack righted himself and didn’t retaliate. Every moment counted.



Jack looked into the oncoming train. The windows passed by with decreasing speed as the train braked. It was crowded towards the front because that’s where the station exit is. He was standing towards the back of the train. He smiled. There would be a chance, he thought, of getting a seat. He never got a seat. Usually he was several places back in the line, and only on the weekend did he ever get to actually sit down. Jack readied himself. It’d be close. He knew it was all a matter of luck, one line of people on the north and the other on the south. He would jockey for position on the south. The exit was to the north, so when people got off the train they’d be angled that way. And the north end of the train had fewer seats. If he went towards the middle he would have a better chance because that’s where most of the seats were. But the middle seats are also open to competition from the other door, the other line, the other beleaguered commuters who just want to go home.



The train squealed to a halt. It rocked backwards slightly. When the doors opened the great migration began. People of all shapes and sizes pushed their way through the human traffic towards the exit. Jack saw a gap in the exiting crowd and made his move.



At that moment the weaving man did a remarkable thing. Like the mythical Chinese drunken master, the man deftly swayed into the very gap that Jack was gunning for. But Jack was committed, and such treachery cannot be abided. It’s against the unwritten code of how to board a crowded subway car. Everybody knows the code. The world works best when the code is obeyed. But the businessman slid in, grabbed the polished chrome post that holds the seat, and swung himself down. Jack didn’t have time to openly retaliate. But as he pushed his way in he stepped on the man’s foot as he went towards an open seat.



Jack arrived at the empty seat at the same time as the young lady and he knew the game was lost. He deferred and let her sit down. She bowed her head slightly to acknowledge his kindness and then went back to her texting, leaving Jack to stand on tired legs.