Master of His Domain…Not

(A reprise from July 2018. Proof that not all memories "sweeten through the ages just like wine.")

Forty years ago on the Number 1 train into Manhattan, I witnessed a robbery at gunpoint. An underground desperado snatched a woman’s purse while brandishing a firearm. And as the train sat in the station for a spell—deference to a crime having been committed—the victim cried out for police assistance. I was on my way that morning to see the movie Heaven Can Wait, which starred Warren Beatty when he was a star and not an octogenarian.

The 1970s were pretty gritty times in the Big Apple. The city actually breathed its last gasp as an affordable place to live back then, but it sported character—albeit a bit perverse—through it all. New York’s decomposition played out against a colorful backdrop of mom-and-pop businesses, including candy stores, record shops, and diners, which were still around in great numbers. But, sadly, their days were numbered.

Fast-forward forty years and I am on the Number 1 train once more. While I witnessed a first at the age of fifteen all those years ago—a robbery at gunpoint—I beheld another yesterday. While I had rather not been witness for either, yesterday’s episode was more disturbing. Give me a good old-fashioned holdup any day.

Entering the last car as I typically do on my return trip to the Bronx, I boarded the train at 14th Street. There were several passengers in the car, including a disheveled homeless man in the rear. Such a sighting is not unusual in the New York City subway system and the last car increases the odds exponentially. But what I subsequently beheld was a first—and hopefully a last—for me.

Let me put it this way: This poor fellow was not the master of his domain. When I first laid eyes on him I thought he might be having a seizure or some such thing. But it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t. When an athletic-looking woman got on the train at the next stop, she headed for a place to sit in the direction of said man who was not the master of his domain. Stunned and disgusted, she didn’t hold back and angrily chided him for his unseemly behavior. He, though, was oblivious to the tirade. The woman then unleashed her fury on the rest of us in earshot. “Are you all so desensitized to this!” she cried.

I can’t speak for everybody there who plunked down $2.75 for the peep show, but I certainly wasn’t desensitized to the spectacle. I hoped initially that it would be a done deal in short order. When it became clear to me that it wasn’t to be, I plotted my escape. It’s just one of those things. What are passengers supposed to do when they enter a train and confront an unexpected and unpleasant unknown?

If the unknown is what I encountered yesterday, the best option is to move on to smaller and better things, which the justifiably livid lady and I—plus one other guy—did at the next stop. She and he scurried into a different car. I waited for the next train and hoped and prayed that every passenger therein would be the master of his or her domain. Thankfully they were.

Apparently, there is a first time for everything. Happily for me on New York City subways they occur every forty years. And I don’t suspect I’ll be riding the Number 1 train—or even be among the living—when I’m ninety-five.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)