Last night the Uptown #2 came into the Chambers Street station and it was packed. (snicker). Here in front of me stops a car with people jammed into one end, and the other end completely empty. (Oh Oh.........) Of course, being an experienced subway rider, I saw that this was going to be risky, but I'd jump into the car and see what gross object was keeping people at one end. Well..............there was a bum lying across the seats at one end of the car. I mean the end right where I was standing. Oh my God. I have never smelled anything like that in my life. Nope. Never. This guy smelled like..........POOP TO THE MILLIONTH DEGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I flew out of there in a half second and in less than a full second I was into the car next to that one. LOL. I watched horrified people getting on at the next stations and they came gagging into my car clutching their throats! LOL. Now, what makes this story funny is the fact that when I got to my home stop, people were yelling, "OFFICER! OFFICER! THERE"S A MAN ON THE TRAIN................". Here was this transit cop, who didn't even look old enough to vote and his uniform was so fresh it was probably his first day out of the Academy. He was on the platform when my train pulled in. I forgot to mention his crew cut too. LOL. He took off in a fast pace with this dead serious look on his face. He must have thought he'd get his first major collar or something. The thing that is so funny is this poor kid had to board that train and throw the bum off with about 800 people watching him! LOL! That poor cop! OH MAN!!!!!!!!! PU!!!!! And the poor kid was going to have to follow him outta the station too! That bum wasn't going to move much faster than a snail either. This guy stunk. This was sort of a rookie "railroader's" experience he will never ever forget! Kind of a big city experience this was. LOL. I'll bet that cop had to burn his uniform.............
This reminds me of the wife and I managed a Motel in San Franciso. One morning one of the housekeepers came clattering down the stairs and almost busted through the door trying to get into the office. She was Spanish and didn't speak very good english. She started yelling about a man sleeping on the floor and he pooped his pants and stink bad. I finally got the room number out of her and casually walked up the stairs. I could tell what room it came from from the stink as the housekeeper left the door open. As bad as the stink was I was pretty sure what had happened. I went in and he was laying on his stomach on the floor. I saw red fluid around his face. I casually walked downstairs and called the police and told them a dead man was in the room. Being San FRancisco you would expect the 911 Disprs to have lots of experience but I think I got a newbee. She told me to stay there so the police could question me on why I killed him. I coldn't get a word in edgwise so just hung up the phone. a minute later the phone rang again just as I heard police cars rushing up sirens going full blast. My wife answered the phone and the 911 dispr asked where the killer was. My wife told her there is no killer and about that time the police rushed into the office and was about to handcuff me and drag me off to the poky. It took several minutes to get them straighened out on the facts but I was sure sweating. I decided the next time something like this happened I would just call the coronor and let him handle it. It turned out the guy was a drug overdose. Not only stinky fluid drained from his mouth and nose he had really messed his pants
I have a similar story Johnny: One night, a few years back, I was at a beach party on Coney Island where I preceeded to outdo myself with a bottle of tequila. As the sun rose my friends and I decided we had had enough and we proceeded to disembark. Now ordinarily I would have taken the D/Q train but my friend lived near the N train in Bayridge so he dropped me off at the local station. As the sun rose higher and higher the 90+ degree heat began so of course I managed to get on the only N train without air conditioning. About midway on my travels to connect with the J train at Canal Street a bum with a heavy fur coat entered the car (Yes a fur coat in 90 degree heat!) Needless to say I had the dry heaves from drinking before he had entered the car so as the train filled with his pungent aroma I began to turn every shade of green that there is. I did manage to stay on the rest of the way but when I got off at Canal (Well you know what happens when you've a stomach full of drink) Needless to say, I do not think that there is a smell that could ever bother me again after smelling a fur clad homeless man! Russ
Where's Wayne with his shovel when you need him??? Actually one night in the late 1980's after too much consumption at the Palladium I boarded a train (alone - my friends were still partying) about 4 o'clock in the morning to go back to the Marriott Marquis in Times Square and somehow ended up in The Bronx. Believe me, when you are from Kansas you don't want to be standing on a streetcorner in The Bronx at 4:30 AM wearing a suit having had a few too many Mooseheads. I lived through it by some miracle. No further details need to be exposed. Charlie
Actually, you missed a chance to perform a public service and educate this poor guy. If that happens again, walk up to the fellow and say this: Charlie
Even Watash's shovel couldn't help this guy, unless someone buried him!!!!!!!!!! Russ, I know what you mean too about the heavy coat in the dead of summer. I've seen many homeless do that. Once in a while you get a beggar on the train that will make your eyes water! I think the other night was the worst thing I've ever smelled, even when the #2 train at Park Place came in full one time and there was the completly empty car with the biggest pile of poop near the end door that I've ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And there was the time I jumped onto a 3 train at Park Place and some guy shouted at me not to sit down!!!!!!!! It's a good thing I didn't. I would have put my butt right down on a seat full of glass. Every window in the last car had been smashed out. It was right after schools had let out. It was totally totally totally weird to ride home with no windows at all, and I swore I was a hobo riding in a boxcar with it's door open through the NYC subway! The noise was wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel really bad for the cops and other people that must process and wash them! Charlie - unfortunately no Bronx-bound trains terminate in the "good" part of the Bronx (yes there are many good neighborhoods up there) You must have wound up there on an "off" night (ie. all the thugs were in Manhattan that night praying on the party crowd!LOL) Russ
I think I would have been inclined to use my trusty shovel to cover him up with rosebud and drop a match and walk out. HA! There was a bit during the war about a guy who had gone to sleep probably on a Friday night, in one of the subway cars, and people had ignored him like all other drunks sleeping it off. The next Monday several people remembered seeing him asleep there again. Turns out he had died, but because people are not concerned, he began to stink before anyone checked him out. He was not homeless, but had been stabbed with an icepick to the head and robbed.
Our now ex-mayor Giuliani used every bit of his power to get the homeless out of the dangerous conditions of the subway and into shelters. He used loitering and various other laws to have the police "force" them into the shelters to get help. Unfortunately the right-wing liberals fought his plan tooth and nail saying that you can not arrest the homeless and force them into shelters. The average person in NY here cares and would like to see them out of harm's way in the subway but everybody is also afraid of a lawsuit! It is a sad sign of the times when it becomes politically incorrect to help people. Russ
I guess youall are right proud to have "her"-the right wing liberal you mentioned- as your new junior senator and aspiring presidential candidate? I still remember her quote back in 1996-"A person should not be forced against their will to sleep in any place where they feel threatened or uncomfortable." (That was right before a certain young lady got her carpet burns in the Oval Office-of course, she WASN'T forced against her will to sleep there!)
Here's another good one. This morning I went to the magazine store to pick up Trains and a lady walked out the door as I was paying at the register. She turned around and walked back in and whispered to the guy in the store, "I think you'd better clean this up." Of course the guy, myself and the guy behind the register looked out the door and there was a tiny baby rat sprawled spread eagle on the sidewalk right outside the door. The guy looked at the other guy and hesitated then moaned something in a language that I have no idea what it was, and I walked out the door laughing to myself! =
