The Conductor and the Soldier

I am sitting on a bench at the 125th Street Station in Harlem as if I have a front row, center seat. It is where I always sit in order to watch the sun rise over Queens and the RFK Bridge. The sun's light has not yet broken the horizon; it's still dark.

The 6:05 to New Haven pulls in; doors slide open, and like a stage set lit in yellow light, a soldier in untucked desert fatigues, an ipod wire leading from his overstuffed pocket to his ear, leans against the right wall. He holds the cord between his index finger and thumb as if it is a cigarette.

A conductor appears from stage left. "You have to pay," the conductor says. The conductor is an African American. His conductor's cap covers his neatly combed graying hair.

"I never have to pay. I'm in the military. I'm serving my country. I have to be on this train. I have to get to my reserve unit. I have to be on this train." The soldier is white. His wet hair hangs below his matching camouflage cap. His baggy pants are tucked into the tops of his well-worn boots, army boots the color of desert.

"You pay or you get off," the conductor says.

The soldier refuses. He says for the four years he's been in the military, he's never paid to ride the train. He speaks calmly. He does not raise his voice. He is seething beneath his calm and he steadfastly refuses to pay or get off the train.

The conductor won't let the 6:05 leave the Harlem station. It is now 6:12. He speaks into his walky-talky. Two young cops arrive. They talk. The soldier pleads, "I have to get to my reserve unit. I have to be on this train." He does not raise his voice.

I wonder what the soldier does when he is not in uniform. A Wall Street banker? A chef? A grad student? The soldier goes back into the car. I think they're letting him ride. He returns with over-stuffed bags the color of forest camouflage. He steps off the train and drops his bags on the platform.

"I have to be on this train. I have to be on this train. I have to get to my unit," the soldier says.

"If I let him on I'll lose my job," the conductor says. Then he walks down the platform toward another car to board the train, his back to us. He turns and calls back, "I served in the military for 20 years," then he boards, the doors slide shut, and the train finally pulls away from the station.

The 6:09 to Stamford arrives at 6:23. I suggest the soldier get on and transfer to the New Haven line in Stamford. He boards, takes a seat, his bags at his feet. The train departs. I hope he doesn't get thrown off at the next stop, at Fordham in the Bronx.

The cop, about the soldier's age says, "It's a courtesy that the military rides for free. But not a policy. It depends on the conductor." The policeman seems relieved that the soldier is off the platform and on his way. Then my train, the 6:13 to Southeast, arrives at 6:25.

And I think of my former mother-in-law who, after Wold War II, after spending her 16th and 17th years in concentration camps in Poland and Germany, was allowed--like all the war's refugees--to ride the trains across Europe for free.