The Turnstile Jumper
She was a gold medalist in fare evasion
She was a gold medalist in fare evasion.
Her floor routine, seemingly perfected after years of training, began on the sidewalk - moving at the 128 steps-per-minute pace of the city. As she descended into the subway, she stretched her limbs and shook out her body like an athlete in her prime, performing another magnificent attempt.
The subway station was empty, but for a few people milling about. One was trying to negotiate a single ride out of an aging MetroCard machine, another was placing and replacing their phone over a temperamental OMNY reader. The stationmaster was lost behind inches of bulletproof glass, waiting for a tourist visiting from 1982 and seeking to buy a subway token.
All of these means of payment, whether coin or contactless payment, were irrelevant to the woman on the move. She entered the lobby - loose from her warmup, and approached the turnstile without losing her stride. Like a hurdler, she perfectly lined her steps for the $2.90 obstruction in her path and, in a second, cleared the fare.
Up and over the turnstile, stealing a ride from the endlessly bloated and broke MTA. Contributing her 0.000001% share of the agency’s $285 million in lost revenue for subway fare evasion this year.
Directly on the other side of the turnstile were two police officers, their sole mandate being to address fare evasion and the subsequent crimes they might bring. Dispatched by the mayor and governor and a theory of broken windows to keep New Yorkers safe across 472 stations and 665 miles of tracks. These middle-aged boys in blue stood only feet from the turnstiles, hiding off in a corner so as to be out of sight of the potential turnstile jumpers. And, while their physical body and weapons were at the ready on the platform, their attention was lost into their phones - monitoring the likes on their socials.
As the woman returned to upright on the ticketed side of the station, she grinned after another flawless attempt and immediately turned to see two cops standing right in front of her. Rather than try to make a run for it, she walked straight towards them with her hands in a prayer pose. Her demeanor shifted from seasoned subway stowaway to remorseful it’s-my-first-time, please-have-mercy-on-me. Her hands rocked back and forth in prayer, begging for forgiveness and a break on the $100 ticket.
The cops briefly looked up, unsure of what had just happened and why this woman was walking towards them with her hands outstretched in prayer. One of the cops simply shooed her away, waving for her to return to the platform. The other officer looked to her with kind eyes and muttered, “Sorry, I don’t have any change.” The woman stopped in her tracks. Her triumphant grin slowly returned as she realized her incredible luck - today she had beaten both the MTA and the NYPD.
“You have a blessed day, officers.” she responded.
She took her position on the platform, waiting for a downtown train - just another straphanger on the New York City subway. Meanwhile, the cops returned to protecting our public safety while patrolling their respective phones.
What additional windows she broke and Candy Crush levels the cops destroyed remains under investigation.
If I Can Make It There is a collection of stories about the things and people, including me, that move through New York City. A celebration of the characters who crawl through endless traffic, slog through the subways, and stroll under the shade of scaffolding.
Like our fragmented and broken transportation system, some stories race with enthusiasm to a red light and others remain hopelessly stuck behind a double-parked Mercedes with New Jersey plates and blinkers on as the driver screams over the honking, “Just hold on for a minute! I’m only stopping in for a quick dinner at Sardis.”
And, all of these stories could occur nowhere else but the greatest city on Earth - New York Fucking City.