Making the Trains Run on Time: A New York Story

A man gets on the R at Steinway with an empty stroller. Then comes the familiar announcement: “Watch the closing doors, please.”

The man keeps the doors from closing while a woman struggles aboard with a young but abnormally large child. A subway cop approaches. “You can’t hold the doors,” he says to the man.

“I was waiting for my child,” the man says.

“You can’t hold the doors,” the cop repeats.

The train leaves the station. The cop, whose name is King, leans against the doors that the man had blocked. The man who had blocked the doors leans against the doors on the opposite side of the car.

“It’s a child,” he says.

“You can’t hold the doors,” Officer King says for the third time.

“It’s a child,” the man says again. He is wearing a smooth, tan newsboy’s cap and a large gold cross around his neck. He is black. Officer King is white, which may or may not make a difference.

I lose track of how many times Officer King tells the man he can’t hold the doors and the man tells Officer King it’s a child. Both parties use their “inside voices” throughout.

“Whatever you say,” the man says, finally.

This seems to annoy Officer King. He points out that it’s not what he says. It’s what the law says.

“Even if it’s a child,” the man says.

What the man means, I think, is that the law, or at least, this enforcer of the law, ought to take his intentions and his circumstances into account. He was not being a wise guy, holding the train because he lacked patience to wait for the next one or consideration for his fellow straphangers. He was a family man. It takes his family a long time to board a train because they have this unusually large child.

But he doesn’t explain any of this and it probably wouldn’t matter if he had. The law doesn’t say it’s illegal to block the doors unless it’s a child, Officer King says. It says it’s illegal to block the doors, period.

“Whatever you say,” the man says again.

Officer King, bulky, gun and walkie-talkie dangling from his belt, peaked cap set back on the crown of his head, really doesn’t like that response. The fine for holding the doors, he says, is $100. “I’m not going to cite you. I’m just saying you should have waited for the next train. There’s always another train.”

At this point I can’t recall which of his two lines the man delivers – whether he says, “It’s a child” or “Whatever you say.”

Whichever it is, it is not the expression of appreciation that Officer King thinks is his due.

“I could also arrest you,” he says. He won’t, he quickly adds. But he could. Or cite him.

The man glares. Officer King, having amply demonstrated his flexibility, departs.

The man walks over to where the woman and the child are sitting and talks to the woman quietly, but vehemently. Other passengers begin to discuss the little drama they have just witnessed. I think it is safe to say that Office King did not impress this particular set of R train passengers with his professionalism, courtesy and respect – the words emblazoned on NYPD squad cars.

When I got on the train I was glad to see a police officer. I had gotten on the R train by mistake and was in a part of Queens I don’t know. I wasn’t terribly worried about it, but it was mildly reassuring to see a cop. This should be every citizen’s reaction: A police presence should make us feel safer.

By the end of Officer King’s stint in our car I doubt anyone had warm, fuzzy feelings about the NYPD. We had met The Man: the wielder of arbitrary power. Given the history of race relations in this country, for the man with the stroller, the encounter with The Man with the gun was probably another in a series. Under the circumstances, I thought he showed admirable restraint.

As for Officer King, I’m sure he thought he was just doing his job: If everyone kept the doors from closing, all the trains would get delayed until the entire New York City subway system seized up, like an oil-starved engine.

But surely there was a less adversarial, less intimidating way to explain all that to the man with the stroller. One thing Officer King obviously doesn’t get is that there’s a ripple effect when a cop (or a journalist, or anyone who works in the public eye) abuses his power. He doesn’t just damage his own reputation; nor does he just damage the reputation of the organization he works for. He makes it harder for all police officers everywhere to do their jobs.

Yes, Officer King was making the trains run on time. So was Mussolini.