Everyday Moments: Love and Strangers on the F Train

Another Monday morning commute on the F train, the usual miserable faces all around me.

It’s the first real spring day after a four-month freeze.

George Harrison once wrote, “Here comes the Sun,” and God knows this past winter really has been “a long, cold, lonely winter.”

With the weather warming up, the last thing I want to do is what I am doing: taking an underground train to my underpaying job.

The sun doesn’t shine in the subway stations—and it definitely doesn’t shine in my personal prison cell, my work cubicle.

I get off at Jay Street and wait for the A or C train to bring me to 34th Street. My phone buzzes with an alert from my bank: overdrawn.

I want to run away.

There is a pretty, well-dressed woman standing next to me on the platform and I smile at her. She turns away. She must be thinking, another creep. She may be right.

I squeeze into the subway car and stand close to a man in a cheap, well-worn suit who smells as if he swam in cigarettes and cologne throughout the night.

That woman from the platform glances at me and turns away again. I feel a little nervous and smile to myself.

The train stops and a quiet voice makes a whispered announcement that they “apologize for the inconvenience.”

At least that’s what I think it said. I stand there. The air coming from the vent somewhere is cool, carrying a faint aroma of urine.

I find a seat and notice the woman is sitting directly across from me.

“You come here often?” I ask, offering an obvious smile.

“Unfortunately, every day,” she says, laughing.

At the next stop, the person sitting next to me gets off. She moves over and takes the empty seat right beside me. Our bodies are pushed against each other, our eyes and lips inches apart. That’s when I feel it for the first time. There is a pulling energy radiating from me to her and her to me. Like magnets to metal, she feels it too.

The pull is overwhelming, and I use all my strength not to give in to it. She looks me in the eyes and I can see a clear sense of desire.

I am not a sexy man; I am typical-looking at best, to be honest. I do look younger than my age, but my mind is definitely older. 

Yet, the desire emanating from her, the sudden heat between us… it drags me right back to being 17 years old.

When I was 17, I had a brand-new driver’s license and a car at my disposal during the evenings. I had met a girl, 16 years old, while we were rehearsing for a community play. I had the lead and she was a chorus girl with a couple of lines.

One night during a dress rehearsal, I found myself standing behind the curtain waiting to go on stage. Anna came and stood beside me. She was dark-skinned, a little shorter than me, and her body was beyond her 16 years.

She had a whisper of perfume and she was dressed in character: a long skirt, a buttoned-up top, and a derby hat pushed to the side. We stood there and our hands touched. That was the first time I felt that magnetism. She felt it too, and when we turned toward each other, our lips touched. I heard my cue, jumped, and walked on stage.

After that rehearsal, I offered to drive her home. I parked the car in front of her house and we sat there “speaking” for hours. We only stopped when the light to her front door snapped on. The door opened and her father stood there on the porch.

“Uh oh,” I whispered.

“‘Uh oh’ is right,” she said, fixing her top and adjusting her bra. She rolled down the foggy window and called out, “Hi Dad, I’m coming!”

I feel that exact same undeniable pull right now, standing here so many years later—only this time, it’s toward a total stranger on a train.

As if in silent agreement, we both get off at 14th Street.