At this point in my life as a megalopolis-explorer, I am smart enough to know what I don’t know.  Which is to say: don’t take any chances.   On the weekends, when the cackling puppeteers at the MTA set out to ruin us all, one must be especially on their guard.  East side? West side. Up is down, green is red, numbers lose all assigned meaning.  I gave myself ample time, I brought a book, and a bottle of wine: as a party favor, of course, but I like to imagine that it could also be used as an effective bludgeon.

I was mindful of my numbers, two, three, and made the appropriate transfer while still in the familiar confines of Manhattan.  I waited for the train, and, herewith is my first fatal error, gleefully noted the availability of seats on a further car.  Hurrying along the bumpy yellow edge of the platform, I boarded swiftly, proudly, let’s remember about my (faux) fur coat here, shall we…oh lord.  At the end of the powder blue expanse of seats, a hunched man, buried in his coat, the mountain source of the river, the Amazon of filth; streaming along the entire shiny seat and flowing into the failed metaphor of an ocean, the floor, the floor, the floor, my… sandals.

Let us note the importance of a rigorous yoga practice, which allowed me to maintain a sense of calm and a contorted lunge, warrior two on the two train- salvaging most of the bottom half of my high-heeled sandals.  Sandals:  fatal error number two. Express trains: only good when you want to be on them.  From 42nd to 72nd I breathed deeply, though not through my nose, and waited.

Once I was on a different, drier car, I thought my problems were over.  Life lesson: your problems are never over.  The train idled in the station, first stop in the Bronx, and as it idled, the people grew restless.  Then, the dreaded announcement: “Ladies and Gentleman, we have a sick passenger on the train…” It seemed that the man from the next car had, in his liquefied stupor, attempted to get up and was immediately rejected by gravity. Or rather, accepted.

“Throw him off the train and let’s go!” screamed one eager woman. The chorus grunted in approval.  The two high-school aged kids standing by me hung out of the train, trying to get a peek at the action.  An energetic middle-aged man in sportswear walked over to our open train door and gave us the blow-by-blow.  Finally, the EMT came strolling in, and yes, I did just use the word “strolling,” though perhaps “sauntering” might be more appropriate, given his tortois-ian speed.  At this point I had been on a subway for one hour and forty five minutes.  Worst of all, no one wanted to talk to me.  I tried to describe my experience with the pee puddle to the kids in front of me, who looked at me warily and forced a half-smile.  Oh, I guess I wouldn’t want to talk to me either; lone white girl in a fur coat, all “I’ve got pee on my shoes!”

I had to talk to someone, though, if I was going to figure out how to get out of there.  I was one stop away from the party, but one stop of what?  One stop in the South Bronx?  Was it five blocks, seven blocks, seventeen blocks?  One block, but of open gun warfare, gang vs. gang?  Jesus Christ, I told myself, this is not Kabul.

I remembered, then, middle school.  I was, unfortunately for everyone, on the soccer team and our first game was against girls from a wealthy suburban school.  They played poorly and it turned out that they had thrown a fit on the bus ride over, weeping and shaking and fearing for their lives.  Yes, the girls of the inner-city soccer team were going to beat them up.  Though I held that story with a sense of pride, hey, people thought we were tough, it is also humiliating.  I could not ask someone at the train station if it would be safe for me to walk, when clearly, they do it themselves, every day.  I asked instead, how far, and five blocks seemed do-able.

The only danger?  Sore feet, bruised ego… fashionably late.  Oh, and every cab driver slowed down to give me their opinion.

“Mami! You too pretty to be walking outside!” Too pretty? Aw, shucks.  It’s just the coat.