the subway code of conduct

This is how it goes: you get on, find an empty seat and sit down quickly because you don't want to be a Stander, bracing your back leg on the floor just so, so that you won't fall backward when the car starts moving and risk looking like a tourist. My drama teacher took us to New York in eleventh grade and proceeded to fall backward every single time the train started moving, and then she would laugh loudly and exclaim, "Well, you can tell I'M not from New York!!" and then every person in the subway car would smirk at us. Ever since, I have braced my leg so hard that I almost cramp it, but I don't move an inch when it starts. Not an inch.

Anyway, so you're braced now or you have your seat. Now begins the tricky process of staring at something, anything, that is not a human being. The ad for the nightly news, the Timbaland shoe ad, or the stop counter on the top of the train -- read it intently, memorize it, and then stare at it some more, because you can not make eye contact with anyone. This is how people are beat up. One wayward second of eye contact is all it takes. So I stare at shoes. Dirty ones, clean ones, expensive ones, ones with the soles practically coming off, colorful ones, brown leather ones, boots, stilettos... I play this little game where I try to imagine what the face looks like to match these shoes, although I have to be careful when I check to see if I'm accurate. Another thing I do is I pick a certain point outside the subway car and stare at it. This works well in Queens, where the subway is above ground, but not so much in the tunnels, because have you ever tried to stare at nothingness? I can't do it; my eyes rebel. Usually I just stare at the floor, then.

Once a homeless man entered the train holding a rubber chicken. He started waving it around in people's faces, talking about the greatness of God and how we all need to save ourselves and the Resurrection and whatnot and every time he got in someone's face with that goddamned chicken it was the same thing: the person never looked at him. Just stared straight ahead blankly, because to make eye contact is to make a connection, however simple and brief, and to make a connection with this man would be to have him direct his speech at you. You never look at those people, the homeless ones, or you face feeling something: pity, sorrow, compassion, confusion. You stare straight ahead, feign blindness, deafness. You think about what's for dinner.