Other People

Joshua Malbin

1Other PeopleMy withdrawal from the subway started with my iPod. I wore it to drown out otherriders’ chatter, and when I listened to music rather than podcasts I usually carried a book to read, too. I even bought a pair of noise-canceling headphones so I didn’t have to hearanything at all outside my own head.It was at best a partial retreat. When the train got crowded someone inevitably jostled my book with an elbow, and I could never do a thing about the smells, especiallyin winter when they rose sharp and rank from riders’ open overcoats and filled theoverheated cars.I tried to insulate myself even more during the swine flu scare. For a week after thenews of the first New York cases, I put on disposable latex gloves and a cotton surgicalmask whenever I descended into a station. But these did me absolutely no good when afat man sneezed on the back of my neck. It was a packed morning-commute car andwe’d been sitting in a tunnel for several long minutes. I was too squashed to reacharound without elbowing several neighbors in the head, so I couldn’t even wipe it off. I just had to stand there and feel the droplets converge, ooze downward, and slowly dry.That’s why I started wearing a hooded sweatshirt all the time, with the drawstring onthe shirt pulled close and light scarves wrapped around my face inside the hood. Like adevout Muslim woman I left only my eyes and forehead visible, and I covered my eyeswith a pair of biker goggles I bought at an Army surplus store. It was a little

Joshua Malbin

2cumbersome to don and doff all that gear, but I got used to it. It also made people look atme like I was crazy and cut me a wide berth. That I liked.See, I’d never been able to stand my fellow New Yorkers. I loved New York—thephysical sweep of its buildings and all the treasures inside them—but it irritated me everyday that I couldn’t enjoy any of it without thousands of others horning in. I hated waitingon line at the museum. When I had a restaurant table too near the front on an icy day, Ihated each new customer who held open the door and chilled my food with a blast of coldair. I hated the cockroaches that came to my apartment from my neighbors’. I hated myneighbors anytime I heard their music or lovemaking through the walls. I hated caralarms in the morning. Whenever I rented a car to drive to the mountains or the shore, Ihated that it took the whole first hour to fight through traffic to the city limits. Thepeople in my city were demanding, loud, offensive, and above all

in my way

.To me the most glorious ideal could be found in post-apocalyptic movies set in anabandoned New York. I would have traded the real New York for one of those fantasiesin a heartbeat, even if it meant that all my favorite restaurants and all the movie theaterswere gone.So I liked that the seat beside me was always the last one occupied (unless I had tocompete in repellence with a homeless guy). More and more often I could lean back myhead, close my eyes, turn up my music, and pretend for a few moments that I wascompletely alone, the only rider on a ghost train crossing a ghost city. Somehow themotion made it far more powerful than indulging the same fancy while safely at home. Itnever lasted long, never more than five minutes before someone sat down next to me andpressed into my hip, or bumped my knee climbing past me.

Joshua Malbin

3At first that was all right. But soon even these small disruptions grew frustrating.Since I could never have the full banquet of the city to myself, this scent of the feast fromfar off was the best I would ever do. I wanted to inhale it more deeply than was yetpossible in occasional short whiffs.Ultimately the problem came down to touch. I could block or confuse sight, smell,and hearing, but short of paralyzing myself I didn’t see how I could avoid feeling it whensomeone elbowed me. I needed a way to keep other people’s elbows—and hands, knees,and feet—from making contact with me at all.I decided to build myself an armored truck. A tank. At the time it seemed like thelogical next step.I started with a wheelchair. To that I added a short section of wrought-iron fence Ibought from a guy who sold furnishings and lawn furniture. I had the spikes on top cutabout a foot and a half from their points, and bolted them onto the sides and arms,sticking straight out to the sides. That part was simple. I also built on a collapsible three-sided box, open on top and behind my calves, but rising six inches above the tops of myknees in front and on the left and right. Finally I added stabilizers to the two front legs,basically kickstands that swung off diagonally from the seat. Each had a piston I couldpressurize with a hand bicycle pump that hung from the right armrest. When I put thosedown, pumped them firm, and engaged the wheel locks, I was pretty much immovable.The day I took it for its maiden voyage I bounced it down the stairs to the subwayand sat in it as soon as I reached the platform, with my legs in place inside the box, sothat when I rolled onto the train almost everyone in there believed I was really crippled.