How to Cope with Being Broken Down on an AmTrack Train with Only One Beer

A tourist’s guide to absolute survival

The day was July 17th. It seemed ordinary, at first. We were racing to Penn Station because we had an 11:20 am., train North, back up to Albany…

A day earlier…

We were all up in Albany, New York, together again, out in the woods in a place where we’d go each summer while growing up. This year we had decided to travel the two hours down to New York City, my former stomping grounds, so the kids could go see Noah Kahan live in concert. My sister had bought some great seats and the girls were not going to miss it. The show started at around 9:30 pm. At the time, I’m embarrassed to say, I wasn’t familiar with his music but the guy sold out Madison Square Garden (MSG) so he was obviously the real deal. I know his music now, it’s good stuff.

The train ride down was uneventful. I drank a Hazy IPA, chatted with my peeps, and took a short nap wishing I’d bought an entire six-pack. We even stopped to pick up passengers in my hometown of Croton-on-Hudson.

We arrived and caught a cab to my sister’s apartment to drop off our gear. We then shuttled the teens up to Madison Square Garden and returned to the West Village to bum around until dinner. My sister had booked us a reservation for an early meal at a small little corner eatery called B’artusi. It’s a great spot. I ordered the Kale Caesar salad and a High-Noon IPA. (I hear the groans already regarding my kale salad. Worry about what you eat, not what I eat.) I licked the plate clean garnering a few stares. The atmosphere and the fact that they serve IPA was enough for me to become a fan. My sisters both ordered a variety of foods and we ate like Joey Chestnut.

New York hasn’t really changed all that much from my college years. I drop in every now and then. Waves of nostalgia wash over me. I miss the city life, the charm, the neon, the good food and overpriced beer, the noise and constant hum of activity, the inability to pee anywhere without getting arrested after 9 pm., and the weirdness of all that is human.

New York always reminds you that you’ve been away- the mind your own business mentality, the honking, the social hierarchy, and the utter chaos. I knew I was back when we went to a bar in the West Village called, “Employees Only” and the door guy looks at me and says, “No hats,” like it’s 1997 again. Now I’m the one scoffing as if he ordered the kale.

I ignored him and tried to walk past. “We don’t allow hats in here,” he said again like it was a really big deal. For me it was a huge deal. “This is a Yankee hat. I should be treated like royalty you limey bastard!”

“No hats bro.” The guy called me bro. We’re not bros Red Sox fan.

Little has changed in this aspect of the city. I still can’t wear my Yankee hat in a New York glitz bar? I contemplated giving him a righteous slap, but nowadays, I could end up in the Tombs, or worse, slapped with a 15-year bid at Riker’s for attempted murder. I’m a balding journalist with zero muscle tone. I wouldn’t last a week in either place.

The Manhattan bar scene invented the “dress code”. You either get righteous or move on with the rest of the losers. I’m an old balding journalist wearing converse sneakers with holes in them, a black tee-shirt, jeans and a Yankee hat, drenched in sweat and just wanted a corner bar stool and a cold beer. I could easily have passed for a hotdog salesman on 161st Street. Trying to be buss for this crowd and the 22-year-old schmeck bouncer was going above and beyond. Instead of giving me a nod and a “Hey, welcome, come on in out of the wretched heat and grab yourself a cold one,” this chump had to flex. Whatever. Maybe that’s part of the game. I capitulated and removed the hat.

My sisters wanted to go to this place. It was an ok joint. They had good Lagunita IPA beer. I was happy. I watched a couple beside us flirting and was thankful to be long out of that world. My cousins, Sara and Ayla, showed up and it was great to reunite.

After rubbing elbows with the city’s hatless crowd for a little while, we all went in search of a bar with more than one bathroom and dipped into the “Spaniard.” This fine establishment said nothing of my offensive Yankee hat. It was a young, fresh scene. The place was packed with beautiful women and successful looking guys hoping to score. I sipped a Spaten and watched them all courting and flirting. The girls being coy and sexy, the guys sticking out their chests brimming with testosterone and sheer desperation. It was like watching National Geographic.

After a while I hit the streets and headed up to MSG to meet up with the kids. I started walking up Seventh Avenue. It was about 11 pm., or so. I figured the concert would be letting out soon. I love the city at night. It’s raw, it’s beautiful and alive. But there is still the element of sketch to contend with. In a way it gives the city character. I spent decades wandering these streets. I fit in. I’m one of the vampires; one of the weirdos.

Times have changed as they tend to do. First you have thieves trolling the city on mopeds robbing people like it’s Medellin. Little treacherous monsters like scraggly mosquitos zipping around stealing purses and trying to rape yuppy girls from the suburbs that Uber’d to the village to slum it for the evening. There have already been around 166 incidents of moped robberies and counting as of this piece. Then, on every corner is the thick, sticky aroma of the Mary Jane cigarette. I know it’s not “in,” or “hip” to admit, but it smells like funk. I hate grass. I prefer the sweet smell of New York from the 80s and 90s, like fresh baking bread mixed with fumes, stagnate vestibule urine, steaming garbage and the waft here and there of gas station perfume.

Along Seventh Avenue between like 14th and 34th streets has become somewhat of a Skid Row vibe with drug-addled homeless stuffed into every vestibule and on any available bench or surface. The seediness alludes to the Times Square of old, rife with depravity, crime, filth and hopelessness. With temperatures even at 11 pm., hovering on the uncomfortable, you could see these people too lethargic and hot to even panhandle. Are we there again? Or has it never really left? I’m just an outside observer these days. God dammit I love this city.

Racing for the train the following morning…

It’s nearly 11 am. We nurse hangovers in a cab in thick summer traffic. Thank God for the new Curb app. Love it.

“This traffic is insane. Hopefully we make it,” my sister said.

There were five of us moving at 3.7 mph uptown. A side note. If you are traveling in heavy congestion in mid-town Manhattan, part of your fee includes a “congestion surcharge.” Essentially you, the passenger is deemed part of the traffic problem and therefore ye must pay and pay you do! Give it 50 years, it will take an hour to go a block. It already takes a good 47 minutes at rush hour.

We miraculously made it to the train on time and found decent seats. Could we have been any unluckier? The only thing would have been had the train fell into a freak sink hole and we all died in a horrific death that made the news for ten minutes. In reality, if luck had been on our side we would have missed it because without fail, our modern-era train immediately broke down some 300 feet under the city in 150 degree sweltering tunnels.

“AmTrack train number 233 from New York to Albany was suddenly out of commission. I was having ptsd after being stuck on an American Airlines flight a week earlier in North Carolina spewing jet fuel all over the runway. What is happening?”

AmTrack train number 233 from New York to Albany was suddenly out of commission. I was having ptsd after being stuck on an American Airlines flight a week earlier in North Carolina spewing jet fuel all over the runway. What is happening?

After about ten minutes, lights flickering, temperature in the train rapidly rising, a guy with wide eyes, like I could see the whites of his eyes like an antelope with a lion attached to his neck, comes hauling up the aisle. This poor fellow approaches an Amtrak employee, “I’m so claustrophobic, is there time frame for when we’ll get moving.”

“No time soon,” the employee says with zero empathy. I thought the passenger was going to break a window and climb out. With slumped shoulders he reluctantly returned to his seat. It only got weirder from there.

If you’ve ever been on an AmTrack or Metro North train you know that the seats are all facing in one direction except for the ends where on each side of the aisle are four seats where you can sit across from each other. The kids are across the aisle and my twin sister is beside me and my younger sister is sitting oblique across from me. Behind her is another lady.

From her area we start hearing heavy breathing and moaning. Hmm? We think to ourselves. We are all looking at each other. The kids hear it. The guy sitting behind them has a distressed look and is side glancing the woman. The lady was deep into what could only be identified as, well, hardcore porn. Amorous love making videos at 11:45 am on a Wednesday morning on the AmTrack.

She mistakenly thought it was on her headphones. Heavy sultry breathing. Slap! SLAP! SLAP! Slap! The other passengers cringe. Some silently and uncomfortably laugh into the crooks of their arms. The lady soon realized the passion was not on her headphones and shrugged and plugged them in. We suspected she had violent tendencies. With each negative update over the intercom she sweared vehemently. This heffer had no shame. Kids sitting five feet away from her and she’s eye-wearing it out. You never know what you will see or hear in New York.

Moments later, stumbling down the aisle is what appears to be a backwoods hunter or pioneer from the hills of Norwood, in a Lou Reed Tee shirt, wandering back and forth aimlessly muttering to himself. My sister is totally freaked out by this. I was waiting for him to pull out a buck knife and start slitting throats. He had beady little black eyes and no expression. I could tell he’d seen some heavy shit in his life. Maybe he’d done a tour or two in ‘Nam. As quickly as he appeared he was gone.

And still we sat. Time seemed to freeze. I tried to get on social media to scroll mindlessly, but that was fruitless since AmTrack WiFi never seems to be connected in these inky dark tunnels.

I leaned back and thought about the city and how much I miss it. It’s such a frenetic place. It’s like another planet compared to the hill country of Northeast Tennessee. Tourists are out of their minds, New York either mesmerizes or repulses them.

Despite the delays, the porn, the wandering serial killer hillbilly and the uncertainty of getting out of this sardine can alive, train travel is still so much better than flying. I’d rather spend 2 hours broke down on a train than 20 minutes on a plane.

We eventually did make it back to Albany and I survived it all on one beer.