On the way to Rubber Room #10: Unpredictability

At first during this train ride on the way to Rubber Room performance #10 I was really enjoying not writing.  The train was decidedly warmer than the platform and I sank into the angle between the window and the chair to shut my eyes and just think about things.

It's Sunday afternoon. On the weekends, there's a transfer that takes place at Newark.  It's hard to find a seat on the second train.  I'm amazed by how crowded it is.  It's a double-decker and still I walk through several cars looking for an empty seat.  Two woman are in front of me as we make the trek from car to car.  The conductor checks our tickets and assures us that there are seats up ahead.

"I can't go to the  upper level," explains the older of the two women,  just in front of me.  "Bunny doesn't like it up there." 

"Bunny," I realize, is the name of her dog which is in some kind of carrying case that she has managed to fit beneath her coat, so that when she turns around to speak, they both look at me, a beast with two heads.  The woman's hair is extremely curly and completely white.  So is the dog's - a miniature poodle.  Who says people look like their pets?

She gives up the search, sliding into a seat reserved for the handicapped.

The younger woman I recognize from the platform, two trains ago, where she stood weighted down like an infantryman with three cases of different sizes, legs crossed at the ankles, arms akimbo, in perfect balance, with the poise of a dancer - a thing of beauty.

At Penn Station, I take the #1 train after finding the right metro card in my wallet.  But the train arrives in Times Square on the express track, not a good sign.  Less than ten minutes before the curtain rises.  The announcement confirms that there is no uptown service.  We are urged to take the express to 72nd Street and then the local back downtown.  No time for that.  I rush into the street where I flag down the only available cab, pointed in the wrong direction.   After several red lights, I jump from the cab at 54th Street, run to the building and walk to the elevator behind a slow moving patron of the arts whose girth and manner of walking forces me to adopt the same snail-like pace.  Sense of urgency is seldom shared.  

Once inside the elevator, I press 12, and, unfortunately, he presses 11.  As the car finally reaches the 11th floor, I step forward to be nearer the door once he departs.  

"Please don't touch any buttons until I exit," he says with indignation.

"No way I would," I say in my most innocent voice.

They've held the curtain for me, but as we'll all find out this will not be the only interruption of Rubber Room #10.