Recently, when I was in New York City, the most impressive experience I had was riding on the subway with a very ill fellow. His right leg was wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag, his pant leg above the bag appeared wet with blood and body fluid, and he was rocking back and forth in the fetal crouch position without looking up. The garbage bag "shoe" was leaking and the linoleum floor was moist...
These were the visual impressions.
However, the olfactory impressions were much stronger.
There is no polite way to say it - about the strongest fetid stench I have experienced made the end of the subway car unbearable to occupy....people were holding their noses and leaving the car at each platform.
Except not everybody left the car.
I think people were overpowered nasally and emotionally...the only person that actually did anything was a gay man who got up from the seat next to me, getting out a 10 dollar bill from his wallet, went over to the sick fellow, and pushed the bill gently into the fellow's hand.
I spoke with the 10 dollar man when he came back and sat down next to me...I told him I admired his action...and we got into a discussion about homeless and sick riders on the subway -
Could the transit police or some other service get the sick person off the subway and to a hospital? What if the fellow didn't want to get off? Was the smell a reason to remove the person? How cruel to take a guy out of a public place because he is so sick and his flesh is rotting and smelling.
When I got off the subway it was just after dusk and I could see the new Freedom Tower being topped out at 1776 feet high.
I thought - "Man builds a structure way up into the sky - no problem - but we can't figure out how to pragmatically and humanely help a sick fellow human - get him from a bench on the subway to medical and emotional and financial help....this very seriously ill fellow was rotting away before my eyes...I wrote down the subway car's four digit number...who would I provide the number too?"
We are all so weak. It took me months just to get up the strength to write about the experience - definitely the most powerful and memorable experience of my visit to New York City.
Post Script: It is not a rare occurrance to have one end of a subway car emptied out because of a sick and odorious passenger. Before I got into the car in the image above, I was standing on the platform and speaking with a young fellow who was traveling with his dog. As soon as the train car pulled up and stopped in front of us, the dog owner looked into the car, said to me "don't get in it sme...(garbled so I didn't understand)", and walked down the platform to another car. As soon as I got in and was hit hard with the foul air I understood fully what the dog fellow had said. I then decided to take the experience head on...and I would do so again..but I haven't provided a bit of help or improvement...it is emotionally challenging to engage this experience and physically difficult to even be in such an evironment...like war...
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| homeless-on-NYC-subP1610574.jpg [1] | 254.48 KB |
