New York, New York
Observations: We’re All Winning
Strange people roam the subways of New York. They spit, howl, and peck at your shoulders. But not all of them are bad: ROSECRANS BALDWIN reports on a boy he found singing in a tunnel.
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A short Asian boy was singing on the downtown C train platform at 14th street. It was a little past ten-thirty in the morning and he was dressed for school: hooded yellow jacket, red backpack, jeans, and sneakers. Someone in his family had shaved him a bowl cut, leaving welts and sore patches on his skin and a sliver of hair like a tail pinned on a donkey.
We’re all winning, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Oh you, yeah, we love you.
He carried a rusting scooter, the folding type that’s been popular with businessmen recently, that he rolled between his legs while he sang.
You you you, we love you
Hey! Yooooooooooooooooooou
His singing had a singular effect: The words were stretched much longer than they could stand, wavering eight or nine seconds while his high voice switched notes. The song had no melody. Each line of sound was new, eerie, and dirge-like; hearing him sing was like listening to someone moaning underwater.
What the boy lacked in pitch, though, he found in volume, and with that a crowd of spectators. I followed him into the front car of the train, the boy heading for the window that looks ahead to the tunnels. A Hispanic family was already standing there so he set himself behind them and kept singing. I tried to ignore him by taking out my book, David Mitchell’s new novel, Number9Dream, a story of a young man roaming around Tokyo.
‘This is your southbound C train. Next stop West Fourth. Please stand clear the closing doors.’
It’s normal for New Yorkers to ignore train directions, often because the speech is mangled by lousy speakers. But this time I look up: the boy’s now shut his mouth and stands there, quiet. The doors are still open. A few seconds later the conductor’s voice comes garbled through the speakers.
‘This is your southbound C train. Next stop West Fourth. Please stand aside the closing doors.’
So he’d been one word off, ‘clear’ for ‘aside.’ Otherwise he’d nailed a pitch-perfect imitation of the conductor. The doors close, the train starts, and the boy’s song resumes, with the same long tones, but the lyrics are now train instructions grabbed from different stations.
This is 14th St. Transfers available
For the W, R, Q, and 6 Trains
Take the PATH to New Jersey
On the Upper Level, the LIE trains…
We arrived at West Fourth and again he was the medium for directions: a second before the conductor spoke, the kid beat him to it, note for note, word for word. The train continued and, distracted from reading, I folded my book and watched him. He hadn’t moved, still stationed behind the family at the door, straddling his scooter. The train shook on the turns, commuters trembling on the hang-straps. His singing continued, awful and tuneless, directing trains across the five boroughs.
Your F train, your V train
Your J, M, and Z trains
A woman next to him stepped over his scooter to stand by the doors, ready for the next stop. He followed behind her and looked up, wide-eyed, asking politely, ‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’
She looked down with a stern face, then pushed up her sleeve and pointed to her watch.
‘10:30,’ he read, ‘Thank you very much.’ Then, switching to his loud baritone, ‘This is Spring St., transfers available to your uptown C and E trains. Thank you for riding the MTA. Have a nice day.’ The doors opened and we left, the boy already ahead of the crowd, singing,
You you you, we love you
I ran after him and watched as he pushed through the turnstile, smiling and waving madly. The woman in the ticket booth keyed her microphone and said good morning. He shouted good morning back. We both went upstairs to street-level, where he waved and greeted the coffee-cart guy, earning a cheerful ‘Hey!’
And then he was off, away on his scooter. I caught a glimpse of him at the next intersection where he was waiting to cross, looking back and forth between the stoplight and the cars, waving madly again, now to drivers as they drove past him down Varick. The light changed, he shot across, and some trucks passed between us. I lost him. I stopped, looked around smiling, and heard that tuneless song, warbling in my head.
We’re all winning, yeah, yeah, yeah
Hey! Yooooooooooooooooooou
We’re all winning, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Oh you, yeah, we love you.
He carried a rusting scooter, the folding type that’s been popular with businessmen recently, that he rolled between his legs while he sang.
You you you, we love you
Hey! Yooooooooooooooooooou
His singing had a singular effect: The words were stretched much longer than they could stand, wavering eight or nine seconds while his high voice switched notes. The song had no melody. Each line of sound was new, eerie, and dirge-like; hearing him sing was like listening to someone moaning underwater.
What the boy lacked in pitch, though, he found in volume, and with that a crowd of spectators. I followed him into the front car of the train, the boy heading for the window that looks ahead to the tunnels. A Hispanic family was already standing there so he set himself behind them and kept singing. I tried to ignore him by taking out my book, David Mitchell’s new novel, Number9Dream, a story of a young man roaming around Tokyo.
‘This is your southbound C train. Next stop West Fourth. Please stand clear the closing doors.’
It’s normal for New Yorkers to ignore train directions, often because the speech is mangled by lousy speakers. But this time I look up: the boy’s now shut his mouth and stands there, quiet. The doors are still open. A few seconds later the conductor’s voice comes garbled through the speakers.
‘This is your southbound C train. Next stop West Fourth. Please stand aside the closing doors.’
So he’d been one word off, ‘clear’ for ‘aside.’ Otherwise he’d nailed a pitch-perfect imitation of the conductor. The doors close, the train starts, and the boy’s song resumes, with the same long tones, but the lyrics are now train instructions grabbed from different stations.
This is 14th St. Transfers available
For the W, R, Q, and 6 Trains
Take the PATH to New Jersey
On the Upper Level, the LIE trains…
We arrived at West Fourth and again he was the medium for directions: a second before the conductor spoke, the kid beat him to it, note for note, word for word. The train continued and, distracted from reading, I folded my book and watched him. He hadn’t moved, still stationed behind the family at the door, straddling his scooter. The train shook on the turns, commuters trembling on the hang-straps. His singing continued, awful and tuneless, directing trains across the five boroughs.
Your F train, your V train
Your J, M, and Z trains
A woman next to him stepped over his scooter to stand by the doors, ready for the next stop. He followed behind her and looked up, wide-eyed, asking politely, ‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’
She looked down with a stern face, then pushed up her sleeve and pointed to her watch.
‘10:30,’ he read, ‘Thank you very much.’ Then, switching to his loud baritone, ‘This is Spring St., transfers available to your uptown C and E trains. Thank you for riding the MTA. Have a nice day.’ The doors opened and we left, the boy already ahead of the crowd, singing,
You you you, we love you
I ran after him and watched as he pushed through the turnstile, smiling and waving madly. The woman in the ticket booth keyed her microphone and said good morning. He shouted good morning back. We both went upstairs to street-level, where he waved and greeted the coffee-cart guy, earning a cheerful ‘Hey!’
And then he was off, away on his scooter. I caught a glimpse of him at the next intersection where he was waiting to cross, looking back and forth between the stoplight and the cars, waving madly again, now to drivers as they drove past him down Varick. The light changed, he shot across, and some trucks passed between us. I lost him. I stopped, looked around smiling, and heard that tuneless song, warbling in my head.
We’re all winning, yeah, yeah, yeah
Hey! Yooooooooooooooooooou
—Published April 9, 2002
