This past weekend, my two roommates were returning to our apartment in Park Slope from a Friday evening barhopping in Williamsburg. It was about 3:00am, and after waiting twenty minutes for monstrously big slices of pizzas, conversing uncomfortably with an old friend from college whom they'd run into on the platform, and being given free nail polish samplings, the L train finally arrived to return them eastward.
After transferring to the G train, they sat, exhausted and still half-drunk, my female roommate painting her nails with her found freebie. It was one of those early morning trains filled with hipsters and hobos, achingly quiet yet still bright enough to keep them from falling asleep.
Three stops in, with about a half dozen more to go before reaching the 4th Avenue stop, a policeman approached them.
"Sir," he said, "I'm going to need you to step of the train."
Seth, whose small frame and boyish face wouldn't normally attract him police suspicion, confusedly replied, "But I'm with her."
"She can come too," he answered.
Nikki followed, and after nervously watching the G ride off into the night as they stood on the platform at Myrtle Avenue at 3:30 in the morning with a cop who pointed his finger at Seth and began making accusations.
Seth, quietly freaking out, stood astounded completely clueless as to why he was being questioned by an officer. In a minor stupor, Seth figured he was in trouble for being slightly drunk, before quickly realizing that being summoned for consuming alcohol hadn't posed a threat for nearly a century.
The officer mentioned something about "leaving the bag" on the ground. What with the constant warning heard every day on the subway, Seth realized that he'd left his backpack at Nikki's feet for a moment, and that perhaps he'd been reprimanded on suspicion of terrorism (which, of course, is often how any other local 22-year-old wraps up a Friday night of drinks at the Brooklyn Brewery: bomb threat, y'all!).
Before long, however, Seth discovered that the officer hadn't pulled him aside after suspecting that he'd planted a bomb. Instead, three stops in Williamsburg, Seth had gotten up to throw out the paper plate holding the remains of his Meat Lovers slice. Upon doing so, the officer's eyes caught Seth disposing of the plate into the garbage. However, he also saw a paper bag on the ground that, although not having seen Seth do so, quickly assumed him to have carelessly tossed it onto the otherwise sparkling clean Lorimer St. platform.
Seth, bewildered, tired, and annoyed, retraced his steps in painstaking detail for the cop, who then realized that, indeed, he'd made a mistake. In fact, connecting a random object with an individual nearby doesn't make sense after all! Believe it or not, it's entirely illogical! Officer Broadshoulders had, after all, no reason to haggle an innocent, law-abiding Jewboy and his Shiksa companion for committing a crime for which the homeless, who both sleep and urinate on the same concrete, are rarely bothered.
Luckily for the cop, he'd made sure to fill out the necessary paperwork to avoid being reported for needlessly pulling Seth and Nikki off the train on (wait for it...) Suspicion of Littering.
At the very least, Seth figured, the cop could provide a ride home.
"Sorry," the officer replied, "I have to ride the train, too."
To New York City Cops, Our Unnecessarily Intrusive, Unequivocally Accusatory, and Selectively Discriminatory Racist Heroes!
Ahh, classic. I can recall a few years back when my mother was threatened with arrest for asking an officer where would be a good place to cross 5th Avenue during the Puerto Rican Day parade.
They got class, you gotta give 'em that.
Posted by: Matt | October 24, 2006 at 04:12 PM
If you were a person of color, you would be used to this and most likely would have spend the rest of your weekend in jail
Posted by: Eddie | October 24, 2006 at 04:13 PM
in all fairness I have to tell m story. really late on a weekend night, L platform COMPLETELY empty. I take a leak in a secluded out of sight spot. I'm done and feeling like a new man only to turn around to a cop holding his badge out. As if it weren't nice enough that he let me finish without interuption. I was briefly and without malice told to not do that again and sent on my way. They aren't all bad.
Posted by: shaun | October 24, 2006 at 04:22 PM
I once made the mistake of walking by a cop @ the Bedford-Myrtle stop. A mistake which cost me 45 min. of being cuffed/held/questioned for doing nothing wrong. But, as you may have guessed, I'm a darky and I was treated accordingly.
Posted by: ChupaCaBrooklyn | October 24, 2006 at 04:25 PM