An Epic Journey Home: Company Buffers Frugality

Dec.4, 2019
Dear Diary,

I returned to JFK airport, from visiting family in Canada, at midnight the Tuesday night / Wednesday morning following Thanksgiving. Even though I live about as far as possible from JFK in the city - at the northern tip of Manhattan in Inwood - I planned to still manage to get home via public transportation, determined to capitalize further on a cheap flight by not spending $80+ on a car. As a 22-year New Yorker, I would think myself capable of selecting from all the possible routes and options to make it home at a relatively reasonable hour! I was confident that there were enough options that I could avoid the perennial “being mta'd”.
I kept my cheerful mood throughout the hour-long wait for the plane to dock at the gate – it meant I could finish watching my documentary! And call my family to let them know I'd arrived!
The AirTrain was running at 16-minute intervals, but mine to Jamaica arrived within 8 minutes – no problem! I could take the LIRR to Penn Station 20 minutes after arriving, or the E six minutes later – I could make the E! And it would be for subway fare only! And even though the A was stopping at 168^th street, I could still transfer instead to the 1 to get home!
The benches on the E were filled with very tired and mostly sleeping men. The one across from me snored like a proverbial saw. Two-hours jet-lagged from the west, I brightly read my book, while sensing the weight of those who had worked hard all day or were going to work at this hour, or might not have anywhere else to keep warm. Only 36 stops to go!
How would I have known, before we neared Manhattan, that we were running on the F line? (A baroque musician would have no problem with E=F, but my strong sense of absolute pitch finds this difficult to comprehend!) No Penn Station for me.
But I could exit at 57^th street and walk over just two short long blocks to Columbus Circle for the 1! And get fresh air along the way, which would be much appreciated after 36 stops amid the gasses of large sleeping men!
And there was even a booth! I'd realized I could have been $2.75 more frugal, since I was travelling after midnight, and planned to start an unlimited metrocard in the morning, which I could have bought before my first subway train instead. There were no people in the station – no line at the booth! Would it hurt to ask if they might be able to refund the $2.75 if I refilled the unlimited ride there?
I asked.
The station attendant was very kind and said, well no, unfortunately not.
“Ok, I have two metrocards here, can I instead combine the monetary amounts on them, so I can make one a monetary card, and the other an unlimited?” (Monetary amounts on an unlimited card can't be used until the time period of the unlimited expires.)
He had me swipe the cards: $3.75 on the one card, and $1.50 on the other card.
“Wait – how is it possible – I just put $20 on one of the cards at JFK – how is it possible that so much of the balance is used up already? The AirTrain is only $5!”
“I wouldn't be able to tell you that – you'd have to mail in the card and request a refund.” He gave me the envelope with the correct forms. Presumably I had been double or triple-charged at the AirTrain turnstile, which had been behaving problematically but didn't betray its mistake fully. It was the $3.75 card that was thus aggrieved.
“Ok, I have a third card here – can we make this one the unlimited one?” (It had no balance on it.)
“No – that's an AirTrain card; you can't make it unlimited.”
“Ok, can I transfer the $1.50 from the second card to the AirTrain card, and make that the monetary one?”
“No, because - “ and I still don't really understand the reason why, but something about transferring balances to AirTrain cards not being possible.
My math seemed to be failing me. I had three metrocards. One was afflicted by being overcharged, and would thus have to be sent in an envelope for reimbursement (never mind the time of filling out the form.) The other was the magic card, being unlimited and monetary at the same time, while of course it wasn't possible to do both at the same time (as I might wish to if I have a guest I would swipe in.) And the third card appeared to be useless, but nonetheless still worth $1.
Both of my parents are mathematicians. I've grown up surrounded by math. But tonight the attendant and I appeared to be stuck in a math puzzle, and must have gone back and forth for five or ten minutes, he patiently humouring me but unable to deliver justice; from my side, “I've just spent half an hour longer on the train than planned because there was no way to know that E=F, I've been triple-charged for the AirTrain, and I have three metrocards here, but you're saying I still need to buy a new metrocard for $1 to make it possible to have an unlimited card and a monetary card?” There didn't seem to be a way around it. And it was 2am. His suggestion of going downtown to transfer at 14^th street without paying to re-enter the train system seemed really unappealing, and equally it didn't make sense to put off buying the unlimited metrocard and pay $2.75 for the next leg of my journey left me even more in the red.
Do you see the answer?
Eventually I did, and voiced what I wanted to do. I wanted to walk to Columbus Circle as planned, I wanted him to top off the magic card with $1.75 more so I'd have $2.75=1 ride on it, and then add an unlimited week to it (cutting my losses), and then I would fill up my AirTrain card to use as a pay-per-ride (which, for whatever reason, IS possible). And I would mail in the the aggrieved card. He said ok, and I'm not sure I had been able to communicate why this was the functional solution that more or less did not leave me short-changed, but he was amenable, and set to work on the $1.75. I handed him my credit card, but was rejected: “booths are cash only.”
“Ok, I can do that.”
But I wanted to use my credit card for the $33 unlimited week, so went to the machine for that. Then tried to put $20 on the AirTrain card, and the machine rejected the transaction. So I returned to the booth. Was it a look of trepidation, or amusement, the attendant and two friends gave me when I returned? Actually, it was one of the friends who processed my transaction, and I sensed that her guard was up, that she was prepared to argue with me if necessary, but when I turned out to be friendly and at least superficially not crazy, but straightforwardly able to request something politely and coherently, she placed me in the harmless-oddity/mildly-amusing-diversion category. When I looked around the station with bewilderment following our transaction, both she and the original attendant called out to direct me to the best exit to get to Columbus Circle.
I double-checked the bank notifications on my phone – yes, I'd been charged $20 at JFK. In the time I checked this, the original attendant exited the booth and walked towards my exit. Conversationally, we walked up the stairs together, he explaining that he was on break, and had three more hours to go afterwards. (Was he really not annoyed at me, after I'd taken so much of his time over the math puzzle of $1 at 2am?) Up top, he again pointed me in the right direction, and seemed to hesitate as I stopped to pull my mittens out of my suitcase.
It turned out we were walking in the same direction – he'd waited for me - and so the conversation continued. He explained that he was walking a few blocks west to the pharmacy, since their prices are the lower NJ prices, whereas those more on the east side are the higher NY prices, so the walk becomes worthwhile for him. I suppose we were on a similar mission of frugality. My mood started going back to the cheerful side. Here was someone at 2am who would put up with a math puzzle over $1 and still make conversation? That's nice, and comfortable too!
As we continued to talk, I realized that something I had just told friend from home, had once again show itself to be true: “New York can be a frustrating and tiring place to be, but I love the people!”

And so, as he caught my words, the evening began to be bright and shiny and luminous again. We parted ways at his drug store, and I continued to the 1 at Columbus Circle. It was only coming in 16 minutes? No problem! I could start writing this meanwhile! 215^th street and 110 steps to go up the hill? A chance to try out whether my roller-board suitcase could go up the bike ramp! (It did.) Another 66 steps up to my home – par for the course!

I finally made it home at bit after 4pm. A non-stop flight to my hometown is a little over four hours; here in the city it took just four hours to get home. But it's ok – I'm staying up late to write a good story!

Although I am falling asleep doing it now. Good night!

Staring at nowhere

​People who stare - 

On the subway - once upon a time every minute was precious, a thirteen minute ride offered time to study for an exam, 

to read a chapter, to figure out the harmonies of a piece I'm playing.

And there were those who stare, into the distance, searching, or with problems they couldn't figure out at home.

Now there is an army of phones, each offering pre-occupation to its owner. On a good day, I write emails. Others play bejeweled, and others zone out to music.

And there are those who stare, looking for a solution to a problem, numb, maybe hoping it will come as the cars shake.

Sometimes I am now one who stares. The problems are too big. The solution is elusive, if it exists.

For example: is there a way around the trade-off, of an affordable apartment with space and sunlight, and riding this goddamn subway for almost more hours than I practice violin in my apartment with space and sunlight?

The Kitten Who Won the Lottery

... Like all good stories, at least on this blog, it starts on the subway.

September 27, 2013

I was on the subway late at night, on my way home from a concert and after-party, when a seat became available and a kind young man offered it to me, rather than taking it himself. I had a long ride ahead and gratefully took it. A nearby troll was making loud chauvinistic, racial, and all other types of slurs he could think of, masking them in a sort of conversation, but intentionally needling the passengers around him. One woman cursed him out as she exited; the rest of us mostly sat in silence and rolled our eyes. I'd been away from New York for nearly two months and had forgotten such common subway joys; the reminder amused more than annoyed me and I exchanged a dismissive smile with my seat patron over the ridiculous nonsense.

A little kindness goes a long, long way. On the 1 line, I have the option to exit at 215th street, after which I hike up 110 steps to get to my building, or I can exit at 207th street, which is a longer walk but a more gradual incline. I was undecided about which I'd take tonight, but the balance tipped in favour of 207, for the simple reason that the kind guy went to the subway door as we approached the station, thereby putting in my mind the prospect of walking with other kind people at 2am on 207th street, making that option seem safer. As I exited, I noticed that he didn't, but by then I'd made up my mind and went anyway.

 Seemingly tiny decisions may be life-changing indeed. For it is thus, that I passed the meowing car, at the intersection of 207th street and Post Avenue.

             More accurately, the car was shielding a kitten crying at the top of its little lungs. Its distressed squeaking was barely audible above the street noise, and many passersby didn't notice it. However, I did; perhaps I am innately a cat lady, but I also have better hearing than many, which I think is attributable to my classical musician's habit of holding my ears at the more deafening stretches of subway tracks. The high end of my hearing is still intact (at least, I think it is intact–what, did you say something?)

           What to do about this little fellow? I am decidedly a cat afficionado, but have so far successfully avoided crossing the line to expressed cat-lady-ism, which I understand has a prerequisite of four cats. (I have three and two are currently housed with their grandparents, er, I mean, my parents.) More tellingly and uselessly for tonight, I do not possess a cat trap, as New Yorkers truly well-versed in cat-philanthropy do. I have connections to some of these wonderful New Yorkers, but not at 2am. Still, I couldn't just leave the little guy crying there (and I did have a hunch he was a guy-kitty).

           I decided to begin with a conversational approach. We meowed back and forth. I was trying to communicate, "I hear you, hear me echo your sentiments, so come out and let an empathetic stranger help you." He, however, continued complaining frenziedly about his current situation, and perhaps wasn't ready to have his life changed for the posh, so our exchange remained a mere mewing chorus. Perhaps he was well educated by his mother to never leave the cover of a car for fearsome strangers. I, on the other hand, had no strangers to fear: all passersby either heard the kitten and smiled, or didn't hear the kitten and took a wide detour around the meowing woman peering beneath a car at 2am. I'm sure I looked rather similar to another woman meandering by later, drawing little crosses with her index finger in the air, on the sidewalk, and then on a few cars and a garbage truck. Trying to be the heroine of the cat rescue story is a drug in and of itself.

My next brilliant strategy was to procure some food to lure the kitten out to my snatching arms. Bouncers at a nearby nightclub had been watching me, so I asked them if I could have a little milk, assuming the bar would have it on hand to make White Russians and whatnot. Their mystified looks confirmed that I indeed appeared as crazy as I'd hoped, but I soon won them over as allies and added security in my kitten-aid project. They said the bar had no milk, but suggested I go to the neighbouring street-corner, and get meat from John's Chicken instead. I mustered my best Spanish and bought two little strips of chicken for 25 cents, earning a smile from the server, who did not know how repugnant and sad the place was to me, a 25-year vegetarian. (I do feel conflicted at buying certain life for my pet cats at the cost of certain death at best for many nameless and innocent herbivores, and know that sticking with even an organic norm simply perpetuates the cycle, but I am at a loss for a more humane and ethical solution.) I returned with my bait to the car, dangling it in front of the kitten, but he was too skittish to come out. I threw him the first strip under the car, to get him hooked. He wolfed it down ravenously. (Ah, but did he raven it down wolfishly?) I showed him the second one, and placed it dramatically a foot or so from the curb, trying to position myself unobtrusively within snatching distance. It nearly succeeded. He came out carefully, and started gnawing it–I reached out and managed to touch his back, but as soon as he felt my hand he shrank away with the quickness of instinct, shooting me a look of fear, and darted back under the car. Dangit. From his reaction, I was sure he had never been touched by a human before. I tossed him the second strip, but now he was less hungry, and more wary, and I knew I had used up the lure-tactic.

A grown cat loped in our direction alongside the cars parked on the opposite side of the street. Perhaps it belonged to the colony that lives a few blocks down, which is fed and managed by a local cat lady. I hoped this cat was the kitten's mother, coming to get him. Surely she could hear his high-pitched mews? But she continued on along the cars, passing by us with an air of despondency yet purposefulness, walking slowly with cocked ears, but never turning her head. I tried mewing in tandem, for added volume, also to no avail. Life for street cats is surely not easy, let alone beautiful, especially considering the size of the local rats; perhaps she had too many worries of her own, moving along like so many New Yorkers when we stare at the pavement and sadly pass a homeless beggar. Or perhaps, if indeed she was the mother (though I doubt it), she heard the cat-lady-like quality of my voice and wanted him to have the chance at a better life, giving me permission to try. I don't think that's the right interpretation; still, I felt again more responsible for the kitten and less guilty to take him from his home: if his mother was not around to help, and even another cat wouldn't come look, who but me would be eccentric enough, and have the wherewithal and perseverance, to help this kitten at 3am?

207 & Post, NW corner

The saying is that New York never sleeps; more prosaically, it is a city where somebody is always awake. This fine Friday night, there were plenty of people out and about, fewer than during the day but once I'd decided to try enlisting the help of others, it took only half a minute to spot a friendly-looking couple to accost. They immediately deemed it a worthwhile project. The guy peered under the car, and had the new idea of rattling his keys to make a toy-like sound, and then shaking the car a little to try to make the kitten run out. Instead, the kitten ran to hide under the neighbouring car, and then next neighbouring car, and then around the corner under the cars on Post street. However, he had the sense not to run out into traffic; his mother must have taught him well. We searched but could not find him on Post; though we heard his cries, none of the rows of wheels seemed to have a kitten between them. Oddly enough, however, we found an open tin of cat food - had someone tried to rescue him earlier? I checked the cars on the opposite side of Post with the girl, while the guy tried shaking the curbside tree, in case the kitten was up in it. No such luck. After ten or fifteen minutes, the couple gave up and left.

Soon, I heard the kitten crying again. I followed the sound to a car on my side of Post street, but no kitten was visible. I realized that he must have climbed up inside the car from underneath. This seemed like the perfect time to use my call-a-friend lifeline, and I knew just who should be able to help: someone who would be awake after Friday night ballroom-dancing two time zones further west, and who had recently aided a sibling in car-inspection and purchase. The conversation was good moral support for me: it helped keep my spirits up and persist, and the kitten responded to my calm and continuing voice too, peeking out from above the front wheel of the SUV. It didn't matter that the main advice my friend gave me was to stay safe and go home, since I was nowhere near doing that. (Anyone who has tried to convince me to desist from trying to solve a problem once I have my brain and heart wrapped around it, knows the futility of this advice!) I thought the kitten might be becoming more accustomed to me, and hoped he would give in eventually, and let me take him.

      Post street presents an odd juxtaposition of Inwood night life. Next to a swank nightclub is a food pantry: 4-inch heels, cleavage, straightened hair, designer jeans and embroidered leather jackets of those who stay out by choice, walk by sweat pants and grocery trolleys of those who have no-where else to sleep. I figured I fit right in, somewhere in the middle. I felt safe, and my violin and bag turned out to be perfectly safe too on top of the SUV, where I could keep an eye on them. I tried to reach the kitten on the SUV wheel, but he fled under another car, a pattern that repeated several times. At one point, he hid under a pile of garbage from the pantry, scampering into the wooden forklift platform at the bottom of it. I tried arranging the pile to block his entrance, so I could catch him at the other end, explaining to the elderly people on the steps, "Gattito". They watched me solemnly, and one began rooting through wooden crates in the pile, to see if any of the ears of corn in them were still good. I felt intense gratitude for my own food, for knowing that I can afford my next meal, for the privilege of selecting organic healthy food that I like. My trap failed, and the kitten escaped back under the cars, again climbing the front wheel of his favourite SUV. The owner of the SUV soon emerged from the club, so I explained the situation to him, which he seemed to think he could easily solve by taking charge, shouting at the kitten to come out, and banging on the car. I asked him to please let me handle the situation since I'd already been out for over two hours and had started getting the kitten more tame. I was quite pleased by how unsexy the owner seemed to think this proposition was, and that he felt it was not worth trying to impress me any further with his kitten-catching skills. In fact, "Willful-cat-lady" seems to be a good guise for me: all night only one male club-goer, of several who took an interest in the kitten and me helping the kitten, changed the subject to, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I decided the correct answer was "--Yes." "Are you sure?" "Yes." I moved away, and that, thankfully, ended the conversation.

          My kitten-quest, however, continued for hours. I tracked him back and forth under the cars on Post, up onto their wheels, to the garbage pile, back to the cars on 207th. He was becoming more tame, and would let me approach within a few feet even when sitting on the curb to dash across the corner, but I just couldn't bridge the remaining gap. He wanted out of his situation and finally tried climbing the tree, where at shoulder-height I should have been able to snatch him easily, but again I only managed to touch his back before he sprang off to retake cover under the cars. Nearing morning, he was so exhausted that he actually came out on his own from under his original car on 207th, walked towards me across the sidewalk, mewing plaintively, and lay down. He was clearly so tired he was trying to trust me, wishing that I could help. Still, the moment I approached, his fear of humans got the better of him again, and he retreated again.

A better-safe-than-sorry mentality is probably very rational for street cats in Inwood; not everything is roses for animals here. Apart from feeling, not inept, but not quite ept either in the kitten-catching-department, my most helpless moment of the night was seeing a delivery truck unloading cargo for the live poultry place next to the night club on Post. The dozens of chickens crammed into crates were not unloaded gently, but instead slammed down the few feet from the truck to the pavement; no-one cared whether they were comfortable or miserable, presumably reasoning that they would soon be dead anyway. I could only mourn their fate, knowing I was powerless there. I was investing hours for one little kitten, but could do nothing for hundreds of chickens. On a side note, I feel similarly overwhelmed sometimes when I take great pains to recycle my trash, then read about the billions of barrels of oil used for various things each day. Still, to take hope from the sarcastic words of one of my favourite Onion articles, "How bad can throwing away just one plastic bottle be, 37 million people wonder?" ... perhaps 37 million people taking small steps to make their own little backyards just a bit better places to live, can make a difference in the big picture too. I do hope so. I would like to be one of them.

I did want to make a difference in the kitten's life, but I had to give up, nearing 6am. He had climbed up inside his original car on 207th street, and after a few last mews fell silent. He must have fallen asleep. I made a last attempt to get him out, by asking the John's Chicken employee sweeping the sidewalk if I could borrow his broom to try to get "gatito" out from under "automovil". The employee came with me to try, soon joined by a friend of his. Neither could hear the kitten, and both several times scanned my face as though to ascertain if I were a bit batty, but the friend offered to try to go under the car, and would I pay him $20 if he got the kitten out? I said, “Yes! Of course!” He said, what the heck, he really needed the money, and tried. He couldn't quite fit, and emerged greasy and without kitten. I said I felt I should give him something for his effort anyway, but he wouldn't take it; he said he was honest and had tried to do something good. They left.

       So far, my only tangible accomplishment was to have satisfied my curiousity sufficiently to be able to develop a theory of how the kitten came to be mewing under a car at 207^th and Post. Based on his behaviour all night, I think he did not know his current surroundings outside of the six or seven cars he went back and forth under, but he did seem very comfortable hiding inside cars, wherefore I think he lived at a nearby cat colony, or in a super's basement quarters with outdoor access, and had climbed up into the engine of another car, for warmth, or out of curiousity, and gotten an unexpected ride to his current location. It explains his disorientation and terror, and again affirmed for me that just letting him try to find his way home probably wouldn't work.

             Now that he was sleeping inside the car's engine, however, there was nothing I could do. The last clubgoers were leaving, one of whom asked me in passing, "Did you ever get your cat?" I said no, and wondered at how my fame had spread. I did not want the owner of the car to start the car with the kitten inside. So I wrote a note in both English and Spanish, and put it under the windshield wiper, to say there was a kitten in the car, and to please call me upon his return, leaving my number.

I went home. Put down my violin and bag. Changed out of concert clothes into yoga pants. Ate my leftover hummus and pita. Sort of took my friend's advice to take care of myself a little. I would have liked to go to bed.

The phone rang at 6:33am; the driver had returned. He said he'd seen the kitten. I exclaimed excitedly, "Thank you so much for calling!! I'll be there in five minutes! Please wait!"

          My new flatmate, Jillian, had just awoken, and wondered what I was up to. As I rushed to put on my comfortable five-finger shoes, I explained, "Kitten-hunting! Want to come?" She did; I hurried ahead, this time armed with a cat-carrying-crate.

           The driver and a friend had the car's hood open, and were poking around inside the engine with a twig. They had heard and seen the kitten, but didn't know where he was now. They were in favour of turning on the engine, to scare him out. That made me very nervous; I worried he could get injured. When I was growing up in Canada, the family cats used to go out in all weather, including -20oC, and sometimes climbed up inside the car's engine for warmth. One day, my mother tried to start the car, and the serpentine belt cut through Puddi's tail. She was lucky to survive, and that it could be amputated cleanly. I had no wish for repeats today.

             From somewhere (perhaps the driver had a mechanic friend), a jack stand appeared, and we began to raise the car. Someone handed me a large flattened cardboard box to spare my clothes, and I slid on it under the car. That's a first for me! And I wouldn't be surprised if it's a first in terms of white girls sliding under cars on 207^th street too. I peered around everywhere, using a flashlight, but still no kitten. The serpentine belt was clearly visible and clearly not grazing a kitten, and the driver assured me that no other part could do damage, so we decided to start the engine. No kitten.

             Finally, I thought to go around the corner to Post, where people from the now much longer pantry line immediately recognized me and pointed to the garbage pile: "He went there!" (Teamwork is a truly wonderful thing!)

            The kitten had escaped from the garbage pile twice in the night, and I wasn't going to let it happen again. Jillian came with me and with her fluent Spanish helped me convince someone from the pantry who wanted to organize the pile, perhaps for the garbage pick-up, to leave it alone for just five minutes to let me do what I needed to do. I could see the kitten inside the wooden forklift platform again; the crawl-space was exactly kitten-sized. First, I sealed off the front openings by placing wooden vegetable boxes in front of them. The back was mostly already sealed off from my previous efforts, but I had to do it a little better still, by moving more boxes. Once I had fully trapped the kitten in the platform, I looked for an implement to poke inside and direct him with. Brilliantly, there was a 4-foot-long cardboard tube already in the heap, just waiting to be used.

I moved a box to make a small opening at the front of the platform, and positioned my kitty crate so its opening covered that of the platform. This way, he could enter the crate, but not escape back into the world. Next, I carefully slid the tube into the crawl-space along the left wall, until it reached the back, and gradually moved it towards the right, like a divider, nudging him forward and towards the right as well. He couldn't climb over the tube, and so had no choice but to keep moving forward and to the right, towards the opening. Finally, there was one last remaining open space, the crate, and there was nothing for it; he reluctantly had to scurry into it. Quickly, I shut the crate door. “Got him!!” I must have been glowing. I held him up for all to see, and the pantry-line cheered.

We had circle of kitten-viewers and well-wishers around us. People congratulated us; Jillian translated. A man came forward to say he knew a local bodega was looking for a cat to help keep the mice in check. I appreciated the thought but was skeptical: while some stores certainly treat their cats well, one of my other cats is a former bodega mouser, and has required years of socialization to even start purring. A bodega that doesn't know how desperately shelters are looking for homes for their cats does not strike me as a great place for a cat. I didn't have to say anything, however, for a middle-aged woman rebuked the man, "No, she worked all night for this kitten! She deserves to have him! He's hers!" The crowd agreed, and the man smiled. Do I agree with her? I don't need a fourth cat, but, if I weren't at least open to the prospect, would I be writing this story?

           We took a picture of him with the driver, then took the kitten back to the apartment, the kitten-equivalent-of kicking-and-screaming the whole way. He was not just unhappy, he was mad. His mews were fiercely determined to let us know that this was not at all an ok thing to be happening, and he would fight this intolerable situation to the end. Jillian was pretty sure he was yelling, "You bitch! How dare you!!" His volume increased as we entered the courtyard and climbed the stairs. A resident cat stared at us from a window.

          Now what? We decided to set him up in the bathroom, a nice confined space, easy to clean in case of parasites, and separate from my other New York cat. Taming a kitten is not difficult, but I've never yet been able to do it without shedding a little of my own blood. I reached into the crate, so that he could smell my hand. That was scary for him, but ok; after all, I'd been doing it all night as he danced above the hubcaps! Then, I reached in with both hands, and pulled him out. He yowled angrily and made good on his promise to fight, biting me with all his might in my left index knuckle. I caught the scruff of his neck, like any good mother cat, pulled him back, and placed him on my lap. His sides were heaving from exhaustion and fear, but as I began to pet him, he finally began to calm down. I must have felt much less scary than he'd expected–how would he have known I wouldn't harm him?–but I must still have looked monstrous, for whenever he turned his head to look at me, he stiffened up again. So I kept his head turned in the other direction, and five minutes later, he was utterly comfortable in my lap, and perfectly happy to be petted by me, Jillian, and another flatmate, Dave, too. (Meanwhile I sucked on my knuckle to stop the bleeding and prevent infection; that, along with submerging it in iodine twice for a good half hour each time, let me emerge as good as unscathed.)

Dave asked whether I would keep him. I said I didn't know, that I knew people who might be able to take him, and that I'd be travelling in two days for a week. Both Jillian and Dave immediately and eagerly volunteered to take care of him in my absence. (Who can resist the cute kitten?) I was swayed, at least for now. The kitten needed a name, what should it be? Ten minutes after biting me with all his might, he was now tame enough that we could ascertain that yes, he was indeed a he. Jillian said the name would have to be Spanish, in honour of the neighbourhood and all the people involved in the kitten-catching. Dave suggested the car-themed "Cylindro," which I rather liked, especially as the kitten is kind of cinder-coloured. But somehow, the name "Ernesto" sprang to my mind, and stuck. He is very earnest indeed! He more than proved it by persisting with mewing for over four hours. It is very important to be earnest. Later, we added a middle name: "Karlito." He was, after all, found under a car!

He also proved his new-tameness by tolerating a much-needed bath. With the street soot removed, his pretty tabby markings became visible. He had quite the appetite, and figured out the litter box quickly. He was, however, hosting a bloodthirsty colony of fleas and ear mites, and at 7 or 8 weeks old he was too young for any mainstream pesticides, so I began working on those problems with a flea comb, more baths, and mineral oil in the ears. Later, I finished off the bugs with diatomaceous earth and obsessive cleaning, and took him to the vet, who gave him a de-worming pill, and confirmed my intuition: thank goodness, no FIV or FeLV! For the first few days, Ernesto sometimes re-lapsed into fear of human legs and feet, and would hiss upon our approach, but he liked being picked up, and played and purred.

A few hours post-taming.

He's curled up on my stomach as I write this, reclined, a month later. He's made himself entirely at home. What is it that moves us to help another creature? Is it a selfish indulgence for my empathy neurons, to hear him purr and partake in his feeling of comfort and happiness? Is it true altruism, if that exists? Or are they one and the same thing, or is it a mix of both? Although I now have added responsibilities, the relationship feels symbiotic; for one thing, he gives company to my other New York cat, who after a few days of growling reluctantly exuded that she likes having him around, and for another, he actually likes my violin playing (she doesn't). He's certainly also more fun than youtube kittens. We did watch some youtube kittens together, also Dancing with the Stars, both of which seemed to intrigue him greatly. He makes me and my flatmates smile.

         Now, I usually exit the subway at 215 street, and if I exit at 207, I hurry past Post. As much as I've bonded with little Ernesto, and am happy to have helped him win the lottery, and wish that all creatures human and otherwise could win the lottery, I don't need another kitten. Does it make me less cat-lady-like if I'm a little afraid word might get out? Is there indeed a word in kitty-speak for “cat-lady”?

Ernesto Karlito surveys the world.

interruption - theft : - life intrudes

To Whom It May Concern;
or,
Dear Diary,

On Friday October 9th, at 10:30-ish pm, I was hurrying to catch the #1 uptown subway at 66th street, heading home after a rehearsal. The train approached as I arrived at the turnstiles - I quickly pulled my wallet out of my purse, swiped the metrocard, returned the metrocard to the wallet, looked for a friend I was supposed to meet on the train, didn't see her, and boarded the train. The things that were to fit in my purse - cell phone, wallet, and a book, refused to be neighbours quite properly, and from wrestling with them I remember that I had them all as I boarded the train.
Once on the train, however, the memory of my wallet fades. I presume I put it back in my purse. I read my book, texted on my cell when the train went above ground at 125th street, put the book in my backpack as we approached my stop, and exited at 215th street. I took my time on the platform in case my friend would exit a different car, but none of the approaching people appeared to be her. (I later learned that she had been greatly delayed by a phone-call.) In the meantime, I checked to make sure that I knew where my cell, wallet, and book were. The cell I found, and the book I remembered, but the wallet wasn't in my purse, so I checked my backpack, which has a myriad of compartments. I couldn't find it. I must've rooted through my backpack, purse, and violin case pouch at least five times before finally giving up, and heading to the station attendant (which meant descending two stories, and the ascending two stories on the other side of the tracks) to ask if anyone had turned in the wallet. He gave me a look of, "Really? You think someone would turn in a wallet around here?" He reluctantly also called the further-uptown station attendants for me - 225th street, 231st street, and 242nd street, but none had been the recipient of a turned-in wallet. I hadn't ruled out the possibility that I'd had the wallet on my lap and that it had fallen off my skirt when I left the train (though I thought it would be strange for me not to notice, and for not one person from the handful of people still on the train to say anything). So I followed the attendant's advice and took the next train to 242nd street in the Bronx, the train's last stop, to ask the cleaning crew if anything had turned up. A very nice elderly Indian gentleman of that crew took me under his wing, and took me to check with his the supervisor, and to also find out the number for lost-and-found since nothing had turned up, which was really a charitably optimistic action to take in the situation, and he simultaneously urged me to be very careful about the credit cards, empathizing that he'd had his wallet stolen recently. They put me on the last train going downtown (due to construction, it would've been shuttle-buses after that), leaving at 11:43pm. Once settled, I very thoroughly went through my backpack, purse, and violin case once more, and finally convinced myself fully that the wallet had definitively disappeared.
Luckily, the subway is above ground, and I could use my cell. I called home immediately, gave Mom the bad news, and asked her to call the Canadian Mastercard company. In the meantime, I called my bank, and learned that my debit card had already been charged: $125 at a barbecue restaurant. Mom checked in with a $45 Metrocard-vending-machine charge on the Mastercard. Lastly, after disembarking the train and running home to look up the number, I called my visa company, who also reported a $63 charge at a McDonald's. All of the companies were very helpful with putting a stop to the cards, and talking me through the next steps. Still, in the 10 minutes it took Mastercard to cancel the card, another $12 cab fare had been charged, and what with figuring out what I needed to do about my drivers license, various student IDs, metrocard, Long Island Railroad ten-trip ticket, and library card, and about notifying the credit bureaus in case of identity theft attempts, I finally got to bed at 3am.
The next morning, I had to leave to teach at 9am. My roommate and guest each lent me some cash, and someone let me into the subway (I planned to buy an unlimited metrocard as soon as I could visit my bank). (That help was all very welcome; by contrast, the curbside invitation from a random driver to give me a ride, when he saw me running from the subway to my school with my heavy stuff, was not welcome at all.) In my lunch break, I went to the bank to ask how I could make a withdrawal while waiting for my new bank card to arrive. Oddly enough, while there had been plenty of ways I could identify myself over the telephone to cancel my bank card, it was harder to now identify myself in person. The bank manager wanted a police report, and this was the first I'd heard that I needed it. Still, after he'd asked me the relevant identifying nfo about myself, he made a small withdrawal for me as a courtesy.
The police report turned into a bit of a saga. After I'd finished teaching and rehearsing, I called my precinct and asked them about possible locations of where I could file it. (In New York, it takes at least half an hour to get anywhere that requires a subway ride - with a car it would all be a matter of 5 minutes, but taxis bills add up, and with one's own car one would be looking for a parking spot for at least half an hour at both ends of every trip anyway.) I was so tired that I planned to go take care of the report the following day downtown, when I'd be near one of the precincts. However, when I entered the 59th street subway station at Columbus Circle to take the A train home, I saw several police officers moseying in and out of some doors within the station, and decided that if they were congregating at an office, and I could do it then and there, that would be very convenient.
The officer behind the desk listened to my story, then had me tell the story a couple more times upon calling a the appropriate precinct - seems that he or someone on the other line was suspicious that I would've thought to check my bag for my wallet when leaving the train. He was very kind to me but also took it all much more seriously than I had been expecting. I thought that since my cards had been used and stopped, there would firstly be no chance of recovering them, and secondly no chance of still using them; furthermore, since I had no idea who might've picked up my wallet if I'd dropped it, the possibility of catching the opportunists seemed very slim to me. However, the officer informed me that since my cards had incurred a high amount of fraudulent charges, I was wrapped up in a case of grand larceny, which is a felony. He had me call the credit card companies once more to get the exact dates, times, and locations of the charges, if possible, as well as the numbers of the cards themselves. (This meant calling Mom again too, since Mastercard wouldn't tell me this number over the phone.) I found out from Visa that another attempt had been made to use my card in the morning. Next, the officer told me I'd be taken via police car to the 145th street precinct, which would be the proper one to file the report. I was too tired to be appreciative of changing locations, but I was appreciative of being taken care of, and of the atmosphere of important calm in the face of adversity, which continued to prevail when several officers went out to deal with a sword-wielding nut on one of the trains.
My new officer, Officer Rieu, led me out of the subway precinct, across Broadway, and to a police car on the corner of Central Park. Instead of heading up in my direction the 145th street, he and his partner took me down to the Manhattan Robbery Squad, on E.12th street, where the Haitian Detective Dorvil took over. One of his colleagues offered me a bottle of water, which I declined; I never drink bottled water, for environmental concerns. I think that showing them my reuseable stainless steel water bottle may have inclined them to believe that I am vegetarian as I say I am, and that I would not have authorized use of my cards at a barbecue restaurant, or at a McDonald's. In any case, no-one seemed to doubt my story here. Detective Dorvil ordered Officer Rieu to stay to fill out the police report. Rieu grumbled, but later thanked me for getting him paid overtime. (He still had a more interesting job than his partner, who was stuck waiting in the cruiser, listening to a Yankees game on the radio for well over an hour.)
I told my story again, in as much detail as possible. Dorvil wanted to know about other people on the train. Had it been crowded? How was I sure I had had my wallet with me when I got on? Which subway car had I been in? I remembered two suspicious people from my ride: one, a man who had been staring at me for most of the trip (Dorvil dismissed him with, "Well, you're a beautiful woman!"), and then also the kid sitting on my left. I remembered this maybe-20-year-old, for when I'd boarded the train, he was in the process of sliding over three empty seats. People often do this in order to be closest to the door; however, there was already someone in the seat closest to the door, and he was sliding after people were already boarding the train (usually it happens as people are leaving), which made his action seem strange to me. He'd been respectful of me wanting to sit, though, and slid back to make space for me; I'd smiled "Thank you", and settled in the middle of the three empty seats. But he didn't slide all the way back - instead of sitting in only the seat two seats to the left of me, he also took half of the one next to me. I dismissed it then, since if there's space I too find it more comfortable to sit on the ridge between the seats than in the bucket that is the seat, but I remember it because it's rare that I've seen anyone else do it, and this kid did not fit the "alternative-lifestyle" stereotype. I also remember that my purse had been hanging on my left side (and my violin and backpack first on my lap, then in the seat on my right), so out of anyone on the train, this kid on my left would have had the best chance of accessing my purse. Dorvil asked me for a description, and would I recognize him on any security camera video tapes. I remembered that he was skinny and his general look, but specifics are difficult - Dorvil pressed me, "Race? - Black? Hispanic?"
Dorvil is black, Rieu is hispanic; I ventured "Black-hispanic", which is the best I could guess, and sensed their disappointment behind professionalism. I felt guilty, especially as a white person, to be the one identifying the situation so stereotypically. I wished that the racial description could be as un-charged as the description "black hair brown eyes" might be. In any case, Dorvil and Rieu took it as such, and continued questioning me, sticking to the matter at hand. I said I'd be able to identify someone who looked like him but that I hadn't had a good enough look to definitively exclaim "That's him!"
The office of the Robbery Squad dilapidated. None of the office chairs had padding left on the armrests, and the officers were taking the information down by hand. It was much more time-consuming to file our business than it had been with the more technologically-adept credit card companies. The policemen asked me to hand-write the contents of my lost wallet twice, and finally gave me a sheet of lined paper and to hand-write down my story and sign it. Clearly, detail was important, and you see how long this narrative already is. I maintained that it would be much faster (not to mention clearer) if I could type it - wasn't there some way I could do that? Dorvil let me use one of the aging computers on someone's desk. Of course he was right to trust me, but a motivated and skilled person would have had no trouble at all to hack something or just mess with the system.
As I was typing, he wanted to know - if they caught the perpetrators, would I prosecute? I hesitated. If the kid did it, and if he goes to jail for several months, what does that do? Maybe it gets him into worse things than stolen meals. Maybe it ruins his life. Maybe it means I have an enemy forever, who already knows my name, DOB, and Canadian address. As things stand, I've had something of a hassle, but it's not so bad, why make it worse? How do I know why he felt the need to steal? I answered, "I don't know - it's a big responsibility". Dorvil reminded me that the perpetrators are clearly pros and have probably done this many times, and that they put me through a big hassle. I remembered that they used my historically vegan credit cards to support the factory-farmed meat industry, and I gave him the yes answer he wanted me to come around to. Thinking it through, I'd like to see them sentenced to community service, which might do everyone some good.
When I'd finished typing my story, Dorvil showed me info he'd dug up in the meantime: printouts of locations of the fraudulent transactions of my cards. Suddenly everything made sense. Dinosaur Barbecue is on 131st street - and the location sparked my memory: the kid had gotten out at the earlier stop, 125th, which I remembered for it being one stop before the "City University of New York" stop. I exclaimed, "It was the kid!"
125th street is 15 minutes earlier than my stop, and so explains how he and his friends had eaten their big steaks and bought McDonald's food all before I'd even made it home that night. Presumably one of his female friends posed and signed as "Claudia", and probably they guessed my zip code when buying the metrocard.
It is good to have my memory intact again! I thanked Dorvil heartily for his help with it, and he promised to send me my required police report shortly within a few days.

Rieu and his partner taxied me home. They tell my I'm lucky we were in an old police cruiser, since the new ones have a wall between passengers and driver, which leaves virtually no leg room. I asked them for a funniest on-the-job story. They told of a drunkard they'd asked to leave the subway tunnel, who came back telling that his eye was missing. They didn't believe him until he showed them an empty socket - and realized that the little rubber ball Rieu had found and was bouncing about was the missing fake eye. Though the drunkard wiped it off with a kleenex and popped it back in, apparently he was not amused. I'm sure there are many volumes that could be written from a policeperson's diary. Currently, they are 32 000 understaffed.

Three hours after I'd stopped in, at 12:30am, the officers let me out at my building, and we all wished each other a good night. I hoped I hadn't taken their time from more important duties. And boy was I ready to go to sleep - but as much as it was a hassle, the heavy dose of reality that has drifted my way is in a strange way welcome for being exactly that.