Parents On The Train, In Disguise

We might be the person who took the seat when you wanted it. We might have been the person who was silently sipping their tea as they stared into space. Maybe you thought we were staring at your, but we were probably just lost in our thoughts. Or maybe we were the person you saw reading Harry Potter (for the tenth time) or People magazine (because it doesn’t make you think). Maybe you saw us eating a bagel. Maybe we were wearing a summer dress, not too clingy, with a modest floral pattern and nice sensible flats. Or maybe we were wearing a small back dress with stilettos, or maybe a suit even though it’s ninety degrees, or maybe a guayabera because it’s ninety degrees. Maybe you said, “Excuse me, pardon me,” to us when you barged onto the train, or maybe we said the same to you when we pushed our way through the closing doors. 

There are millions of children in NYC, and there’s a high chance that the person you saw on the train was a parent, which is only jarring when you are their neighbor, you spoke to them while your children played at the park, and you hardly recognize them now that it’s Monday morning. 

This weekend Boo Boo and I were at the sprinklers. The sound of the sprinklers played like a relaxing rainforest track that you hear at a yoga studio and cicadas hummed merrily overhead in the sycamore trees. As usual there was an assortment of scampering children. The parents of toddlers hovered over their children like cumulus clouds, and the parents of older children sat on the benches and sipped their coffee or tea. 

Boo Boo climbed a nearby bench and found himself sitting near a family of three. The mother sat with one leg up on the bench, sipping iced coffee with a metal straw. The little girl, who was around three, wore giant red-framed goggles like a headband, and her dad was barefoot, with cutoff jean shorts, with a lumberjack beard and a lumberjack build. They were playing with puppets and Boo Boo was transfixed. He watched as the little girl spoke to her rabbit puppet, which was animated by her father, who wore a smile as he performed his duties.

“Why do those bugs make that noise?”

“Well, the bugs are called cicadas. They want to find friends, and so they sing to each other,” replied the rabbit, in a British accent. 

“But why?”

“Because they don’t talk to each other, like we do. They sing.”

The girl looked up at the trees, hoping to spot one of the cicadas in action. She did not.

“Can we have ice cream now?”

“Well, you see, ice cream has a lot of sugar in it, and the sugar makes people go crazy.”

“That’s not true!”

“It is! I’ve seen it! And you have to go home and take a long nap when we’re done here.”

The little girl looked at her mother, hoping to hear a different answer, a different destiny. But the mom, who had red hair and bangs, just like her daughter shrugged. “It’s true.” 

“Can I talk to tiger now?”

The father took off the rabbit puppet and gently placed it on the bench. Then he donned the tiger puppet. 

“What’s your favorite ice cream?” She asked the tiger.

“I like mint chocolate chip,” said the tiger, this time in an Australian accent. 

Boo Boo picked up the tiger puppet, with a nod and a smile of approval from the girl’s mother. He tried to put the puppet on his hand, but couldn’t quite figure out how. I put the puppet on my hand, and suddenly the rabbit came back to life, kissing Boo Boo’s cheeks and hugging his little arms. His face erupted in a smile. 

Then everyone else smiled, but the girl did not.

“I want to talk to rabbit now.”

The tiger pleaded with her. “But we’ve only just started talking!”

The girl looked at Boo Boo, and then put on her goggles. “I’m going to play in the sprinklers.”

“Have fun!” said the tiger.

That was this weekend. 

On Monday, the train station was especially humid, I felt especially tired, and the wait for the train felt especially long. I always make it a habit to scan the platform, not because I’m paranoid but because I like to people watch. What do people who are not myself wear on their way to work? What do they eat and read? Do they drink coffee or tea? And what do they drink it in? A thermos or a paper cup? 

A man sauntered towards my end of the platform. He wore a guayabera, khaki shorts and white kids. He was drinking from a disposable coffee cup, notably bereft of branding. It matched his shoes. He settled to wait for the train a few feet away from me. The light from the platform got caught in his short, curly brown hair, making it glow. His beard rested on his chest as he stared at his phone while he paced.  

This is quite a different man from the one I saw at the sprinklers over the weekend, but the same man nonetheless. 

I have seen other local parental acquaintances on the platform, but was never an appropriately close to them to start a conversation without it being awkward. So I decided to seize this moment.

“Hey! Were you at the sprinklers this weekend?” I asked him when his pacing brought him within a couple feet of me. I accepted that there was a small chance that he was not the puppet dad, and I was prepared for that. If he was not the puppet dad, he would probably walk away and put as much distance between himself and myself as possible. But I was pretty sure this was the guy.

He looked up from his phone, startled.

“Oh, hey, yes!” 

Now it was my turn to be startled, for he answered not in a British or Australian accent, but in an American one.

“Oh! You’re not British or Australian!”

“Oh. Ha. I only do that when I’m not in public.” 

“I get it.” And then I didn’t and started wondering about the distinction between public and private life. Is any time with your children considered private life? Even when it’s out in a public place, like a park? But I had other questions.

“Where did you get the British accent?” Was he an actor? 

“British television.”

I was tempted to tell him about Monty Python, and how I used to read high school texts to myself in a British accent in an attempt to make required reading more interesting, but it felt like that would be going too deep, especially since once we were in the subway we were sitting across from each other, which necessitated us shouting over the clatter of the train.

We sorted out the particulars, like where we worked–I was going to the financial district, transferring to the A train on Jay Street, and he was getting off at Court Street but he did not work at the courts and he was not an actor. His coffee was from a new cafe that opened a few doors down from the train station. The new cafe was started by two guys who worked at the bodega adjacent to the train station. It was so new, in fact, that they did not have logos on their cups yet.

“Which make them a great canvass,” said the man. He took out a felt-tipped pen and started drawing a face on his cup. 

“I was away for a few weeks,” he said. “This is my first Monday back.”

“And you’re not looking forward to it.”

“Not at all.”

He and his family went to Europe–Switzerland and Spain. “It was so great,” he said. “But the flight was long. Even longer with a kid.”

I told him about our upcoming trip to Portland and our hope that we will have outsmarted Boo Boo by taking a night flight. “It’ll be hell if he doesn’t sleep.”

“Good luck with that.”

Soon enough the train rolled into Jay Street. I got up and slid through the crush of other passengers easing their way through the doors. 

“Well. Have a good Monday!”

“Thanks. You too.”

I haven’t seen him on the platform since.