"Showtime"
Submitted by Barry E. Negrin
I hadn’t been on the subway in months, not since the orders came to stay home, certainly not since I was sick. Sick is a relative term, of course. Some people are hospitalized and take months to recover, or don’t recover at all. Some, like me, experience fever, chills, and fatigue for a couple of weeks, drop a few pounds, and then come out of it as if nothing had happened. My family was certain that I hadn’t had Covid-19, but I later tested positive for the antibodies. Now I’m not sure which is better: having some unknown/qualified immunity to this disease, or being able to tell my family “I told you so.”
I’d needed to go to the office to get files to work on from home. Our law firm, hardly essential, was working entirely remotely. I live two miles from the office, so it’s definitely walkable. I’d done it a few times already, sometimes as an excuse to get out of the house. But that day it was drizzling, and I’d already exercised at home, and I didn’t feel like walking. And to be honest, I was curious as to how the subway had changed since March. Who was riding these days? Healthcare workers? The homeless? Whoever was down there, anything I could do to try to normalize my life back to the “before” setting was welcome.
Armed with antibodies and an N95 mask (that I’d unrelatedly purchased a year earlier, relax), I descended the stairs to the platforms. I was ambivalent about being there at all: Shouldn’t I be staying home? Or did it matter at this point? But an express 4 train was approaching, so I bolted down the two flights of stairs to the lower level, just as I would have pre-pandemic.
I caught the train with a few seconds to spare. I surveilled the sparse group in the car. All in masks, each a fair distance away from the next. Great.
Once the doors closed and the train started moving, two young masked gentlemen moved to the center of the car and plopped a boom box on the floor. No way, I thought. Even during a pandemic? They turned up the music and shouted “Ladies and gentlemen!” something something that I couldn’t make out over the music and through their masks. But I knew what was happening: Showtime. That uniquely New York brand of busking mixed with underground parkour, Showtime involves dancing and acrobatics within the tiny enclosed space of a train car. It’s a subway staple; a delight of few, an annoyance of many.
The music was obnoxiously loud (typical) while one of the kids lithely spun around a pole and grabbed onto overhead handholds. His partner was trying to stir the thin audience. People were nonplussed (also typical). My initial surprise gave way to amused exasperation.
This town is endearing, maddening, and in many respects, irrepressible.
At a job interview, someone once asked Barry Negrin if they should hire him or another candidate. “I mean, you’re obviously smart,” said the interviewer,” but the other guy has more relevant experience.” Barry replied, “I can get more experience; will he get any smarter?” Barry didn’t get the job, but he’s a remarkably well-adjusted patent attorney nonetheless, despite being a lifelong New Yorker, a lapsed Kabbalist, and a long-suffering Jets fan. The pandemic has not put to a stop to his saxophone playing, to the delight of some and the dismay of many.