The Other Train Phenomenon - Richard Bowker

  The subway train had broken down in the tunnel. I was standing up, my back was aching, and I was late. The air conditioning had gone off when the train broke down, and little rivulets of sweat were running down my body, seeking out the routes that would cause me the most discomfort. Then a nut started talking to me.

  He was one of those thin, hollow-eyed, intense fellows, the kind who sells his poetry on street corners or runs off revolutionary manifestos on the mimeograph in his basement. He was wearing sneakers, dirty chinos, and, despite the heat, a flannel shirt with the collar button buttoned. Not someone I wanted to pass the time of day with.

  "These trains are a disgrace. Aren't they?" he demanded. His voice was thin and quavering. His beady black eyes were constantly in motion, scanning the faces around him suspiciously.

  "Um," I replied noncommittally, getting ready for a tirade against the imperialist regime that let our subways rot while it suppressed the aspirations of freedom-loving peoples around the world.

  "You ride the subway often?"

  "Urn, uh-huh."

  This was evidently the right answer. He approved. "So do I," he said, his eyes darting here and there. That made us soulmates, I guess. His eyes suddenly focused intensely on mine. "When you were waiting for this train, did you happen to notice--did a train come in from the other direction first?"

  I felt stupid having to answer, but the intensity of his interest made me think back to when I was waiting in the station. "Well, I guess so," I replied. "The other train always comes first."

  He nodded emphatically. "That's right, that's right. It always happens. The other train always comes first. But why should that be? According to the so-called Laws of Probability, if the trains run as often in both directions, and your time of arrival is random with respect to their schedules, your train should come first about half the time. Right?"

  "Well," I offered, somewhat puzzled, "maybe it just seems as if--"

  "Aha!" he cried triumphantly, his black eyes flashing. "That's what they would say. They'd like you to believe that. But I have facts. Facts which they cannot dispute. For five years I have noted which train came first whenever I used the subway. Here are the facts. Right here!" He brandished a thick notebook that I hadn't noticed before. He flipped through the pages. They were filled with pencil markings and scrawled figures. "I have recomputed the results as of last Thursday. Eighty-two percent of the time the other train came first. Eighty-two percent! Do you know the odds against that figure arising by chance?"

  Offhand I didn't.

  "One in ten million!" he shouted, causing a few people to look up from their National Enquirers. He glanced around nervously and continued in a lower tone. "Does that sound like the so-called Laws of Probability are holding in this case?"

  I had to admit it didn't.

  "Of course not. Well then, there must be an explanation. A new theory must be proposed. One that takes into account the fact that the train I am waiting for is far less likely to arrive before the corresponding train in the opposite direction."

  My heart sank. He was going to explain his theory.

  "Bad luck, good luck, these terms are meaningless in Probability," he went on. "It is all supposed to even out in the end. But obviously it doesn't for some people. I am one of those people. A loser. An outcast. Nothing has ever gone right for me. Clearly nothing ever will. Just your imagination, some people say. Untrue. Eighty-two percent. That is proof. Statistical proof of my bad luck.

  "But I'm not the only one who is subject to what I call the 'Other Train Phenomenon.' You noticed it. All regular subway riders notice it. Are other subway riders like me: losers, failures? Of course they are, if they were successful they wouldn't ride the subway every day. They'd drive to work, or better still, they wouldn't go to work at all. Take a look around you. These people are losers."

  I did. They were.

  "My theory, then, is that the Laws of Probability do not hold at the human level. Oh, they work for most things--for height and weight and predicting the number of dog bites in New York City. But in these little everyday events--the things that really matter to people--bad luck tends to occur more often for certain people . . . those who ride the subway regularly."

  Well, it had a surface plausibility, but I certainly wasn't the one to judge. "Have you published anything about this theory of yours?"

  His eyes stopped moving long enough to glare at me. The wrong question. He extracted a sheaf of soiled letters from the notebook and waved them at me. I caught sight of a couple of lines: "However, we do not think the subject matter is quite ..." "Since you lack any credentials for the field you are . . ."

  "This," he said, "is what they think of my theory. No journal would touch it. I applied for grants. I wanted to do a study of other subway riders, to see if their percentages were similar to mine. None of the foundations were interested. What does that suggest to you?"

  I was surprised by the question. I knew what it suggested to me, but I knew that wasn't what he wanted to hear. I shrugged uncomfortably.

  His eyes swept the car and he sidled up closer to me. "A conspiracy," he whispered. His breath smelled of onions. He raised one eyebrow, to signal that he was zeroing in on something important. "Do you think," he asked, "that the people who ran the academic journals and big foundations take the subway very often?"

  I shook my head. I supposed they didn't.

  "Of course not," he snapped. "They're not losers. They work in plush offices. They have comfortable, tenured jobs. They're chauffeured to work, or maybe walk along tree-lined paths through their campuses. They wouldn't be caught dead squeezing into one of these broken-down trains at rush hour day after day.

  "Do you see what I'm getting at?" he demanded excitedly. "They know!" He shouted that out, which made him whirl around in fear; then he got control of himself and continued in a lower tone. "They know, all right, but they keep it a secret. It follows, doesn't it? If there are losers, there should be winners, too. People who don't have to wait for trains. People who get tables in crowded restaurants, whose cars break down right next to all-night gas stations, whose babies get born late in December so they can claim them as tax deductions for the whole previous year. The people who run things.

  "They know," he said, and I could see the control slipping away again. "Part of being a winner is knowing about the losers, about the so-called Laws of Probability. They talk about it in their clubs when the waiters aren't listening, you know, they joke about it in board meetings and executive washrooms. At the country club, by the swimming pool. All the places where you and I can never go. 'Isn't it nice that we are the winners,' they say. 'Isn't it nice that the losers don't realize it. By the way, I hear that some loser is nosing around about the Other Train Phenomenon. Written an article or something. It must not appear. That wouldn't do. He must be stopped.' "

  The train suddenly lurched forward, and the nut grabbed my arm, his eyes wide with fear. "They're after me!" he screamed. "I have broken the unwritten law. I have uncovered their secret manipulations of the universe. And they will destroy me for it! They will destroy me!"

  The wheels of the train started to squeal as it rounded the curve into the next station, and the noise drowned out the rest of what he had to say. By the time we slowed down he was sobbing. "Help me. They're after me. You must help me."

  "This is my stop," I said, even though it wasn't, and I disengaged my arm as quickly as I could. He seemed to be too weak to resist.

  I turned to leave, and bumped into two young men who had evidently walked up from the other end of the car; They were both wearing dark three-piece pin-striped suits and were carrying folded Wall Street Journals. They didn't look like they rode the subways very often. "Pardon me," they both said politely, although I was the one who had bumped into them. I rushed past them and got off the train.

  I noticed them start talking to the nut, who was still in pretty bad shape. They both appeared interested in him, however. One of them had taken the nut's notebook and was leafing through it quickly. He closed it and placed it neatly inside his Wall Street Journal as the train pulled out.

  A train came in the station from the other direction, and after a few minutes another train heading my way appeared. The air conditioning was working, thank God.

  Subway riders must be grateful for small favors.

 

 

  Richard Bowker, The Other Train Phenomenon

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