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ChineseIzzy’s (Not So) Big Adventure
Izzy Skenazy was 9 years old when he first rode the subway. The above video is the aftermath. The below is the exclusive journal entry from the day of his legendary voyage, as well as the tumultuous days that followed. A fictional account by Tyke Johnson.
I have a map because my mom gave me one. It’s huge. A tri-folder type to which I have no use. But it was apart of the requirements for me taking this trip. I told her I had already memorized the subway system but she’s my mom and moms are cautious. So I put it in my bag and forgot about it. She then handed me twenty dollars and an MTA card. The twenty was a “just in case” fund and I took it to mean, just in case I came across a WIRED magazine and Red Bull at the newsstands. I did.
Before I finally got away from her in the handbags area of Bloomingdales she asked me to clean my room when I got home. I laughed a little. She said she was serious. I said I would and I got the hell outta there.
I hate the smell of Bloomingdales. I hate the smell of department stores, the handbag area is almost as bad as the perfume area, but in case my poor nostrils had naively started believing in a God, I had to pass through that section on my way out. A hell only three hundred different fragrances—glassy and sweet, wooden and sour—could produce, finalizing my verdict on the omnipresent.
I burst out into the freedom of 59th Street. I can smell Central Park flood down Lexington Ave as I turn north. I think about walking up to the park to check out some of the babes lying out but it’s still cold so they’re probably all in sweaters. Still, sweater meat isn’t all that bad to gander at. After all, the internet at home won’t be working till the end of the week at the earliest. I hate cable companies almost as much as Bloomingdales.
After begging my mom for a month to let me ride the subway home by myself it’d be pretty insane to screw it up by getting home late. And what excuse could I use? Sorry mom, the Italians are out and you know how big those girls can get. Wouldn’t fly. So I trust my imagination will not let down later and I venture down to the subway, bringing the smell of Central Park with me as far as the fare gates.
The fare gates look like they’re from some old horror movie, like they were once used for torture. To the guy next to me who can’t seem to get his card to work I’m sure it is torture. I pity him. Probably forty years old and still can’t work a turnstile. How is that even possible I wonder? Probably doesn’t have any money on it but is somehow too dense to see that the reader’s telling him he’s empty. Or worse, he refuses to swipe it not backwards. Oh well, he’ll figure it out, or he’ll ask the attendant for help. Though he doesn’t even look interested in the adequately measured blonde standing on tip toes at his window so I doubt this man will have much luck getting any sympathy or help.
As expected and I’ve been saying for months, the subway is a piece of cake. I’m standing on the platform and listening to the sounds of people, of express trains, of high heels and violins. I give a dollar to the young student. He’s playing something I recognize but I can never remember song names or lyrics. My mom can remember the name of every song we hear on the radio. My friends can do the same. I haven’t a clue. My contribution is always the same. “Yah yah, that one. It goes like this right?”
My train arrives and I hop on with the rest of the millions. Just as I told my mom, and thankfully she finally agreed, I would go unnoticed and be just fine. Not a person pays me any mind. They’re reading and sleeping and daydreaming. I’m looking at the digital display of upcoming stops. I don’t see where people get off saying the subway is dirty. This train is as clean as my room and most certainly cleaner than the streets up above. I could do without the guy to my left rubbing his shirtless body with a newspaper but he doesn’t smell anywhere near as bad as the perfume section so I welcome the new fragrance to try and kill the last remnants of designer eau de toilette.
I’m able to grab a seat when a large group gets off in the 80’s and I join the rest of the daydreamers. I have a few tests coming up and I vow to bring my study guides with me the next time I ride. Until then though, looking out the windows at the passing signal lights and southbound trains will do just fine.
The bus ride is equally uneventful—aside from stepping in some assholes gum right before I get on— and I’m home before my mom. As was the deal, I sell out my natural revolutionary will and start to clean my room. Most of my clothes can be pushed in the closet or under my bed and since it’ll be dark soon my mom probably won’t give it too thorough of an investigation.
Just as I close the closet door I hear my mom downstairs. She throws her bag on the table like she does every day. She has a lot of metal dangly things hanging from it and it echoes off the vaulted kitchen ceiling. I head down to her and she asks about my train ride.
“Piece of cake, just like I said.”
“And your room?”
“I invite you to dine on the floor.”
Sometime later
My mom wrote an article about me riding the subway by myself. People are up in arms about it and we’re going to be on the Today Show because of it. I was interviewed by some old guy that looked a lot like the idiot that couldn’t figure out how to work his MTA card. He asked me one asinine question after another as if I had just been off at war. Now I have to shower. A car service, a stupid Lincoln Town car, is on its way to pick up my mom and I. I said we should take the subway but the TV show people said we had to get picked up. I guess they forgot we live in New York City.
After the show
People are so fkn retarded.
Discussion
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Very cool. A 9-year old wrote that? Or did I misread?
One point needs to be emphasized: a 9-year old can figure out a subway. Well, duh, it’s not rocket science. Neither is taking the bus really. Yet I constantly hear people - educated adults, mind you - talking about riding bus or rail as if it’s some complicated, daunting adventure.
The hurdle that people need to get over - learning that transit can be your friend - is a pretty low hurdle, IMO. I think Angelenos are getting over that hurdle now on a daily basis. This is the main reason I’m optimistic about the prospects of key projects like the Central Subway (Purple Line) and the Downtown Connector. Once people start realizing the improvements in their stress-levels due to their decision to take public transit, they’re bound to demand more of it.
Sorry for any confusion… like the pink line to pinks, this is an “inspired by” fabrication. And yor point is pretty much the point of the “journal” and how I saw the whole stupid affair. The fact that teens, pre teens, youth, can and will most certainly know shit before they’re “supposed” to know it and by doing so pwn all the people (like the idiot therapist) that say they should only be worried about putting clothes in the hamper.
And I agree, the tide in LA is most certainly turning, albeit slow, in favor of public transit.
What I like about this story, both Tykes and the “controversy” surround Izzy’s trip on the subway is, in stark contrast to what libertarians believe, in this case it is proven that mass transit provides freedom. Of course, kids aren’t supposed to have freedom, we’re are supposed to keep them chained up and safe until they hit arbitrary ages which somehow makes certain things “okay”. But imagine had Izzy not lived in New York City or another urban area with efficient mass transit. Imagine he lived in Orlando, Phoenix, or The Valley. He would be doomed to be a back seat kid for his entire childhood, every day spent being dragged this way and that in the back of a light SUV. That was my childhood.
I envy this kid and love his mother for allowing him this experience. Not that it’s REALLY a big deal, but in Today’s America, obviously it is. He will be all the more worldly, capable, intelligent, and aware because of it. Despite what the Today Show might thing, it won’t give him “psychological problems”.
On of my biggest problems with America is that our youth are treated as if they are all retarded.
fixexpo, lolz
This is the link to the mom’s article and podcast in the New York Sun.
“fixexpo, lolz”
Hehe! “A train near a high school? Are you crazy…adolescents can’t handle a railroad crossing! Run for the hills! Aaaaargh!”
The idea that high school students don’t know not to cross in front of a train is not only incredibly insulting, it’s also paranoid. Do people really believe nowadays that they have to protected from literally everything? Do they really think that this rail line, with all of its benefits, should be halted in order to protect anybody who doesn’t have the sense to avoid oncoming trains?
The libertarian would say: you are responsible for your own safety!
I like how the psychologist lady says that “safe” signs of independence include “cleaning your room” and “putting clothes in the hamper”.
So, my independance is shown by doing what my parents want me to do? What the fuck is that all about?
The interviewer mentioned this kid seeing psychologically damaging things on the freakin’ subway - like what? Adults unable to let kids grow up? That, to me, is psychologically damaging.
I know I’m technically an adult now or something, so it might be weird for me to say this, but, GROWN-UPS SUCK!!!!
whats even cooler about the whole “psychological effects” thing is that the host was saying that even she sees things she doesn’t’ want to see. so what of her? shouldn’t she not be on the subway either, after all if we’re looking out for everyones well being. it’s all so idiotic. another over dramatic pulse for a terrified America.