Why do I continue to ride the subways? Even the police now say they are too dangerous for a cop to patrol without a companion cop to protect his back. I can best answer with other questions.
Why does the torero confront the bull? Why does the hunter face the charging lion? Why does the bomber crew rise again to face the flak over Bremerhaven? It is not easy to feel like a hero these days, but when I head for the subway, I feel myself walking a little bit straighter, my jaw setting in a firmer line, my primitive animal reflexes becoming tauter.
In five years in the subways I have acquired skills—professionalism—of which I am proud. I am an aging man, like Willie Stargell, but there is a fine pleasure, as there must be for Stargell, in testing myself to find whether the wisdom and experience are still enough to compensate for the loss of quickness.
I feel confidence as I submerge at 42nd Street and brush past the man at the foot of the steps with his chant of “Acid and grass, acid and grass, acid and grass.”
Inside I am cautious about avoiding eye contact, which can lead to critical encounters with roving maniacs. On the platform, I cunningly stay back from the rails pretending to notice no one, but sizing up everyone. I keep distance from men carrying paper bags which may conceal meat cleavers or .357 magnums. If someone runs, I slide discreetly behind an upright steel pillar and grasp it firmly against the possibility of being shoved onto the rails.
When the train arrives, I do not enter the cars in which the lights are out or in which too many of the doors refuse to open.
At my destination, confronting a 300-yard walk along an abandoned tunnel illuminated with a ten-watt bulb, I roll my newspaper so tightly it becomes a murderous spear and, swinging it aggressively, stride through the gloom like Bogart walking down a mean street. When I emerge whole, I feel complete and alive again and a true New Yorker.