"I like you," a wobbly stranger with a Brooklyn accent and liquor on his breath slurs in my direction. The information we offer, that this train is not headed toward, nor will it ever reach, Liverpool Street, doesn't faze our new friend, especially when he finds out that we are Americans too. Our fellow passengers of this unlucky vessel in the London Underground are captive audience to a reluctant reunion. Here, with cringing solidarity, I recognize the familiar face of the United States: plucky independence, booming volume and the blissful anonymity of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
The London tube is the kind of place where such encounters are not uncommon. Like the D.C. Metro, but with trains that usually arrive on time and don't tend to crash into each other, the tube traps about 20 to 30 people in each Twinkie-shaped link of its sprawling, speeding length. Unlike the D.C. Metro, most seats on the tube directly face each other, leaving passengers confused about where to politely avert their eyes. Most seasoned tube riders solve this problem with a newspaper or a sandwich, even while standing and gripping with boredom the primary-colored railing. There are also the inevitable iPods that place their listeners in that unreachable zone of the white earphoned elite.
To be anything but busy, then, seems frowned upon on the tube. We're meant to use the time to achieve something, rather than let our eyes linger on the overhead ads, or worse yet, on our fellow passengers. But can I help it if I pretend to read the free Metro newspaper while secretly glancing at the shaking hands of the man across the aisle, or if I purposely overhear an urgently whispered conversation?
When I think about this, I decide that I cannot be the only curious one. Maybe all of these book-reading, paper-shuffling inmates of the daily commute really just make themselves look busy while they eavesdrop on the people around them. Or maybe these people are truly uninterested in their surroundings; maybe their busyness is genuine and the work they do on the train is productive. But I hope not. Between Piccadilly Circus and Gloucester Road, I have been fascinated by what happens when I don't bring along anything to shield me from the strangeness of other passengers. There I am, face to face with the reality of other humans, all of us encapsulated by the equalizing bubble of this underground train.
Margaret Thatcher once remarked that trains were a socialist form of transportation. Maybe it's true. Here I am, sharing a few stops with my unsteady new friend from Brooklyn, an uneasy man in a business suit, and a woman speaking Japanese to her child. Tomorrow, I can be sure that my companions on this whirlwind journey will be an entirely different set of people, who will unwittingly share breakfast, glances and the stale compartmental air.
If trains are socialist, then maybe socialism means the opportunity, however involuntary, to learn something about a fellow passenger. Maybe it means getting where we're going, but taking something from the journey. If this is socialism, then tomorrow on the tube I'll be the one with my nose in a copy of "Das Kapital." I hope I don't get much reading done.
My Two Pence is published every other Monday. Next Monday, see the fashion column, A Matter of Style.
