C.U.N.Y. is the City University of New York, a group of public colleges. N.Y.U. is New York University, a private school in Greenwich Village. The Woody Allen movie mentioned here is
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex.
*****
The northbound D train often got stuck in that right-hand curve into the 205th Street station. That was not unusual, because 205th was the terminal and trains had to clear the platforms before another train could enter.
Except on that night, it was the ungodly hour of nearly 3:00 AM when I was sitting there. That being May of 1977, public employees were completely demoralized and didn't give a damn about doing their jobs. Thus there were no announcements from either the train operator or the conductor.
I was a college senior at that point, nearing graduation, and I was returning from a party down in Manhattan. I had tried my first Thai stick, which was more potent than I had expected. Around the time I entered the subway, the drug had put me into a sort of a black-out. Now I was coming down from the high, but I found myself stuck in that empty car. The two adjacent cars, which were bending in the same curve, were empty too.
Probably had I been in a more normal state of mind and more careful, I would have been in the car that had the conductor's position. He, or occasionally she, had the duty of opening the doors at each station. Being visible to a crew member was alleged to give a modicum of safety during late night -- or in that case early morning -- transit riding. Yet I wondered if any muggers would bother stalking through there with virtually no victims in sight.
Then the storm door at the north end opened, and a young woman of about my age walked in. With her brown hair and steel-rimmed glasses, she looked like one of thousands of other New York girls. She had a short-sleeved blouse, a black skirt with white dots, and tennis shoes but no stockings.
I briefly wondered where she was going, but my New York attitude told me to just ignore her as she passed. I didn't want to be one of those jerks who started pointless conversions with women they didn't know. They obviously understood that they weren't going to pick up somebody with such crude tactics. The point of it was to be annoying and perhaps to discombobulate women, I supposed. That empty train was exactly the kind of place they might favor for such a boorish activity.
But she didn't walk past. Instead, she stopped right in front of me. After perusing with me for a moment, she said, "You're obviously high on something."
That was either a good guess, or some women just had a knack for noticing such details. It seemed worth being honest about it. "Yeah, I am. I had my first Thai sticks tonight, but I'm coming down off of it now." Maybe it was predictable that she would pick up on my state of mind.
I must look pretty wasted.
I added, "They are a lot stronger than I had expected."
"Well, I had some lines of coke tonight, my first ever, and I'm coming off of that now too." Her demeanor seemed bubbly and energetic, which was odd when talking to some unknown guy on the subway. She hastened to add, "I don't want you to think I'm some kind of coke fiend."
Why should I care about your drug habits?
Instead, just to say something, I commented, "Why are you walking through the train?"
"I was looking for the conductor's position."
"You were going the wrong way, you know."
"Oh, thanks for telling me! Then I should just sit here then and talk to you, okay?"
It was going to be a mandatory conversation because she didn't wait for my reply. She just sat down opposite me and crossed her legs. Then an uncomfortable idea struck me.
I must look completely harmless if she feels no anxiety about being alone with me down here.
Underneath that, my insecurities were bothering me.
Cold approaching women was one thing that I did not do well, although she had approached me. My next thought was ungrateful, I'd call it.
If she wasn't so high, she wouldn't have anything to do with me. Probably she is just looking for the protection that the conductor was supposed to provide.
Yet she looked friendly sitting over there and she smiled at me. "So, what is it that you'd like to know about me first?"
How solipsistic.
Also, I needed to somehow establish my "bad boy" credentials, even if those would be absurd in that situation. I had never had such credentials in the first place. I really wanted her to go away and stop bothering me, so I blurted the rudest statement I could think of. "Actually, I'm wondering if you are wearing any panties or not."
Her reaction surprised me. She laughed and said, "Well of course I am. What kind of girl do you think I am? Here, I'll show you." She stood up and lifted her skirt; then she turned around to model the rear view. Her legs were pale and slender. There were no tan lines, so I assumed she wasn't a beach-going kind of person.
"See, nice girl cotton drawers with blue stripes."
Did that mean that she was nice or was it her underwear? She sat down again on one of those weird aquamarine-colored plastic seats that the Transit Authority favored. She seemed highly amused by something, perhaps the little show she had just performed.
She wagged a finger at me. "I know that you think I've been very naughty just now."
"I never said that."
"But you're thinking it! And I bet you know just what to do with such naughty girls."
She seemed to be feeding lines to me. I made another attempt to shock her, which I probably did because she seemed to be trifling with me. "Sure, I know exactly what to do. I give them a good spanking." I just made that up and I had certainly never done such a thing.
Yet she laughed at that as well. "You mean a real panties down around the ankles kind of spanking? I bet that goes over well with the ladies." I wondered if she had intended some sarcasm with that, but I did feel embarrassed by my crude statements. She wagged a finger at me and said, "You know, you've been very naughty too, I mean asking about my underwear and such."
Our conversation had certainly gone beyond flirting, but I wasn't happy with its direction. In my interpretation, she was teasing me, and she knew she could get away with it and have some fun at my expense. That implied that I appeared totally ineffectual, someone who could be toyed with.
I wasn't going to challenge her on that, and the next thing she said was, "So, do you have a girlfriend somewhere out there somewhere?"
My last girlfriend had dumped me about six months earlier, around the Holidays, but no guy with any sense is going to admit that his love life is going poorly. "There are a couple of girls I'm dating right now."
"Really, what are their names?"
What business of yours is that?
I picked two at random, "They're Martha and Karen since you asked." I threw her question back at her. "So what's going on with you?"
"With me? I guess I'm doing about as well as you are." She had implied that she knew I was lying and I thought,