The Commute

Part One: Ginza to Asakusa

The last train out of Ginza is so crowded that in four states in the south, I’d have to marry the man behind me. It’s not so that I can’t breathe, I can, but the poor tiny woman behind me is probably not so lucky. Ben and I stand head and shoulders above the majority of the crowd and we continue our conversation as long as we are able. We are talking about working on Sunday.

Three stations from Ginza there is a station that connects with other major lines. About seventy percent of the passengers on the train will disembark in less than twenty seconds, the time the train is at the platform with the doors open. I’ve seen it happen night after night. As we approach this station, Ben says, “I think I’m getting off here.” It is not our station but the politely surging crowd will ensure that we get off the train. I tell him that I think he’s right.

The train pulls into the station.

The clock starts counting down from twenty.

00:00:20 The doors open.

People begin to push, gently but insistently. There is a fraction of a second wasted as too many people try to push off at once, then the crowd begins to work together and people begin to pour themselves out of the train. The train rocks like a boat as so many people step on and off each car.

00:00:18 Ben is closer to the door than I am and I watch his blond head disappear as he is compelled by the crowd to exit the car. Once off, he steps left, pressing himself against the side of the car, out of the way of the crowd.

00:00:15 Unwilling and certainly unable to fight the crowd, I am politely pushed from the train. Nearest the left side of the door, I step off, stepping over the unusual six or eight inch gap between the car and the platform. I also turn immediately left and stand against the side of the car. Four others have done the same and those four separate me from Ben, who has stepped back alongside the car, to make room for them.

00:00:12 Since I am closest to the open door, I watch as people pour out of the train and I feel the car that I am pressed against shift its weight and rock back and forth on its axles.

I watch the crowd, the stone-faced businessmen with briefcases and loosened ties, the red-eyed and red-faced drinkers returning home, the young office ladies with cell phones in hand. The sight is mesmerizing, dreamlike. I watch, becoming increasingly detached. Despite this detachment, I still feel pressed up against more than just the car. I feel pressed against some kind of reality that I know I don’t understand but I do understand that I am slipping gradually from it.

00:00:10 I watch the crowd pour out of the train.

00:00:09 I watch. Stone-faced businessmen. Red-eyed, red-faced drinkers. Office ladies, cell phones in hand.

00:00:08 One woman, by virtue of being dressed in white, draws my eye. She is young, maybe twenty-five or six. She is disembarking from the train along with all the others and this is her everyday reality and she has grown a bit casual about things. She is holding her cellphone almost directly before her face, reading or writing an email or watching television or surfing the ‘net--all possibilities with cell phones here.

00:00:07 As I watch, she steps off the train and misses the gap between the car and platform. Nothing beneath her, she falters. I watch as one of her legs slips into the gap between the car and the platform and she goes down.

As she falls, I am overcome with an incredible sense of deja vu. I have seen this happen before, in a dream maybe. Or maybe it’s that the situation is one that I have, somewhere, hoped only ever to encounter in a dream.

00:00:06 I am closest to her. I step forward, into the path of the polite crowd, and I grab one of her arms high above the elbow. I strain to pull her up.

00:00:05 Two or three other people, all women, turn to help.

00:00:04 People are still pouring out of the train.

00:00:03 Up, she says thank you, thank you, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and she continues on her way.

00:00:02 I hear the conductor’s whistle blow a two seconds warning and I push against the thinning crowd that is still trying to push its way off. Turning, I see Ben step onto the train.

00:00:01 Standing, we politely jockey for postitions closer to each other so that we can continue our conversation.

00:00:00 The train door close. “So,” Ben says, “the thing about working on Sunday is--”

Part II: Asakusa to Higashi-Mukojima

Fifteen minutes later, we change at Asakusa, boarding the Tobu Isesaki Line for Higashi-Mukojima. The trains are not three minutes but seven minutes apart and so we have time to sit and watch others hurry along to the front of the car.

As we watch, a man in a pink shirt stumbles down the train platform. Every step he takes is a touch-and-go battle with the forces of gravity. He seems to have forgotten which way is up and is too drunk to figure it out by visual clues. He more often than not uses his hand to steady himself against the ground. He may or may not have the right platform, the right train, the right kind of philosophy about his life--but that is of no concern to the two brown-suited JR officials who help him onto the train and into a seat. The young man who already occupies the seat (one of the short priorty seats meant for elderly passengers, pregnant women, people with small children), goggles, then gets up and moves to another seat.

I turn to Ben. “That’s the real reason they have priority seats on the train, ne?”