Diary of a Gold Liner: June
Erin Douglass
June 9, afternoon — I'm on the Rapid bus, zipping across town for an appointment. Or at least I think I'm on the Rapid. Bright red bus. Packed aisles. Scattered stops. Seems like the Rapid.
Yet mounted in the front corner, near the door, is a TV screen urging me to "Enjoy your ride!"
What the…?
I try to ignore it at first. But I can't. The MTA has rolled out a new feature and I, a rider, must succumb to it.
I turn back to the screen. A weather report beams from the center. The colors are garish, the report LA bland. But what if it wasn't? What if the report said, "Thunderstorms approaching. Hail likely. Take cover." Would that be a rider-friendly service or a threat? I'm undecided.
The weather report disappears and a "Transit Television Network" logo spins into view. I've never heard of such a network. Is it new? Does the "transit" mean that soon screens will be popping up in subway cars? On the Gold Line? My heart sinks.
News follows the logo's dance. Oh good, I think. Something useful. And then the headlines begin.
Desperate babies found in Russian apartment.
Sex huts set up for World Cup.
German woman arrested for goat farm knee-deep in filth.
Man's body parts fall from plane's wheel well onto suburb near JFK.
Nice.
As if in apology, TTN then displays a Job Hunting Tip. It's riddled with typos.
When the logo appears again, a tinny, dentist-office tune plays over the sound system.
The stop announcements have been shut off for this?
A blur of LA sports trivia follows, and then, at the bottom of the screen, a crawl of Movies in a Theater Near You!
I've had enough. I turn to the window and stare resolutely outside.
Maybe it's time to write the MTA a letter.
June 15, eastbound — I've been feeling rotten.
It makes me dull. Lifeless. Adjectives I usually try to avoid.
To make matters worse, June Gloom has blanketed the city for what feels like weeks. Didn't this year's extreme rains buy us any weather karma?
And then, the final injustice: GEM hasn't been working. Something with the batteries.
Basically, we've all been in a funk.
On his 5 a.m. run yesterday morning, my husband spotted two people having sex in the park near our house.
I asked a million questions.
Were they naked or partly clothed? Old or young? On the swings? Sprawled on a blanket or just propped against a tree? Did you hear anything?
You can tell I haven't been getting out much.
As he told me all he saw (which was very little), I couldn't decide whether the act — sex in a public park — was daring or desperately tacky.
Either way, I'm still impressed.
This early evening, as I ride my train home, the sun is finally out. It is bright and blinding. Great sheets of it slap the windows and fill my car. I feel like a mole freshly free of her tunnel. Blinking, eyes watering, I let myself bask in its foreign warmth.
I check my Palm Pilot. GEM's service is scheduled for the following week.
Maybe we're all turning a corner.
June 17, eastbound — I'm sitting in the train at Union Station, reading a New Yorker. The car is full of chatty people tonight, updating, laughing, what-iffing.
I look up to stretch my neck. The man in the row ahead of me — he's small with pomaded hair — suddenly turns and stares at me.
I ignore him and return to my magazine.
"Tickets out!" someone yells near the front of the car.
An MTA Fare Collector slowly moves down the aisle. Thinning hair gelled and spiked, he looks like a badly plucked chicken.
"Have your ticket out!"
I grab my pass and flash it at the guy. He smiles and nods.
Meanwhile, the pomaded man in front of me is standing, fishing in his pockets.
The collector waits a moment and then says, "I'll let you find that." Then he moves down the aisle to check the rest of the train.
When he returns, he looks at the guy, who continues to pull paper after paper from his pockets.
"Do you have a ticket?"
"He says he lost it," yells a man from the end of the train.
"Oh really?" says the collector.
The pomaded man says something in Spanish and then shrugs.
"Ask him if he ever had a ticket," the collector yells to the guy at the end of the car.
That guy barks something in Spanish, and the man nods.
"He says he did."
The collector looks down at his shoes and then says, "You'll need to get off at the next stop with me."
The man at the end of the car says, "Aw, man!"
The collector ignores him, taps Mr. Pomade on the shoulder and points to the doors. The man shrugs, glances at the back of the train (For what? Sympathetic riders? A familiar face? Backup cops?) and then brushes by his seat mate into the aisle.
This time, he doesn't look my way.
As the two of them exit at Arroyo Station, I hear the man say in a thick accent, "Do you speak any Spanish?"
The collector shakes his head and the doors whiz closed behind them.