The Fart

When I moved to Hell's Kitchen, I'd take the No. 1 train downtown at Columbus Circle to Times Square and there change across the platform to the No 2 or No 3 express to go to Wall Street where I worked (not in finance but in a large print shop).  In those days, Columbus Circle was pretty rundown. There was the Coliseum for large events where Time Warner Center is now. But it always looked closed and abandoned and dirty. Mainly that side of Columbus Circle seemed to be just for buses to take gamblers to Atlantic City. The big subway station beneath was of course very rundown. Graffiti everywhere. Like, everywhere, especially the subways.

And like now, the trains were of course very crowded in the morning rush. Crowded like, you couldn't move at all.

One day, as my train is speeding downtown at 8:30AM, and everyone is just trying to hang on to a pole to avoid falling over when the train goes into a curve, in the midst of this crowd someone cut a silent fart. And it was a bad fart. (Are there good ones?) I froze, everyone froze, We all seemed to have this blank stare as if to say, "it wasn't me." A moment passed. And then someone (you couldn't tell who) made an "Eww" sound.  And this older Spanish lady sitting nearby laughed and said, "The first that smelt it is he that dealt it." We all laughed. But it still stunk.