THE SUBWAY DIARIES ~ Officer Halitosis ~

Heeding the call of the underground, I finally got back under, excited to see my see my friends, to get back into the routine, and do what makes me happy.
I went straight to my first choice, the Uptown ACE at Times Square. Miraculously, no one was there. As I stood up after plugging in all my gear, Annette showed up to my left: “You just starting?”
“Yeah. I’ll be about an hour, hour and a half, tops. First day back after a while.”
“I hear that. Ok, so I’ll come back at six thirty. You’ll be here, right? I’m gonna go up to 59th Street ‘till then. Just make sure you’re here, though. Ok? I’ll be back at six thirty.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. See you then.” And Annette dropped a dollar into my case as I started in on my first tune. It felt good. I was glad to be back.
I was about an hour into singing when I smelled a pungent body odor that practically bowled me over. I finished my tune and took a moment to see where the obvious lack of deodorant was coming from; oddly, I could see no one of suspicion. Normally the smell and the “perpetrator” are pretty obvious. But this time, the source remained elusive. So I figured whoever it was must have already come and gone, and the odor was just their “gift” to the ACE. I turned my head back to my case and noticed three cops coming toward me: two women, both on the short side, looking oddly alike, and a tall man who walked with the swagger of a pimp. As they got closer, I realized the smell was the male cop. Damn, was this part of his MO? I thought as I tried hard not to breathe too much. Was this part of his intimidation tactic? If so, I’ve gotta say, it was kind of working. It was such a disconnect though, as he seemed like any other NYC Transit cop at first glance. He was tall, black, and almost looked as if he could have been a basketball player or other athlete. But the punch he packed had nothing to do with sports. I’d never have guessed from the visual that he didn’t know how to bathe or use deodorant. It’s a surprise every minute, down under.
“Do you have an ID?”
In order to escape the odor, I bent down to platform level and rummaged around as long as seemed reasonable to give him what I had. All I had with me was my insurance card, as I’d cleaned out my wallet at home, leaving all my stuff there, and somehow that was still stuck in there. “Here.” I reluctantly stood up to face the cop and his BO.
“You know you’re not allowed to play here, right?” he asked, as his breath suddenly hit me harder than his underarm odor. Every plosive and “h” made me feel as if I was going to hurl.
“No, I didn’t know,” I said, wondering what exactly he was talking about. Did he mean the amp? Had things gotten really tight in the trains while I was MIA, writing and recording? Then I realized as I handed him my insurance card that my new business card for the book had come out too, and was stuck to the back. Oh, shit! I thought. Now I’m done. I mean, there’s a picture of me in the subway, train whizzing by with my guitar in hand, and the card reads “The Subway Diaries.” If they go on the website I’m cooked, as it opens with talk of cops. Oddly, however, all he said was, “This all you have?”
“Yes,” I responded, now, honestly, getting kind of scared as to what they were going to do with me. “What’s your date of birth?” he asked. I told him and the guy actually took out a ballpoint pen and wrote on my card. My jaw dropped and my mind began to race. Hey, that’s my personal property there you’re defacing, scribbling on, and running your pen back and forth over to try and make the ink start. What are you doing? What’s going on here?
The stinky male cop handed my cards to one of the female cops, who started up the stairs to who knows where, my documents in hand. My moment of comparatively “fresh” air I was breathing while my head was turned away from Officer Halitosis, was, however, short-lived. “Are there any warrants out for your arrest?” My arrest? A warrant for my arrest? Are you crazy? Look at me, I’m singing! Once again, my mind went crazy as I stood silent, sweating, everyone staring at me, and his breath killing me word by word. But somehow, I knew deep inside this was not a person I could protest to without getting deeper into whatever it was I happened to have stumbled into.
“Ummm…no!” I said quietly but emphatically back, trying to figure out through osmosis or some non-verbal communication what the heck was going on. But all I kept getting was harassment and stench.
“Well, we’re checking now,” and he motioned up the stairs where the female cop had taken my now destroyed insurance card and business card, which I was still sure would get me into some real trouble. “And if there is a warrant out, we’re putting you in jail,” the stinky officer continued. What? What? What? My mind went fast again. Jail? What? Me? For what? No! Jail? Are you kidding me? But I just stood silent, clenching my teeth, as all these thoughts went racing through my head, clambering to have a voice. Everyone was staring. The entire platform. I wondered what they were wondering. I wondered if they thought I was some secret criminal who’d been posing as a busker for all these years and now the cops had posed some kind of “sting” operation and had finally closed in, right there in front of their eyes on the Uptown ACE. I wondered if they thought that, or if any of them actually knew what we go through day in and day out just to sing.
“Where do you live?” Officer Halitosis said, once again torturing me with every expelled breath. I didn’t want to tell him. He concerned me, frightened me, and my instinct was not to tell him my address. So, I made something up. “East side or west side?” Again, I made it up. “What’s your apartment number?” We’re just standing here for God’s sake, you’re not filling out any forms, what do you need my apartment number for? Again, I blurted out a made up apartment, glad now that I had as there seemed zero reason for him to ask any of this while we’re waiting to see if there were any warrants out on me, and if I should be arrested or not.
“C’mon, we’ll go upstairs.” I grabbed hold of my dolly and began to wheel it toward the bottom of the cement staircase as everyone on the platform continued to stare silently. “Here, I’ll help you,” he leaned in and said, completely out of character, as I began to lug it up the first step.
“No,” I said curtly back and leaned away from him, grabbing my gear with both arms. “No. No, thank you. I have it,” I repeated.
“Let me help you.”
“No, thank you. I have it,” I repeated adamantly, holding onto that “No” with steadfast determination, finally feeling as if with that one word I’d regained back a bit of my power and dignity, which up to this point had been completely stripped in the most intimidating and odiferous way. I lugged my gear, step by step, up to the top of the landing. I pulled it over to a corner of a railing where I felt somehow safer. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Officer “Take a Bath” and his female cohort were talking for a while, then the one who had my documents returned.
“You two make a great team, you know that?” he said to the two female officers as the one with the documents pulled out her pad and a pen. “We got ten of these guys today and only one got away. You really make a great team.” Ten? Ten?! You guys got ten musicians? Don’t you have anything better to do in the New York City subway system than harass, ticket, and arrest musicians? I looked down at my watch. It was six forty-five— Annette never came back. She always comes back, even just to say she’s going home and not going to sing. She always comes back. I knew then she was spending the night in jail. My heart sank and I began to boil inside. Just then, the female with my cards walked over and started to write on her pad. I’ve got to get out of this, I thought. I’d gotten out of the only other real “jam” I’d stumbled into a few years back with some tears and a bit of acting, but I was spent today and completely dehydrated from the heat, so no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t cry. I tried. I scrunched up my eyes a number of times in an attempt to get out of this, this whatever the heck was going on, but no-go. Nothing. I was too dehydrated to cry. Wow, never had that happen, I thought as I stood there, leaning on my guitar, sweating. I’ll start to just shake a bit and see what flies from that. “You better take some deep breaths, girl, ‘cause we can’t have you passin’ out or nothin’.” Right, you can harass me, you can accuse me of being a felon, you can deface my personal property, but no, “we” can’t have me passing out, now can “we?” I kept on shaking, kind of getting into the rhythm of it all. “So, what do you have? You got some kinda disorder or somethin’?” the cop with the pen asked. I just kept looking down and shook my head. “Is it gout?” Gout? Where on earth did she pull that one out from? Wow, I didn’t even know gout makes you shake. Ya learn something new every day, I guess. I’ll have to Google that when I get home. I shook my head again. “Is it, is it gastroenteritis?” Again, this cop’s got some inside information on “conditions” that I’ve been completely in the dark about. But, hey, good guess. She must be a frustrated quack physician. Thank God for all of us she’s wielding a pen, not a scalpel. Although the gun on her side was creepin’ me out as she continued to reveal her true, intellectual colours. (Or, should I say, the lack thereof.) I shook my head again, floored that she was pursuing this information, which had nothing to do with anything cop-related. And one would think she’d be concentrating on getting me out of there as quickly as possible—if something was truly going on with me, of course—not prying into what was making me shake and shiver. But no, she continued with the medical inquisition. “Is it, is it, is it…” She was obviously really trying hard to figure this one out. “Is it…” and she leaned in over her pad and pen and whispered, “Is it H1M1? You know, the ‘pig flu?’” Ok, I wanted to “H1M1/Pig Flu” this woman straight to Jersey at that point. What a nutcase. God, how I wanted to at least correct the “M-N” thing for the baton-wielding wannabe diagnostician. But I didn’t, I held my tongue. Barely. Damn, where is my tape recorder when I need it? Just then, the stinky one who was, gratefully, not within smelling distance but off to the side chatting with the other female officer, shouted, “What’s your address again?” Weirded out, I looked up, trying to remember to keep on shaking just enough while racking my brain to remember what I’d said to him down on the platform so I’d be consistent. “Yeah, yeah, what’s your apartment number?” Why this again? What’s this obsession with where I live? Somehow, I pulled out the same fake address I’d given him on the platform and repeated it to him again, all the while shaking. Man, this is a lot of work to get out of a $50 ticket, or worse, it seemed. That act in and of itself concerned me, though. What did he want with my address and apartment number? He wasn’t the one writing the ticket, yet he had to know. That freaked me out. Then the female cop finally spoke: “Ok, so, all you have to do is pay this ticket here to this address.” She handed me what was left of my two cards and pointed to the amount of $25 and the address. Yes! I’d gotten it down from $50 to $25 with the shaking/gout/gastroenteritis/H1N1 thing. I grabbed the handle of my cart and scurried toward the iron maiden that lets me out onto Eighth Avenue. Ok, that was not a good “Welcome Back,” in my book. Something’s afoot and I’ve got to figure it out. This is my work, this is my home, and this is my family they’re messing with.