Rumble in the Tunnel

Huge rumble on the train home today. Twenty, thirty teenage boys and girls variously involved in keeping two or three young men from beating the shit out of each other. Numbers do not fairly describe my perception of the scene, being far too definite. Impressionism is more realistic: There was the initial core of two fast-grappling bodies. There was the thrilled, frightened rush of the score or more partisans, instigators and peace-keepers. There were the double tag-teams of girls and boys trying to pull the fighters apart, constantly shifting and being shaken-off.

There were two other grown men on my end of the train, and our eyes might have met once. Then, two impressively inertial young women dragged one of the fighters past us to the end of the car. Speaking as one of the (nominally) grown men, it was an uncomfortable situation. One the one hand, there were certainly plenty of hands already on deck, decking the shit out of each other. (I see a young man swinging sucker punches around a young woman who is blocking the target with her body. His forearm is rebounding off the back of her head.) On the other hand, there’s no point in distinguishing yourself as a grown man if you can’t get a trainload of scrapping minors to take it outside.

In New York City, though, the space between subways stops is about as far away as you can be from anywhere. I sat and watched and—depending on the ebb and flow of the scuffle—stood and watched the fight. Most of the kinetic energy seemed to be spent on restraining the main combatants. The consequence, however, was an imbalance of strategic intents that prolonged the battle. There were only a few head-to-head fighters, and these were wasting their energy trying to get through the throngs of youths working, with no less vigor, to hold them back. This contingent had strength and numbers, but couldn’t end the fight because they weren’t fighting against anyone.

We came out of the wilderness as the train pulled up to the next station, and the cops showed up as the door opened like they were filming a commercial. Two officers stepped onto the car, but the kids where hip enough to have stopped fighting. The alphas’ whiff was still in the air, though, and the cops were able to pick out the instigators. One, because his girl was hustling him out the door between the cars, and the other because he was sitting on the seat with blood on his shirt and thirteen henchmen and henchwomen surrounding him. If I had to call it, I’d say he lost. This was when I recognized one of my eighth graders from three or four years ago. She was beside the young man, and followed when the cops took him off the train.

People milled around for a while, on and off the train. One of the other grown men took the opportunity to slip into the next car, the other stayed put. I asked my student if she was all right and she nodded. I asked her what happened and she said something quick that I didn’t understand. Stupid question. A few minutes later, most of the kids were back on the train, including the bloody-shirted fighter and my student. An officer tried half-heartedly to get the fighter to tell them his name, indicating that he planned to take the drastic action of writing it on his pad. The fighter made a show of refusing and my student made a show of telling him to just make up a name to tell the cop. Soon enough, the cops had left and we were on our way again, sans fight.

Big ups to three of NYPD’s finest today for not escalating a situation that, were I to be honest, had me plenty worried there for a minute. I also appreciate the timing, but the precincts around here deploy so many cops that the next prowler couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds from the station. But let me bolster this faint praise by saying that today’s officers certainly assessed what was going on better than this eye witness. Thirty nearly-grown boys and girls duking it out under ground, and no-one is shot, stabbed or otherwise seriously injured? A cop’s got worse things to worry about, I’m sure.