Subway Odyssey

Paul Theroux’s 1982 meditation on the New York subway system kind of makes you think there might be Morlocks. Or mole people:

‘’And don’t sit next to the door,’’ the second police officer said. We were still talking about rules. ‘’A lot of these snatchers like to play the doors.’’ The first officer said, ‘’It’s a good idea to keep near the conductor. He’s got a telephone. So does the man in the token booth. At night, stick around the token booth until the train comes in.’’

‘’Although,’’ the second officer said, ‘’a few years ago, some kids filled a fire extinguisher with gasoline and pumped it into a token booth at Broad Channel. There were two ladies inside, but before they could get out the kids set the gas on fire. The booth just exploded like a bomb, and the ladies died. It was a revenge thing. One of the kids had gotten a summons for theft of service — not paying his fare.’’ (One of the teen-agers got a prison term of up to four years for cooperating with the police; the other two were given sentences of 15 years to life imprisonment.)