Saved by the Stinky Guy

It is interesting how sometimes things that we would normally think of as defects or shortcomings can turn out to be advantageous. I experienced an example of this phenomenon this very morning. I was standing on the subway platform at 59th Street in Brooklyn, having just gotten off of the R-train and was waiting for the N-train, which is an express train. The N-train is always jam-packed, having made previous stops in Beijing and Mexico City, leaving no seats available by the time it reaches 59th Street, and usually only a scant amount of breathing room. My normal strategy is to avoid the jockeying for position on the platform that precedes the train’s arrival, opting instead to go for a good leaning spot by the train car’s doors. Thus, I spend most of my hour and a half commute standing up, but not having to touch anything.

Imagine my surprise this morning when, after the train screeched to a metallic halt, the car doors opened revealing seats galore. Obviously God was smiling upon me and blessing me with great favor - cash and prizes! My fellow commuters and I rushed into the car in a flurry of backpacks, briefcases and patent leather shoes, quickly occupying the treasured empty seats (I got the coveted one next to the window). As I glanced about, I was surprised to see the expressions of the other passengers turn from gleeful to smug, to startled, to gravely concerned, to revolted. In a matter of moments most of them had abandoned their seats and fled from the train car, or at least to the other end of the car. "Snakes," I thought, watching the last of the fleeing travelers pass by, "maybe rats and snakes?" But I turned and looked behind me and there were only a couple of migrant workers and across from them a homeless guy (complete with plastic bags and the surprisingly vast array of paraphernalia that it takes to be homeless) passed out on two seats at the very end of the car. It was he who was obviously the source of all the hubbub.

Let me back up a bit. In 1984 I was a sophomore chemistry major at the University of Pittsburgh and was taking my second semester of Organic Chemistry. The heart of this course was the lab component, thus I spent innumerable hours in the chemistry building, in the organic lab, watching flasks of various liquids slowly simmer and bubble. Contrary to popular belief, 99% of "lab time" is spent doing nothing but waiting for reactions to finish... well... reacting. I am notoriously impatient and notoriously careless and on one occasion, while turning up a gas jet to get the Florence flask of concentrated NH3 I was refluxing with toluene to cook a little faster, my impatience caused a small explosion, sending the bulk of the reactants splashing into my face. Smelling salts use a very dilute form of NH3 and pack quite a punch - the ammonia that splashed into my face was several thousand times stronger.

I'm told that I was out for about 15 minutes, and though I had to pay for the glassware I had broken, I was none the worse for the wear - almost. Since that day I have never had much of a sense of smell, although my sense of smell was not particularly acute even before the accident. I got used to it the way people get used to all sorts of things like blindness, missing limbs, etc. This morning it paid off handsomely because, try as I might, I simply could not smell the stinky homeless guy a dozen feet behind me.

Each time the train stopped the same scene was repeated - people rushed onto the train, eager for a seat, sat down (some didn't even make all the way to a sitting position), gagged and scurried hastily to another car. One woman actually spun (as if struck) back out of the train door at 14th Street in Manhattan retching, thus I gather that the smell was pretty horrific. A couple of brave souls out of each batch decided that the comfort of sitting was worth any price and wrapped their scarves around their faces, set their jaws and toughed it out.

I arrived in Times Square well rested and happy, in a car with plenty of vacant seats still available, grateful for the stench of one of my fellow human beings. I could have probably cut a deal with the gentleman in question, and arranged for his presence on a regular basis for only a nominal sum, but the thought was late in coming. There is always tomorrow.