Oh, so you think you're all that, huh?! Well apparently I have my own gravitational pull—check it...
I hold my pose at the Jamaica LIRR Station all the way at the front of the platform when I wait for a train. I do so mostly to stay a way the bustle of the people moving aimlessly up , down and across the platforms. The front door of most trains open 10 feet or so short of me—that is how far up I am.
The Montauk train is powered by diesel engine. The tracks past a certain point on the island don't have a third rail so trains like the Montauk, Port Jeff and Oyster Bay trains are special they can run on both electric through the third rail and on diesel when the third rail disappears. The thing about these trains is that the first car is the engine, it doesn't take passengers. There is a cab for the engineers and then straight engine from there.
Depending on where my work takes me during the week I could be waiting at Jamaica for a train 2 or 3 times per week. And it never fails...
People feel the need to wait for their Montauk train all the way up with me...
...only to have to walk a 1/4 of the way down the platform to get on.
This happens everyday, no, check that, everyday I'm there to see it. During the summer I'm completely surrounded by throngs of annoying party-goers waiting to meet Buffy and Torg out in Southampton, only to watch them walk down the platform and stuff their smugness and excessive luggage onto the car a 1/4 of the way down the platform. It never fails. Never. And it makes me laugh.
Now I wonder, if like the tree falling in the abandoned forest, does the same thing occur when I'm not there. Or do I have gravitational pull, I mean let's face, sometimes I can't help but attract motherfuckers but it also occurs to me that it may be a sheep mentality.
When I get to my spot and sit up against the LIRR tool box, I'm the only one there. Depending on how early I get there before my train I'll see a stray smoker walking over to do the right thing and keep the smoke away from others further down the platform, (which I tip my hat to, but now I'm breathing that shit, bro'ham), but they always end up walking back down the platform after they have finished their smoke or until I have glared them into retreat. Besides those few, as the time for the Montauk train approaches, as well as the Freeport trains arrival which releases a large portion of this passenger variety, I find that when people see me waiting there I do they think 'well, if this guy is waiting here then this must be where the first door of the train opens'. Now I'm probably giving these people too much credit for having the power of rational thought, but nevertheless, I think its moments like these that show glaring instances of human nature's misguided need to follow the person in front of them even if that person was wrong. The sheep mentality...
I wonder if they would come so close if they knew that i ain't no shepherd, I'm the motherfuckin' wolf.
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