Louise and The Men of Transit

New Routes

Louise pinned her nametag on to her rose-red cardigan after Jim and Harold left for lunch. She slung her purse on to her shoulder, took it off, dangled it from her hand uncertainly, decided she just couldn't go anywhere without it, and pushed it into its accustomed position behind her right armpit before leaving for her first subway ride as a visible member of the TTC Customer Convenience Team Vision. She'd experienced it as a customer. Now, she wanted to hear what customers had to say.

Louise bounced along the Davisville northbound platform to its end and bent forward over the yellow safety strip to peer eagerly down the tracks for a sign of the train. Nothing. She straightened up and straightened her cardigan. She waited in the flat light of a cloudy day. Wheels on tracks click-clacked. Louise bounced on her toes in anticipation. The train came to rest centimetres from the platform, its angled front not far from her. It brimmed with customers. Louise splayed her hand across her chest; her feet in their sensible black walking shoes remained glued to the cracked concrete platform. Her heart quailed. The train left without her. Within a minute, another train trundled in. Its silver doors slid into the train's sides, opening a passage for her to enter. She sighed happily as she scanned its half-empty interior and walked on.

The train's spaciousness awed her as it began to move. No, she corrected herself, not a train, the Toronto Rocket Cars. Louise lost her balance and clutched at the curved pole near her. Her short fingers dug into her palm as she held on tightly. She thought: maybe I should stay here. I'm visible, and customers will see me as they get on and off. Louise looked down to check herself out. Her soft, slightly fuzzy cardigan with its tight weave was buttoned up to the bottom of its V-neck. Her nametag was pinned perfectly horizontal over her right breast. She couldn't really see but she was sure her white shirt, open at the collar, was still clean. She'd bought a new one to replace the one Marcia had torn. She never had found her pin and hadn't attempted to replace it or the mug yet. She'd been busy, she smiled blissfully, reliving signing up for Twitter; posting her first tweet and feeling like Barg while doing it; and shooting her first photo for her second tweet, just like she'd promised Marcia she would.

The Toronto Rocket Cars crawled along the tracks, leaning clumsily to the right as the long snake of them went round the bend. Louise noticed the raised maroon bump at the centre of the end-to-end aisle. She raised her eyes gradually as she followed its long course down the aisle until the curve in the openly-joined cars cut off her view of the rest of its length. She returned her gaze to the car she was standing in; her eyes landed on the blue seats on the other side of the glass panel she was near to. She tracked her eyes across the aisle to their facing seats. Those blue seats were folded up, except for one that had stayed open after a customer had left at some point before she'd boarded. She squinted at the little stick-on sign on the wall just above them. Its black background absorbed the edges of the teeny white text. Louise couldn't read the words. She could only discern the blue stationary wheelchair pictogram on the left side of the sign. She wanted to read the sign but dreaded the idea of letting go of the pole and losing her balance. Her with her nametag on, declaring to all she was official TTC who couldn't ride the subway like everyday customers.

Clip. Clip.

Louise blinked. What was that sound?

Clip. Clip. Clip.

She surveyed the seats near her. She spotted a man bending his fingertips towards his face and inspecting them. He reached towards them with a nail clipper in his other hand.

Clip.

Louise shuddered.

Should she stop him? Did she have authority? I am a member of the TTC team, she reminded herself. Louise retained her grip on the pole. Did her nametag give her power? Louise snugged up to her pole. Maybe this was what customer convenience was about. It was convenient for him to clip his nails.