The Golden Dream (16 page)

“Pretentious” is not really the right word with which to assess a town such as Darien which longs to be taken as a quiet, pretty town where people can lead quiet, pleasant, safe, and almost unnoticed lives—unless, of course, a conscious effort to appear as unpretentious as possible is, in itself, pretentious. Darien is certainly not pretentious in the sense that Las Vegas or Beverly Hills is pretentious, with vaulting marble façades concealing an essential shabbiness and poverty of spirit. But if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what is the nature of the eye that beholds? If Darien, Connecticut, could hold a mirror up to its residents, what would it see? A certain amount of playacting, perhaps—a conspicuous attempt to be inconspicuous. The rich have always ached (or claimed to ache) for privacy, for anonymity, for shelter; at the same time, they cannot bear to be unheeded or overlooked. This ambivalence—this uncertainty whether to flaunt or to hide—is possibly too subtle and complicated for an “outsider” to grasp.

12

The Lively Art of Commuting

Wealthy residents of the New York suburbs are often spared the ordeal of commuting. Edgar Bronfman, for example, the head of Seagram's, solves the problem of getting to the office by having his private helicopter pick him up on his lawn in Yorktown and whisk him over the treetops to Manhattan. John D. Rockefeller III simply spends a good deal of time at home in Tarrytown, where he operates a two-hundred-acre farm. But for most suburbanites, commuting is simply a daily fact of life which, as they say, goes with the territory.

Because of New York City's size, its commuters probably travel greater distances—and spend more time and money traveling—than do those of any other city, with the possible exception of Los Angeles, which is another story. It takes a New York businessman anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half to get to or from a good suburban address, and it costs him anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred and fifty dollars a month to do so. Obviously, a New York commuter has special problems which require special solutions.

The word “commute” has several meanings other than to travel with a commutation ticket. To commute also means to exchange or convert, to substitute one form of obligation for another, or to revoke a penalty and impose another that is slightly less severe—the death penalty commuted to life imprisonment, for example. In the case of the New York commuter, at one time or another all these
definitions apply. Few New Yorkers would go so far as to say that they enjoy commuting. But most would agree that commuting is a price worth paying, a punishment less harsh than city living. Furthermore, just as a well-run prison must have regulations, so must well-organized commuting operate according to certain rules. Seasoned New York commuters know the rules by heart and seldom give them any thought, abiding by them automatically. To newcomers to the New York commuting scene, the rules at first seem mysterious and baffling.

First of all, in addition to not smoking in the “No Smoking” car, the conscientious commuter knows that talking is unwelcome almost anywhere in the train. On an airplane, it is perfectly acceptable to speak to your seatmate, but on a commuter train it is a breach of etiquette. The reason is simple. On a plane, you will probably never see your fellow passenger again after you deboard. On the 7:58 out of Larchmont, your fellow passenger may be your neighbor, whom you have seen and will see far too often. Most commuters, while commuting, are loners. From the window seats, they will gaze resolutely at the passing countryside. On the aisle, they will bury themselves in newspapers. If a commuter recognizes a friend or neighbor coming down the aisle, he will do his best not to show it. The same rule applies while he is standing on the station platform waiting for the morning train. A newcomer to Greenwich commuting says: “At first I couldn't understand it—how coldly people acted on the platform in the morning. I'd met a fellow at a party one night and had a great conversation with him. The next morning, I saw him at the station and went over to say hello. He just gave me a little nod and turned the other way. I thought: What the hell is this? But now I see that commuting is just a different scene.” It is different because, as a more experienced commuter puts it: “If you strike up a conversation on the platform, the chances are you'll still be talking when the train comes in. That means you'll have to get on the train together, and
that
means you'll have to sit together. Next thing you know, you've got a regular commuting buddy who'll be sitting next to you every morning of your life. Of course, there are some commuting buddies who always sit together, who've been sitting together for years, but they're the exceptions.”

On trains that are usually less than filled to capacity, it is acceptable to put an overcoat or newspaper on the empty seat beside you, to compose your face in a generally stern and unfriendly expression, and hope that no one will stop to ask, “Is this seat taken?” If
someone does stop and ask the question, of course, commuter etiquette requires that you relinquish the empty seat. On crowded trains, meanwhile, it has never been necessary for a gentleman to give up his seat for a lady—even an elderly or a pregnant one—unless she happens to be a neighbor or a close friend. After all, the argument runs, the man has spent his day hard at work at an office. The woman has probably come from her hairdresser or a matinee.

Commuting, most long-time New York commuters have discovered, is a kind of art, involving techniques and skills that must be learned as one would master any other craft. It is not, for example, a good idea to look too cheerful, either while waiting for the train or riding on it, out of respect for other commuters who may well be depressed. One develops, as one commuter puts it, an all-purpose expression: “a kind of loose half-frown, a vaguely dissatisfied grimace.” To avoid attracting unwelcome attention or acquiring unwanted companionship, the commuter learns to stand on the suburban station platform in a way that makes him look somehow smaller and in a sense nonvisible, the shoulders hunched under the topcoat collar. A newcomer to a New York suburban town must earn the right to display any form of personal idiosyncrasy. Before he can alter his clothing from what is considered the standard, center-vent New York business norm—can appear at the station wearing a beret, for example, or flared trousers, or a too-loud tie—the new commuter must establish his place in the social pecking order. Only then—and then only gradually—can he dress to conform to his individual style. The business commuter who is not only a newcomer but who also seemingly “doesn't care” about his appearance will be quickly noticed and regarded as a pariah, and this could go against him when he wants to join the country club later on. To make enemies among one's fellow commuters is, as one man says, unnecessary. Mr. Harry Ireland, a Manhattan advertising executive who for years commuted to New York from Rye, discovered to his horror one morning as he waited at the station that he had inadvertently put on a left shoe of one color and a right shoe of another. He hurried home to change, missed his train, and was late getting to the office, but at least no one noticed his apparent “eccentricity.”

Every commuter quickly develops his own routine by which he makes use of, or copes with, his commuting hours. In addition to the window gazers and newspaper readers, there are the briefcase workers. It is never permissible to speak to a briefcase worker during the journey except, possibly, at the very end, when a “Well,
here we are” will suffice. This is true even if the briefcase worker should happen to be a neighbor or a close friend, and it is to avoid such conversations that neighbors and close friends are always careful not to sit beside each other on commuter trains. Even those seated across the aisle from, or behind, a briefcase worker are expected to refrain from speaking. And if you have
been
talking to a briefcase worker, the moment he reaches for his briefcase it is the signal for the conversation to terminate. Most briefcase workers, however, open their briefcases immediately upon boarding the train.

The nap-taking commuters compose another group whose privacy is obviously not to be violated. To be sure, many nap-takers do not really nap, just as many briefcase workers will admit that they are not really working. Pretending to sleep is just another defense against the possibility of intrusion. On most commuter trains, there is also a bridge-playing group, which usually confines itself to a particular car, or to one end of a particular car. The train conductor carefully arranges double banks of seats face to face on whichever train he has learned to expect bridge players. He will also provide tables of sorts—squares of pasteboard to rest on players' knees—and playing cards, and he expects to be tipped for this service. In the bridge groups, conversation is restricted to bidding. Each bridge foursome usually has its regular, and favorite, group of seats which it considers “reserved,” and therefore privileged—even sacred. The unwary, or green, commuter who sits in one of these special seats will be informed that it is special, and will be asked to move elsewhere.

Individual commuters also “reserve” seats for themselves on their regular trains going to and from the New York suburbs. A man may perpetually choose, say, the third window seat from the door on the shady side in the second car from the front of the train. This becomes, over the years, “his” seat, and his fellow commuters, who become aware of his preference, respect it. Not long ago, on the 8:18 from Rye, a long-time commuter boarded the train, to discover that his regular seat was occupied. He demanded that the occupant remove himself. The occupant, politely pointing out that there were many vacant seats in the car, demurred. What followed was a terrible scene in which the two well-dressed gentlemen hurled insults at each other until finally the conductor was called to settle the matter. Wringing his hands, he pleaded with the interloper, saying, “I know there are other seats, but Mr. Caldwell has been
taking this train for years and this has
always
been his seat!” Commuting patterns, when interrupted, can have effects that are downright traumatizing.

The commuting crowd changes, meanwhile, as the day progresses. On the earliest trains are the bright, eager young junior executives, clear-eyed and efficient, who will be at their downtown desks at the crack of nine or even earlier. The early trains fairly throb with youthful determination and ambition and high seriousness of purpose. The later trains convey an older, more secure and leisured mood and group of passengers. These are men who have successfully scaled the corporate and professional ladder and have found a comfortable place near the top. They are no longer in a hurry, and if they are not at their desks or in their board rooms by ten o'clock, the desks and board rooms will wait for them. But look carefully at the faces in this group, and some will seem less serene than others. This is because some of these men in the late-morning crowd are actually out of work and are headed into Manhattan for interviews. They will spend the afternoon, perhaps, in a movie theater. On Wednesdays, the late-morning crowd is special: ladies heading for early luncheons in town, followed by matinees. Then, in the late afternoon, still another group commutes from the suburbs: black domestics going home to Harlem.

The evening bar car is, of course, a world of its own—beloved by the regulars, shunned by others. Crowded and noisy, with miniature drinks served in plastic glasses at two dollars apiece, the bar car is the only car on the commuters' train where social intercourse is encouraged, or even tolerated. Commuters jostle each other for a spot at the bar, shouting orders; friendships are struck up here, but there are also, as in any bar, heated arguments and, on more than one occasion, fistfights. The bar car is a kind of rowdy prelude to the suburban cocktail hour, which in some cases begins in the suburban railroad station, where wives wait for husbands with glasses, flasks, and buckets of ice. The “driving home drink”—or the d. h. d., as it is affectionately called in suburbia—can be hazardous. Several years ago, a Rye housewife was killed when her car went out of control pulling out of the station parking lot; she had been turning the wheel while, at the same time, trying to hand her husband a martini.

For years, the most elegant way to commute to and from suburbia was in the private club cars—the most stylish, and the most mysterious. The club cars' membership policies were secret and
their rules were unwritten. Formidable black porters guarded their entrances and exits and only members were admitted. Window shades were drawn closed for privacy, and the club cars were coupled to the end of their trains so that members—who paid as much as one thousand dollars for the privilege—could sit in comfortable parlor-car chairs undisturbed by ordinary commuters. There were two exclusive club cars on the Penn Central's New Haven line: the Rye-Greenwich car and the Southport car. On the western side of the county there was the Mount Kisco car. Memberships in these private-car associations carried great cachet, and were often passed down from fathers to sons.

In 1976, however, Connecticut's Governor Ella Grasso decreed that what amounted to restricted clubs had no place traveling on rails designed for public transportation, and the club cars were put back into ordinary service. Rye, Greenwich, and Southport members are still up in arms about Mrs. Grasso's action, and are fighting to get their club cars back—so far without success.

But at least one suburban club car remains: on the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad's line from Gladstone, New Jersey, to the Hoboken, New Jersey, pier, which carries passengers from the moneyed Somerset County suburbs of Bernardsville and Summit. For more than a hundred years, the 8:18 morning train out of Gladstone, which returns at 6:10 at night, has been known as the “Millionaires' Express,” and its private club car has remained a bastion of upper-class exclusivity. Only members, their wives, and a limited number of guests—for a fee—may enter the Gladstone Car. The curious are turned away at the door by James Moore, who has been the car's porter since 1955. Though the car's exterior windows are as dirty and soot-stained as those of all the other cars, it is widely assumed that, behind the drawn green shades, the interior is luxurious. Actually, a guest on the Gladstone Car would be disappointed, for its furnishings are decidedly Spartan. The present car dates from about 1908, when it was an ordinary open-vestibule coach pulled by camelback engines, and its fittings date from roughly the same era. Two rows of white-painted wicker veranda chairs face each other down the length of the car, and Mr. Harry Young of Gladstone recalls seeing the same chairs, or their counterparts, when he was a trainman on the line in 1916. Foam-rubber cushions were added several years ago, and in 1975, the cushions were re-covered in a tweedy material when the Erie-Lackawanna raised the club car's rental. “Unnecessary,” sniffs Mr. Seymour Hall of Oldwick, New
Jersey, the Club Car Committee chairman, who, like other members, reacts unfavorably to change.