Life in the bus lane

New York

I forgot: you need coins or a pre-paid Metrocard for the New York buses, and one morning several weeks ago, as I stood at the eastbound stop on the corner of Broadway and 125th Street, I realised I had neither. Only notes. Two other men were waiting for the M60, the cross-town bus — the one I was to take to the Harlem railway station — and there was no time to go in search of change. Through the broad arch of the iron bridge over 125th Street, which supports an elevated section of the Broadway subway line, I saw a bus coming from the Hudson, and I turned to the more together-looking of the two men and asked him if he had change for a couple of dollar bills.

‘Yes, I believe so,’ he said, putting a hand into one of the pockets of an unzipped brown suede jacket. He was a dapper man, I recognised as I watched him extract some coins from his jacket pocket. He wore a brown beret, tanned, well-polished shoes that matched dark green trousers, and a black shirt. Here was a man who looked as if he was beginning the day.

‘Yeah, you need change for the buses,’ said the other, rougher, unshaven man. He seemed hungover, though more likely was homeward-bound after a late-night shift. ‘That’s Giuliani,’ he said, implying that paying for a bus ride with coins — along with new policing policies and much else — was another of those not universally liked schemes of the former mayor of New York. Mind you, if this is what he meant, he was unfair: paying for a bus ride with coins has been around for ever.

‘Here is two dollars,’ said the smart man, as he counted the quarters, dimes and nickels in the palm of his left hand.