Golden Goose Chase
Feb 18
Icy Brooklyn morning. With numb fingers I carried a small paper model over to Mohan. He was running around his office, distressed after arriving late on the infamously problematic G train. He gave me the usual hard time but I could see a gleam in his eye: this was a different kind of project than the lifeless engineering documents littering his desk. He photocopied my sketch and told me to call him next week. Monday is President’s Day, so now we’re on to Tuesday. I’m starting to wonder if there is a plan “B” if he can’t pull through or if this costs and arm and a leg.
Mohan’s lateness dominoed me into my own tardy travels, complicated by the turnstile malfunctioning at the Driggs L stop. It starts to feel embarrassing that my quest to contact people for a project that in a way highlights the MTA is already getting fucked up by the MTA.
I went to Grand Central to corner Greg. He’s a nice guy, though I can’t tell if his worried brow is his usual expression or his sentiment about my nutty project. He promised to speak to Gail, and recommended I approach MTA station managers at the larger stops to get refuse cards. I hop the 4 down to Union Square. Like someone who keeps returning to a bad relationship, I always reason that the 4—labeled an “express” train—will somehow be better this time, and get me downtown faster than the local 6. Once again, disappointment and regret, and the feeling that this project is turning into an ironic joke.
Now that I’m on my way up the MTA chain of command, I figure it can’t hurt to work my way down. At Union Square I stop some subway workers in their bright orange vests to ask them about accessing the box of discarded cards outside of every station turnstile. They look at each other.
“We don’t clean those. Those get cleaned out each day. But not by us.”
The other chimes in, “They recycle those cards, you know.”
“Really,” I ask, curious and mildly impressed.
“They take those cards somewhere to be recycled.”
“Do you know where?” I picture piles of Metrocards spilling out of dump trucks.
They look at each other again.
“I think somewhere downtown.”
I feel like an investigative reporter. The elusive Metrocard. Even the trash Metrocard—impossible to find. At any moment I’m going to hear the words, “as legend has it,” regarding the production or disposal of this flimsy plastic. The mystery is as intriguing as it is frustrating.
The vest guys direct me to the booth lady. Booth lady doesn’t want to change anything in her routine or expression of profound boredom. Not even lifting her head from her elbow she tells me that the cards in the boxes are thrown away.
“So they’re not recycled?”
“No, they’re thrown away.”
“Can you tell me who empties the boxes?”
She shrugs. “You have to find one of the sweepers.”
I search the station for my new savior, and after ten minutes spot him in the unlikely form of a very short man who does not speak my language wielding a broom and dustpan.
“Do you empty the boxes?”
I don’t totally understand his lengthy response, but it’s not “yes”. I stoop to pick up an upside-down Metrocard at his feet before hopping the L back to Brooklyn.
No armature, no Metrocards, and the artwork is due March 12.
