Flash Rosenberg - West Side Subway Story

 

I don't think of drawing and photography, writing or performing as separate disciplines. I do them all. I'm an attention span for hire. I notice things in order to try to figure out what's going on. So, I was pretty excited when I had a chance to invent a class that I could teach at Cooper Union that took place entirely in the subways. The class was called Underground Creativity: Einstein on the D Train. And instead of assignments, which sounded too burdensome, we called what we did noticing games. Imagine you're sitting on the subway seat, and you're looking down, and the first game would be like, look at the shoes, guess the face. Look at the face, guess the shoes. Then we ramp it up a bit for a noticing game called Nuclear Subway. 

 

Let's say, there's a nuclear accident and the only people left on earth are in this car with you. You have to pick someone to mate with to continue the human race. Now, this isn't about biology or gender. Just who in this car would you want to get together with to create a new world? Hmm, he's cute, but she's reading. [audience laughter] Well, and if your choice leaves the subway, then you have to pick someone else. Sometimes after class, I would stop at Keen's, which is a midtown steakhouse around the corner of my loft, so I could write down what I noticed the students noticing during the class. 

 

Now, what am I doing at a steakhouse? Well, I'm their pet vegetarian. I would order the side dishes. I would get the spinach, the mashed potatoes, the salad. Once when I was there on a date, the guy observed, “This is never going to work out. You cannot even commit to an entree. You're never going to commit to a relationship.” You're right. I'm not married, I don't have kids and I didn't think I had a sense of humor until once I read in the New York Times science section that normal adults laugh about 15 times a day. I figured, “Whoa, I am way over the limit.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, every time I laughed, I made a jotting down of what I laughed about in a notebook for two weeks. And, huh, it turns out I was the one making myself laugh. [audience laughter] So, I started doing comedy. One night,, I was at a club, and my great Aunt Leah, who was 89 at the time, had never seen me perform before, she comes up to me and says, “Don't let anyone in the family ever make you feel bad, because you didn't have kids. Because many people believe that children are the essence of life.” She said, “I wanted kids, too, but it didn't happen. You're like me. And the way I see it, those of us who don't have kids have been given some ability to figure out why we are here. So, that gift is a challenge.” 

 

I was thinking, I've always wondered why I'm here. I mean, since I was age two when I was yelling out the fourth-floor window from our apartment, “Why am I here?” My mom came in like, “What?” “Well, I saw those people down on the sidewalk walking around. Why was I in my crib?” [audience laughter] So, one night after class, I didn't go to Keen's, but I ended up going to the Cornelia Street Café, because I was going to deliver a humorous toast at a little private cabaret show to celebrate a friend's birthday. I was dressed up. I like to dress up, because I'm a pathological optimist. I'm ready in case something good is going to happen. [audience laughter] I had my distinctive coat that I love so much that it looks like yarn that's pressed into it as if somebody scribbled with red, black and gray. I also think it's nice to dress up, because I feel some responsibility in a quiet way to help cheer up New York. 

 

Well, the show ended late, and I was really tired and I was hungry. And so, on my way to the West 4th street subway to catch the uptown F, I stop and get about a dozen bagels and stick them in my backpack, so I can toast one when I get home. And on the way to the subway, I'm thinking, what am I doing? I mean, where's my big project? It just seems like I'm stomping on the ants and not feeding the elephants. I mean, is noticing a career? What's the point? So, I get out on the subway steps, go through the turnstile and I wait for the next train. 

 

Next thing I see is bright blaring lights right above my face with people in masks wearing blue scrubs looking at me like they're gargoyles. There's tubes in my arms. Where am I? The nurse says, “You're in the emergency room at Bellevue.” She said “You fell on the tracks. You fell on the subway tracks.” Well, I always thought, what kind of a clueless person falls on the subway tracks? [audience laughter] Apparently, me. Well, the doctor assures that I'm fine. I'm going to be okay. Nothing's broken. There's no trauma. My heart is fine. He says, “You probably just fainted from exhaustion. You're good to go.” But I asked what happened. The nurse says, “It's the duty of a hospital to save your life, not your stories.” She hands me a plastic bag with that says personal belongings. And in it is my beautiful dress. That's all cut up. Because if you arrive at a hospital unconscious, they cut your clothes off, so they don't disturb you in case you have some broken bones. But by some wild luck, they did not cut my great coat. 

 

Well, they hand me this XXX size sweats, wheelchair me to the curb, then leave me to fend for myself. I hail a cab. As soon as I get home, it's like 11:30 in the morning, I call my brother, because I didn't want him to worry since I missed our 07:30 AM daily call. “Hi, Ken. Sorry I missed our call. I was in the emergency room. I fell in the subway tracks, but I'm okay.” [audience laughter] And my brother says, “That is not a logical sentence in the English language. If you think you are okay, you are not okay.” He jumped up from his desk in his office in Wilmington, Delaware, took the next Amtrak train up to New York to take care of me. And his care was a big comfort. 

 

But the whole day I had this shiver, chill, fever feeling, because I didn't know what happened. It was a mystery. I mean, I have no images. There was nothing that I noticed. Was I pushed? Where did it happen? Who saved me? Scarier than the fall itself was not knowing the story. Well, I figured I'd look online. Surely, somebody would have taken a cell phone snap, “A woman on the tracks would be more interesting than what you had for dinner.” But nothing. Two days later, I get a call from James, the manager at Keen's. “How are you?” That's strange, I thought. He's never called to find out how I am. James continues. “My waiter, Robert, rescued you the other night. Would you like to know the story?” “Ahh, yeah.” And so, my brother and I go over, sit with Robert and Robert explains.

 

He says, “I had just gotten off of work at 01:00 AM, and I go racing down the steps to catch the Uptown F. And oh, damn, the train is pulling out. I miss it. And so, I'm looking down the tracks to see when the next train might be coming. I notice in the distance a figure that's unsteady who seems to be trying to navigate around that really narrow part of the subway platform, around the stairs. And suddenly, that figure slips and slithers onto the tracks. [shocked] And, then I notice it's your coat. It's you. That's Flash.” And so, he rallies the few stragglers on the platform to come help. He said, the biggest guy jumped down. Somebody was guiding. He was pulling my arms. A woman was on the platform on her cell phone calling, 911. The next train is halted. My life is saved. 

 

Well, being noticed on the subway tracks is all the celebrity anyone ever needs. [audience laughter] Plus, it's like a fashion tip, be noticeable. If I had been wearing my black puff coat, I would have been disguised as camouflaged as debris. I might still be down there. [audience laughter] And always carry bagels in your backpack. Gluten saved my life. They were like little life preservers, and probably are the reason why my back isn't broken. Then Robert continues to tell the story. He said, “When you were up on the platform, you were all apologetic. You were saying, ‘I'm fine. I'm going to walk home. I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble.’” Well, those of you who know me will not be surprised to hear that though unconscious, I was still talking. [audience laughter] 

 

And then, he thought, well, he better be sure that I'm okay before he lets me go. So, he asked my name. Got it. And then, he asked for my emergency phone number. And somewhere in the befuddlement, emergency phone number-- I thought of the phone number that I was forced to memorize when I was a child during the Cuban missile crisis. Endicott 8-9-9-7-8. Well, the rescuers were much too young to know that used to be what phone numbers were. So, he thought, well, something must be wrong with her, so they called an ambulance. I'm never going to be able to thank Robert enough for saving my life. My brother tried. I mean, he took out his wallet and stuck it on the table at Keen's and said, “Just take whatever you want out of it. Max out the credit cards. “There's nothing that matters more to me. Nothing more valuable than my sister's life.”

 

The next morning, I was looking out of my fourth story window, and I was thinking, how does this affect me? How has this changed my life? Well, I do know that why I am here is a question I respect more now. When I was a teenager, I asked my Rabbi Krinsky, why am I here? Meaning, why am I going to Hebrew school for eight years? [audience laughter] And the rabbi said, “It's not about learning Hebrew. You know, all the Hebrew you needed to know you learned the first day.” I thought, “What? Shalom. And I was done?” He said, “No, no, no. Not shalom, but hineni,” the Hebrew word for here I am. He said, “When you are called upon during roll call and you answer to your name, you have agreed to be present. You have the ability to notice what there is to do.” 

 

And then, he went on to say, “It's not about prayers either. The way to give thanks for being who you are is that you have to be exactly who you are.” And then, I thought about what Aunt Leah said after she saw me do that comedy performance. She said that I fulfilled what my grandfather could only wish for. She said her older brother, my papa, Rosie, he rescued the family. He brought them from Europe to America before the Nazis. But she said, “He didn't want to be a hero. What he wanted to do was perform on stage in New York City. So, hineni, here I am.”