It’s a theater night on Broadway.  That means that an uncommon amount of people converge on the subway platform at practically the same time, somewhere around 10:30 pm. Most of them are excited about a play they just saw. Some are semi-intoxicated after a midtown bar crawl.

The ubiquitous subway performers know this. They gather on the stations around the Theater District to perform. From peruvian flute bands, that guy who dances salsa with a doll, some failed opera singers and the Juilliard rejects, they are all out tonight. You can say they are playing On Broadway; or more precisely, Under Broadway.

My luck brings me that night to the platform with the old japanese guy playing the kokyu, a sort of string instrument that sounds as if somebody is slowly ripping apart your small intestines with each movement of the bow.  By comparison, the Scottish bagpipes sound heavenly.

He looks at me, and smiling he asks “ling ma bel?”. I smile back and take my cell phone out to play the only free game I have there. I really don’t fully understand how to play it, but at least people think I am occupied with something and usually don’t talk to me. “ling ma bel, yes?” he asks again. I nod and look down at the tiny spaceships on my cell phone screen.

And then the “tooooooooooot tweeeeeeeeeeeet tweeet, tweeeeeeeeeeet tooooot theeeeeeet” begins. I finally recognize the melody: it’s “Ring my bell”, that disco hit from the 70s. People begin to gather around the old man.  A small crowd dances and claps… And they said disco was dead. I wonder how many of them know that “Ring my bell” is an euphemism for something sexual (do you know what it is?).

One of the very enthusiastic dancers/clappers gets a bit too close to me and my cell flies off all the way to the bottom of the slimy, dark tracks. I just stand there looking down at it, while immediately, a subway employee appears carrying something that seems to be a robotic arm.  He tells me “don’t worry bud, I’ll get that for ya”.  Looking at the puddle of black goo and rat poo where my phone rests I tell him not to worry, but he replies they have to get it out of there for security reasons. So he catches it and tries to give it to me.  I look at the him, look at the dripping phone, get my winter gloves out of my jacket and grab the thing with them. Thanking him, I walk to the nearest trash can and throw the phone and the gloves in… That bell will never ling again.

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