…Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly
The following story was written about a particular stop in NYC during my “4 Guys In A Car” trip. If you’re unfamiliar with that trip of mine, feel free to read about the details here. Short version: Me and three friends did all 48 states plus DC in two weeks. NYC was our last major stop before coming home. This all took place in September of 2017.
After our visit to Times Square, we hit the subway and began our journey downtown. We had asked Paul several times about where he wanted to go in NYC and every time he always mentioned that he wanted to see the Ghostbusters fire hall and see Central Park. With the park now behind us, and time ticking on our visit to the big apple, it was time to head down to 14 N Moore St.
As an avid lover of NYC, every time I visited I always picked one thing in particular that I wanted to go see or do that I had never done before. One time I went up to see the diner from Seinfeld. Another time it was a park in Queens used as the backdrop for the final battle in Men In Black. The last memorable location I went to see was the exterior building used for the “apartment” in Friends.
The Ghostbusters fire hall was one of those locations I had picked during one trip to visit and had been back to it a few times. A quick Google search refreshed my memory on where it was and off to the subway we were. We went into the subway station just near Times Square, went downstairs and waited for the train like anyone else. But this particular subway ride would set the song for this trip.
Wait, the song? What song?
In all of my major road trips over the years, there has always been a song or group of songs that I have associated with that trip. When I went to Toronto to see Faith No More play for the first time, December by Collective Soul kept coming on the radio and subsequently became that trip’s song. Collective Soul’s “Maybe” was a song I heard again and again while driving to Los Angeles in 1997. With each major road trip, a song always ended up reminding me of that specific trip so when we set out for our 48 state adventure, I wondered what it might be. Not being a fan of The Beatles, I did not expect one of their songs to ever be associated to any of my trips.
When we got on the subway, there wasn’t any room for me to sit so I stood and held onto one of the metal poles everyone uses to stay steady. As I waited for the doors to close, I noticed a man across from me with a guitar on his lap. A woman struck up a conversation with the man and asked him to play a song. The doors closed and he started and she immediately said “Oh I love that song”.
At first I had no idea what the song was but once he opened his mouth and started singing I found myself remembering the song and began to chime in with him. I didn’t know all of the words but I had heard Blackbird many times on the radio and on TV.
As I was singing with him, the woman who was talking to him before started singing along with her friend. None of us knew each other but we all just broke out singing together as if we had known each other for years. For the couple of minutes that he played, I forgot where I was, who I was with, and all about the fact that we had just driven from Moncton to San Francisco and back to New York over the last 12 days. As I looked around the train car, there were the faces of strangers watching all of us with big smiles on their faces truly enjoying the impromptu singalong that had sprung out of a group of strangers meeting on a train. At some point during the song, the guy playing guitar looked at us and made a comment about how we must have been professionals because the harmonies sounded so nice. We all smiled at each other and continued to sing as the subway car bumped along the tracks heading down towards Ghostbusters HQ.
By that time, we had driven about 15,000kms around the US and were winding the trip down as we would be starting our final leg towards home that night. Our visit to NYC was the last of our major stops before we made the 14hr haul back to Moncton. I stood there, hanging on like any other passenger, looked around, and I couldn’t stop smiling.
Then just as quickly as it had started the song was over and the subway car erupted with applause. When the doors opened and I knew we had to get off, I gave the guitar player a bunch of my American change and apologized to him for the lack of bills. He told me not to worry about it and thanked me for my generosity. I walked off the subway and onto the platform and we headed upstairs to find the firehouse. But for me, the song Blackbird would stick in my head for the rest of the trip home, and become the song that defined my “4 Guys In A Car” trip.
In the those few minutes of standing on the train, singing to a group of strangers, I realized that I had just lost myself in a moment of pure immersion. I’d been in the van with Ken, Mark, and Paul for almost two full weeks, seeing all of these different places across the entire United States. But in that moment on the train, I wasn’t a Canadian traveler visiting NYC. I was a local resident jumping in on what countless others see and experience almost every day they ride the train. I wasn’t thinking about getting home, the long drive ahead, the countless photos I had taken, the places I had seen, or the memories I had made. I was just a guy on a train singing with a bunch of people to pass the time between train stops.
I don’t know if words can truly express why this particular experience stuck with me. All I can really say is that it was one of the few moments I have had while traveling where I can honestly say that I truly felt like I had somehow just magically become a part of the city, even if it was just between train stops.
A few days after I finally returned home, I went on iTunes and looked for Blackbird. I opted for the Sarah McLaughlin version as it just seemed closer to what I had felt on the train. As soon as the song was downloaded, I played it and my mind immediately jumped back to that subway car. There was no doubt now that this song would be the one I’d always associate to my “4 Guys In A Car” trip.