The L Train is Actually Sometimes Awesome

We're going under the East River, from Bedford Avenue to First Avenue. A handful of hipster brats on the train with me. I'm tired, so I'm resting my eyes.

The conductor keeps blowing his horn over and over and over as the train moves slowly in the tunnel.

Honk. Honk. Honk. Honk. Honk. Nice, long, teeth-rattling honks.

Then all of a sudden he changes them to multiple, rapid-fire short horns.

Honk-honk-honk-honk, and the train slows down but it's still going. The shabbily dressed hipster boy who looks like a scrawny Seth Green smirks and elbows his friend, mimicking the short honks.

Then, behind his head, in the window, I see a gloved hand. It's a dirty white and it's waving hello at me.

I look up. MTA construction workers. They're squeezed into a tiny space between the tunnel and the train. They must have been doing work, and the conductor's honking was the signal to get out of the way, because a train is coming through.

They're standing upright, with only a few inches between their bellies and the moving train, the moving train that contains us. And a few of them are looking inside the L train, and waving, as we go by.

I wave back from inside the train. Then, they're gone.