June 15, 2005
Celebrity Sighting
The other night at the 42nd street, I spotted Jonathan Safran Foer dragging a large cage filled with parrots down the A.C.E. platform. At first I didn't think it was him, but as he passed he looked up and then looked away, as if afraid to be recognized, and I knew.
The parrots, for their part, were surprisingly quiet, and for some reason I got the sense that they were drugged, but I immediately cast the idea aside. Honestly, the thought of Jonathon Safran Foer drugging parrots. It was too much.
My train screamed into the station and most of the people on the platform crowded on. I went for the door, but at the last minute my curiosity got the better of me and I ducked behind a pillar.
The train pulled off and the platform was empty. Foer looked around to be sure no one was around, then pulled some kind of metal key out of his back pocket and used it to open up a large yellow trap door. When it was open he was obscured behind it, but I could see him reach out and grab the cage. Then he disappeared beneath the platform, closing the door behind him.
I snuck down to have a look. The trap door had embossed treads on it, to keep people from slipping, but other than that it was unremarkable. I decided to wait for him to emerge.
While I was waiting, I thought about his books. I'd read the first one and been impressed with it, but I'd read it at a weird time so it had bad associations for me, and I’d never been able to form a critical opinion about it. I hadn't read his second book, but I'd read the reviews. They struck me as unfair, but they worked; they caused me to avoid the book.
As I was waiting, a garbage train crawled into the station, and a group of men jumped off and started emptying the cans and dumping them into the cars. When they were done they gathered around where the trap door was, and one of the garbage men leaned over and picked something up. It was the metal key Foer had used open the door, he must have forgotten it on the way down. The man tossed it into the garbage train, and then they all jumped aboard and pulled off.
I went back down the trap door to examine it. I tried to lift it but it didn't budge. I knocked on it and waited, but there was no sound from below. A few more trains passed, but the door stayed closed.
Eventually I decided to jump on the next train. His was obviously some kind of imaginative gesture, and I had my own worries. For all I know he's still down there.
