At the 125th Street station I’m waiting to transfer to a 6 train when I notice a strange figure shuffling in my direction. He’s accompanied by a boy of about ten or eleven who bounces along impatiently at his side. He walks in an awkward half-limp, half-shuffle, moving in the slightly discombobulated way someone who’s suffered a stroke moves. I try not to pay attention as he passes by where I’m standing. A man stops and asks him if he needs to sit down. ‘No,’ he replies in a high-pitched, nasal voice, ‘I just need to get to the end of the line,’ an answer which doesn’t quite make sense. The train arrives and we all board. I exit three stops later and as I’m passing through the turnstiles I hear the same high-pitched, nasal voice cry out: ‘Hold the doors, hold the doors!’ I turn back: the man appears to be standing outside the train, but it’s taken him a long time to exit, and perhaps he wasn’t sure if he would actually get through the doors or not. He continues to yell at the conductor as he stands on the platform – angry, exasperated and confused: even though he’s clearly out of harm’s way, he still perceives a threat. As I leave the station various scenarios pass through my mind: if someone were to try to help him, what would be the outcome? How does the boy (his son?), who affects an air of distraction and nonchalance, cope with this man’s rather severe disability, which must make even the shortest trip a fraught, unpredictable and perilous adventure?