free ride

the city of boston eliminates the fare on many of the outbound trains after each 4th of july fireworks.  on one such 4th, after watching the fireworks, my friend dave and i made our way through the hot and crowed streets to the nearest green line station.  there we waited for our free train ride into brighton.

the first train was packed tightly, so when the doors opened the sardinized passengers made it clear that we should wait for the following train.  the second train was equally full, and the passengers equally adamant.  dave and i were becoming impatient, so as the train pulled forward we ran around and climbed onto the back.

each of the 115 kinki-sharyo type 7 surface rail cars owned by the mbta, had a large coupler at the front and rear.  each coupler had plenty of room for up three "passengers", provided they held on to one of the two windshield wipers located at about chest level.  the springs on the wipers were fairly strong but if you were sharing with a friend you wanted to be sure not to pull to hard, or it would it leave you dangling awkwardly over the speeding gravel and railroad ties.

as there were only the two of us, we rode in one wiper per passenger luxury to the next station.  the train slowed; we jumped off and ran around to train doors just as they opened.  we made a big show of panting hard, hands on knees, looking for all the world like we just ran half a mile at 30 miles an hour.  recognizing us from the previous station, the passengers allowed us to board.