Rock Park
The scene opens on the Rockaway Park subway station. Upstage, there’s a bench and a transit toolbox—a rectangular metal container similar to the bench in height and length. In the background, we hear seagulls calling and the sound of waves. The station is just a short walk from Rockaway Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. We hear a train pull into the station and then a voice over a loudspeaker.
LOUDSPEAKER
This is Rock Park, Beach 116th. Last stop, last stop. Rock Park, Beach 116th. All passengers must exit the train. Rock Park, Beach 116th. Last stop, last stop.
Enter DAVE, late 20s or early 30s, wearing full transit worker gear: protective goggles, work boots, reflective vest, work gloves, and hard hat. He carries a tool bag as he walks to the bench and sits. He takes off the goggles, gloves, vest, and hard hat and stuffs them into the toolbag.
LOUDSPEAKER
Attention passengers. Due to track work on the Rockaway Park shuttle line, there is no service from this station to the Beach 98th/Playland and Beach 105/Holland stations. All passengers for those stations take the next train to Broad Channel and transfer to a Rockaway Park bound shuttle on the opposite platform. Again, this is due to ongoing track work. His transit gear put away, DAVE pulls a health drink out of his tool bag and takes a sip before he addresses the audience.
DAVE
One of the first lessons I learned in the Rock Park gang was that you never wear your transit clothes when you’re dealing with the public. People see you with that MTA logo on and they start asking you questions: “Where’s the train?” “When’s the train gonna be here?” “How come this train’s never on time?” One morning, when I was right out of track worker training, I made the mistake of wearing all my gear on the commute to work. The train I was waiting for—surprise, surprise—was running late, and the platform was getting crowded. Standing there on the platform, this guy came up to me and stood right next to me, really close, and just started cursing: “Got your fuckin hand in my pocket pay my fare you fuckin transit pigs makin paper and the trains don’t fuckin come how much they payin you? How much they payin you, pig?” So, lesson number one: don’t wear your gear except when you’re working on the tracks.
Enter NORTHWOOD, mid 40s. Like DAVE, NORTHWOOD carries a tool bag and he’s already changed out of his track gear. NORTHWOOD sits next to DAVE on the bench. He takes a sandwich and an apple out of his tool bag, and begins eating as DAVE addresses the audience.
DAVE (to the audience)
I joined the Rock Park gang in the summer of 2007, not too long after the December 2005 transit strike, a strike born mostly of the deep hatred transit workers have of MTA management, who treat their workers as poorly as they treat their passengers. Rock Park was known as a cushy spot for track workers. Landing a spot in that gang right out of training, as I did, was considered very good luck. The subway tracks in the Rockaways are elevated, so my gang rarely worked underground. For this reason, we worked the coveted day shift, while the underground gangs worked nights.
NORTHWOOD
You landed in a hammock, brother. Rock Park, brand new out of training. A hammock on the beach. NORTHWOOD goes back to eating while DAVE addresses the audience again.
DAVE (to the audience)
The stations on the Rock Park shuttle line were quiet and sleepy. In the mornings, people got on the shuttle in bikinis, carrying surfboards or fishing poles or old fashioned picnic baskets. In winter, pigeons rode the shuttle to stay out of the cold. The stations had names like Beach 98th, Playland, and Beach 105, Seaside. The place felt like some kind of weird, dreamy underside to the city. We’d spend a few hours picking garbage off the tracks or changing subway ties, getting filthy track grease and whatever else all over our clothes. Then, whenever we could, we’d take our lunch breaks by the water, watching the beachgoers and gazing out at the Atlantic.
Enter RICHIE, mid 40s, carrying a tool bag. His hardhat is fastened to his jeans with a metal clip and his energy is intense, almost manic. Even just looking about, RICHIE is unable to stand still. He spots DAVE and NORTHWOOD and walks toward them, but doesn’t sit, since there’s not much room on the bench. RICHIE notices DAVE’s health drink.
RICHIE
The fuck you drinking?
DAVE
Smoothie.
RICHIE
Fuck is that?
DAVE
You’ve never seen one of these?
RICHIE
Lemme see. (snatches the drink out of DAVE's hand and examines the label)
Almond milk. Fuck is that?
DAVE
It’s good for you.
RICHIE
Oh yeah? (takes a sip and grimaces) Kidding me? Fuck that shit.
RICHIE
passes the drink back to DAVE.
DAVE
Okay.
RICHIE
Just drink a fuckin Yoo Hoo if you want to, kid. Who you tryin to impress? Drink some good old-fashioned high fructose corn syrup.
DAVE
That stuff gives you cancer.
NORTHWOOD
(takes a bite of his apple) That’s right, brother. Eat natural.
RICHIE
The fuck you talking about? Saw you house two fuckin McMuffins this morning.
NORTHWOOD
True, true.
RICHIE
Fuckin McMuffins, fuckin McMuffins.
DAVE
(to the audience) My fellow track workers spoke a strange, percussive vernacular that I found endlessly enjoyable. It’s what I missed the most when I left the job.
RICHIE
Fuckin McMuffin. Double stuff. How old are you, kid?
DAVE
Twenty-eight.
RICHIE
Twenty-eight? The fuck you worried about? Almond milk. Shit, when I was twenty-eight, I’d eat a plate of spaghetti and a cheeseburger without a second fuckin thought. Brewskies all night. Fuckin McMuffins. Right, Woody?
NORTHWOOD
Yessir.
RICHIE
None of this organic bullshit. Hey kid, lemme get your seat, okay? The scene changes. We’re out on the tracks now, somewhere between the Rock Park and Broad Channel stations. The tracks are elevated, so we have a nice view of the beach and ocean.
In the background, we hear the sounds of workers digging up coarse rocks with shovels and ballast forks. Perhaps NORTHWOOD and RICHIE stand to mime the crib-digging process as DAVE describes it.
DAVE (to the audience)
Our gang spent a lot of our time digging cribs, which is just track lingo for digging ditches. The tracks in the Rockaways rest on a bed of thousands and thousands of rocks called ballast. When a rail tie needed to be changed, we’d dig a ditch in this bed of rocks—shoveling the rocks up into big piles—so that we could move the worn-out tie aside and replace it with a new one. Then, once the new tie was in, we’d shovel the piles of rocks back into place, supporting the railroad tracks that keep the city running. The work was hard on our backs and boring as hell, and it felt like the sort of thing railroad workers had probably been doing for hundreds of years. This feeling was exacerbated by the fact that our equipment was terrible: sledgehammers and shovels with the heads duct taped on, third rail mats patched up with tape. One of the guys from our neighboring Rockaway Boulevard gang used to joke that he was using the same shovel that his Irish great-granddad used to build the transcontinental railroad.
The scene changes again. We’re back at the Rock Park station. DAVE and NORTHWOOD go back to eating their lunch on the bench while RICHIE stands in front of them.
RICHIE (to DAVE)
Hey kid, lemme get your seat, okay?
DAVE
What?
RICHIE
I’m an old man, kid. Can’t eat my lunch standing.
DAVE
(gestures toward the toolbox) Why don't you sit over there?
RICHIE
Kid. Kid kid kid kid kid. You gonna make a senior man eat his lunch on the toolbox? Where’s your respect?
NORTHWOOD
I sat on that toolbox a hundred times. It's fine.
RICHIE
Yeah, Woody? How bout you go sit over there now and lemme take the bench?
NORTHWOOD
Naw, I'm good.
RICHIE
Fuckin twenty-eight. You're a young buck, kid. You really gonna make me eat my lunch on that broke down toolbox?
DAVE
I just want to finish my lunch.
RICHIE
That's fucked up, kid. That's really fucked up. (pauses to watch a woman walk past) Goddamn, look at the toilet on her. You take one in the face from her, kid?
DAVE
What?
RICHIE
Bitty over there: check out her stinker. (watches DAVE look over) What do you think, kid? You let her sit on your face and rip one?
DAVE
(to the audience) The beach is a place where people go, among other things, to look at each other’s bodies. For Richie, working by the beach meant lots of opportunities to ogle beachgoers. On one level, feeling filthy and broken down after a morning of digging cribs, watching people relax and frolic in their bathing suits was a great escape from the tar and track dust and back pain. On the other hand, Richie was a lech, but there was a strangeness to his lechery that I found impressive. He’d stand on the boardwalk on our lunch break, watching the people pass by in their swimsuits, and the stream of weirdness that spilled out of him was something to behold.
RICHIE
You let her sit on your face and rip one? Give her the trouser snake? Hot sausage
smothered in underwear? Tube steak? Fuck a tube steak. Bet the kid’s gotta baby leg down there. Look at that one: 10 pounds of shit in an eight pound bag. Would ya? Check out the stinker on that one. Check out the thumper on that one. Would ya? Wanna give her a sit-n-spin? You let her fart in your face? Would ya?
(Pause. Then, to DAVE.)
Would ya, kid?
DAVE
Would I what?
RICHIE
Ah, kid: twenty-eight. Twenty-eight, twenty-eight. Goddam. You live in Park Slope?
DAVE
What?
RICHIE
You seem like a Park Slope kind of guy.
DAVE
What’s that mean?
RICHIE
I don't know, kid. You're a little uptight.
DAVE
Well, you're a little nosy.
NORTHWOOD
A little?
RICHIE
Shit, kid, I can't help it. I find you fucking fascinating. You live in Carroll Gardens?
DAVE
No, I—
RICHIE
Williamsburg?
DAVE
Jesus, man. It's none of your business.
RICHIE
None of my business, none of my business. You gotta lot of secrets, kid. You're a real man of mystery.
DAVE
Whatever. I’m here to work, not to...tell you all about my life.
RICHIE
Listen kid, lemme give you a lesson, right here and now: you’re not here to work. You’re here to get paid.
DAVE
Okay.
RICHIE
Think I’m fuckin kidding? You’re here to get paid. If the boss paid you to stay home, would ya be here? Would ya? Course not. You’re here to get paid, kid. Twenty-eight years old: man oh man. When I was twenty-eight I was gettin all kinds of ass. All kinds. Workin out four, five times a week. I was fucking ripped. Shit, twenty-eight? I was eating burgers, steaks, whatever. Come home from the bar and eat a goddam grilled cheese at three in the morning. My metabolism was out of control.
(takes a big bite of his sandwich)
All I’m saying is don’t do anything stupid. Shit don’t get any better than what you got right now. Alright?
DAVE
Got it.
RICHIE
You landed in a good spot, is all I’m saying. Fuckin Rock Park. You did alright.
NORTHWOOD
He landed in a hammock.
RICHIE
Fuckin A. A hammock on the beach. Best spot in the system. Lotta ass, sunshine. Fuckin lucky, kid, gettin here right outta training. I worked nights in the hole eight years before I got out here.
The scene changes. We’re underground now, on the subway tracks, in between stations. We hear the noise of power tools and sledgehammers on steel.
DAVE (to the audience)
Tuesday to Saturday, we mostly worked above ground, on the elevated tracks in the Rockaways, Ozone Park, or out by Kings Highway. On Sundays or Mondays though, which was the Rock Park gang’s weekend, we often had the option of working overtime. Overtime jobs could be anywhere in the system, so most of the jobs I worked underground were overtime jobs. More than anything, I remember the noise. With the drills running and the sledgehammers pounding steel clips and plates, the noise echoing inside the tunnels was violent. It surrounded you and got inside you, and the transit issue ear protection was trash, like most of the equipment. And it was filthy down there. I mean, all the tracks were filthy, above ground and below. The grease you’d get on you stayed on forever. You had to make sure to never wear any work clothes at home, because if that grease got on your couch or your sheets, it wasn’t coming off. But working underground was especially filthy because you breathed in all that grease and dust. The transit issue ventilators were trash too, and most guys didn’t wear them because your breath would fog up your goggles if you had the ventilator on. All day long, you breathed in that dust and it stayed in you for a long time. The noise subsides, at least enough that we can hear the following conversation.
NORTHWOOD
The shit you breathe down here, brother. Stays in your lungs forever.
RICHIE
Fuckin A, kid. It’s no joke.
NORTHWOOD
Back when I was in the rail gang at 59th, long time ago now, working nights in the hole, I went to the Bahamas. Saved up some days and figured it was time to get a little sun.
RICHIE
Lotta ass down there.
NORTHWOOD
Exactly. So I’m down on the island, all-inclusive, drinking rum and margaritas and chillin on the beach.
RICHIE
The chiller.
NORTHWOOD
Water’s so clear down there, you can see right through to the bottom. Anyway, like four or five days into the trip, I took a swim and after I got out of the water, went back to my room to clean up before heading down to the bar. Get some rum and margaritas. Strong drinks down there. All inclusive. I’d been down there almost a week, not even thinking about work or nothing. So I went upstairs to take a shower and I’m just chillin out in the shower, thinking about those rum and cokes, and while I’m in there—I remember this—I blew my nose and all this black shit came out. Like dust and track grease and...I’m in the Bahamas on a beach vacation for like a week and there’s track grease coming out of my nose.
RICHIE
Shit’s like tar. It sticks to you.
NORTHWOOD
It’ll kill you.
They consider this for a moment. Then, RICHIE and NORTHWOOD exit. The scene changes again. Now we’re in a subway car. It’s late afternoon or early evening. Out the windows of the car, we can see the sun going down over Rockaway Beach and the ocean beyond.
DAVE (to the audience)
During my time at Rock Park, a member of our gang died of pancreatic cancer. His name was Charlie, but everyone called him The Goof. Enter CHARLIE, a Rockaway Irish guy in his late 50s or early 60s.
DAVE (to the audience)
Charlie’s jeans were baggy and his reflective vest always looked like it was coming apart. His hardhat sat kind of sideways on his head and he walked the tracks with a sort of lopsided gait that looked like his legs might separate from his body at the waist and just collapse at any moment. He was falling apart, and he was old and grumpy, but he tried to help me learn the ropes when I got into the gang. Charlie called out sick one day, in November or December, early winter, and that was pretty much the last we heard of him until we heard he’d passed. One night, right before he called out sick and disappeared, Charlie and I took the shuttle home from work together.
DAVE and CHARLIE sit together.
CHARLIE (to DAVE)
Never tell nobody nothing. Understand? Anything they get from you, they’ll use it. Specially Finley. Don’t never tell the foreman nothing. He acts like he’s your friend, but he’s the boss and you gotta remember that. Can’t trust him. Anything you give ‘em, they’ll use it against you. You understand? You gotta protect yourself out here because no one’s lookin out for you. Least of all the foreman. Understand? Supposed to snow tonight. They’ll have us out shoveling tomorrow. Fuck that. Not gonna freeze my nuts off out there on the flags. I’ll call out, take a day. Could use a day anyway. All right, kid, this is me. See you tomorrow. Remember what I said.
CHARLIE exits. DAVE watches him go. The scene changes again. We’re in an Irish pub in Howard Beach, Queens. RICHIE and NORTHWOOD enter, carrying pints of beer. One of them hands DAVE a beer. They take a seat and start drinking.
DAVE (to the audience)
We went to Charlie’s wake to pay our respects and then we went to one of Charlie’s favorite Irish pubs to pay our respects some more. Finley came too.
Enter FINLEY, late 40s, thickset, pure Rockaway Irish. He sits and starts drinking a beer.
DAVE (to the audience)
He was our gang’s foreman, straight Rockaway Irish, and even though he was supervision, he looked out for me too. With few exceptions, the guys I met on the tracks—and track workers are overwhelmingly guys—looked out for each other.
RICHIE
(raising his glass) We are gathered here in honor of Charlie, aka The Goof. A Yankee fan ‘til the day he died, may he rest in peace.
NORTHWOOD
Rest in peace.
FINLEY
The big C. When it comes, it comes quick.
RICHIE
The grim fucking reaper. The goof. They sip their beers in silence.
FINLEY (to DAVE)
When I was just a few months in—like you, kid—my gang worked Christmas Eve. We were just hanging around the quarters on emergency response. Thought they were throwing us a bone ‘cause we had to work Christmas. Keep us in the quarters for a nice easy night.
NORTHWOOD
Sure. They do that.
FINLEY
Yeah, but on Christmas there’s always an emergency ‘cause that’s when you get jumpers. Between Christmas and New Years is all the jumpers. So sure enough we get the call, there’s a jumper: body at Union Square. Right in the middle of everything.
RICHIE
Fuckin circus. That’s what those fuckers want. They do it for attention.
FINLEY
A jumper at Union Square. Let me tell you, kid: that’s some shit you do not want to see.
DAVE
You had to clean it up?
FINLEY
Nah, they got a special crew for that with, like, hazmats and shit. We’re just in there setting up flags, holding trains, keeping the passengers away, which at Union Square on Christmas Eve is a nightmare. Anyway, by the time we got to the station the body’s gone, but there’s blood everywhere. Everywhere. The hazmats are cleaning it up and we’re just holding up the trains. And then I look over at one of those columns, over between the tracks where you clear up, and I see something kind of grey just stuck there. A little grey thing stuck on that metal column. It was a piece of brain. Just a little grey piece of the guy’s brain. It was weird. It looked just like you think it would, you know? All these little lines and ridges, just like...like it would look in a textbook or something. That really spooked me: that little piece of brain. I almost threw up right there.
RICHIE
You’ll see a lot of shit out here, kid. Working track. Lotta shit.
NORTHWOOD
Got to stay safe.
RICHIE
Don’t fuck around with that third rail.
NORTHWOOD
Third rail is no joke.
DAVE
You ever...you ever see anybody get shocked?
NORTHWOOD
See anybody? Let me tell you something.
(stands up) Right after I first got on days I was digging cribs out at Beach 90th. Middle of summer, hot as hell. Sweating my balls off. Nobody wanted to carry that third-rail mat out and the board was off for PD. I’m telling you it was probably 100 degrees out...
(mimes digging) ...and we’re digging and digging. And I’m sweating like a pig and you know I’m not wearing no goddam gloves. All the sudden I start getting weak. I can feel it. Didn’t drink enough water or something and I’m getting dizzy. And I’m digging right by that third rail. There’s sweat dripping off my hand right onto that rail and I’m getting little shocks up my arm.
(extends an arm and demonstrates) I know it sounds crazy, but it was like that rail was pulling me. I could hear it humming.
FINLEY
Yep. It hums.
NORTHWOOD
It was like some Lord of the Rings shit. That rail was calling to me. Humming to me. And it was so goddam hot. All the sudden I feel my legs go out from under me. (mimes falling and breaking his fall) I’m falling. I put my hand out to break the fall and it hits that rail—
DAVE
The third rail?
NORTHWOOD
That’s right. My sweaty-ass hand lands right on that third rail and BOOM. Everything goes black.
DAVE
Holy shit.
NORTHWOOD
Uh huh. Bzzzzzzzzt. Lights out. The thing is, I fell right where I was digging so my weight carried me past the rail... (demonstrates how he fell, then recites the following lines from the floor) ...right into the crib. I landed right in that ditch, totally blacked out. A minute later I look up and the whole gang’s standing over me, looking down at me. The sky was all blue behind them. It’s a summer day, you know? I’m looking up at these faces staring down at me with that blue sky and all these little white clouds behind them and I’m thinking, “Motherfucker, I’m dead.” I swear, I thought I died. All these guys looking down on me in that ditch, with the blue sky behind them.
NORTHWOOD returns to his stool and takes a drink.
DAVE
Did you...did you feel anything? When you hit the rail?
NORTHWOOD
Oh yeah. It was crazy, brother. It was like...it was just like it looks in the cartoons, you know? I could feel my hair standing up and like...bzzzzzzzzt. (mimes getting shocked) Just like in the cartoons. Just like that. I shit myself, pissed myself. My teeth hurt.
DAVE
Jesus. So what happened?
NORTHWOOD
They took me to a clinic, cleaned me up. I banged out sick one day and then came back to work. Rock Park. (finishes his drink) I swear, I thought I was dead.
(to DAVE) What kind of beer you want?
FINLEY exits. The scene changes again. We’re outside now, on the drawbridge that connects Broad Channel to the Rockaways.
It’s a beautiful summer day. DAVE, NORTHWOOD, and RICHIE discard their beers and get up to admire the view.
DAVE (to the audience)
Every now and then, we got to do a job on the Broad Channel bridge. Those were beautiful days. Standing over the water, looking out at the sun on the waves, the light and the water rising and falling in rhythm like the pistons of some massive engine. We could see the city in the background, but from the bridge, the skyline and the Empire State were small. They only existed to reflect the light and water shimmering beneath us. And then the bridge would open, with us on it. The bridge swung out...because the Broad Channel bridge is a drawbridge that opens sideways, pivoting on its fulcrum, and we’d stand on the bridge while it swung out 90 degrees, a huge steel road detached from its bed, swinging out into the air above the channel, and we swung with it, weightless over the water, all of us in our boots and vests staring out at the sun, and the barge gliding past through the space where the bridge had been, churning the sunlight in its wake. I felt like one of those boys climbing the mast-head in Moby Dick, hypnotized by the “bending cadence of waves with thoughts” as the bridge took our gang out above the channel. We couldn’t work, obviously, while the bridge was open, so we just stared out at the water, swinging, that endless mixture of light and stillness and motion. It was like Melville wrote, what happens to you when you’re high above the sea: “He loses his identity, takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature.” On the bridge, standing over that bottomless blue soul in our transit issue boots and goggles, you could forget that your lungs were full of dust, that the drills and nutrunners were spewing fumes into that very ocean. The steel of the bridge glimmered like the water beneath it. Then a cloud passed and the sun was gone. The bridge swung back, found its anchor, reconnected to the shuttle tracks. And then we went back to work.
DAVE stares out at the water. We hear the sound of waves. A barge floats past and they watch it go. More waves.
END OF SCENE
Object
Yoo Hoo, McMuffins, Third Rail
Body of Water
Atlantic Ocean
About the Artist
Willie Johnson is a New York-based writer and high school teacher. His essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Nation, and the Thomson Gale Encyclopedia of Race and Racism. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in The Oleander Review, Litro NY, The Dovetail Collective, and Modern Haiku. His full-length play The Followers won the 2018 Dr. R. J. Rodriguez Emerging Playwrights Award and his one-act play Ice Cream Man won the "Audience Favorite" award at the 2015 Unchained Festival in New York City. His newest full-length play, Hephaestus, will premiere in March 2020 at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center's Rough Draft Festival. He is a proud member of the United Federation of Teachers and Red Bloom: A Communist Collective.