Oooopps!

I was on the downtown A train, going local, headed to see my friend that lives in midtown east for our monthly dinner and catching up, when a Chinese man of about 24 comes on the train at 110th St, with his bicycle. The bicycle looked like it had been spray painted a dark charcoal gray and had been reinforced with a steel pipe that was wrapped around the top bar with a lot of electrical tape. It was clearly a bike that had seen a lot of use, and as ugly as it was, I suspect it was a really solid bike that had given it's owner solid service for many years. As the man situated his bike on the train he decided to chain it to the vertical steel pole on the train with a massive steel chain secured by an industrial padlock, a setup that only professional delivery people in NYC seem to get a hold of. He sat down next to his bike for about 30 seconds and then stood back up and started taking off the front wheel of the bike. The man then undid his rear bike wheel, and freed it from the chain, so that he had both wheels in his hand. I was listening to some music I was trying to memorize on my headsets, but I could tell something wasn't quite right, as this guy quickly disassembled his bike. I turned off my music to eavesdrop on the conversation that the man was now having with the stranger that he had sat next to for half a minute. It turns out that after he locked the bike to the post, he realized that the only key he had for the massive padlock had fallen off the string on his wrist (still wrapped around his wrist) where he kept it. He immediately realized that he would have to abandon the bike, as there really was no way to get the bike off the steel post. Perhaps he was an illegal alien and did not want to involve the authorities, or perhaps he realized it was time to replace the bike. I don't know, but it struck me as tragic as he left the train at 72nd Street, two wheels in hand, leaving the abandoned bike behind. One of the other things that struck me was how quickly he had accepted the fact that he would have to leave the bike behind. As soon as he had realized what he had done his reaction was immediate: save the wheels and get off the train. No regret, no remorse, no anger. An interesting NY moment.