Good for one fare. I like that simple, succinct, phrase. It might be a metaphor for a life – we’re good for one term only, as it were and it might be only one term, but it is guaranteed good. I’ve worn this New York City subway token (or one like it), since 1978. To be honest, the original 1978 token was lost on a jumbo jet when I was coming back from a long trip in 2001 and so the one pictured hasn’t literally been with me all that time, although its spirit or its essence is the same as the original. I don’t really know why, but I like wearing it, and I intend to carry on wearing it until I die. The first person I saw with a token round his neck was someone called Ken. Ken was a tall, black guy from Brooklyn, of Cuban origin, who became a good friend in 1978 when we met at a kid’s summer camp in New Hampshire. We were both “camp counselors” as they were known, and we worked together teaching the kids basketball. We were also kind of outsiders, me as an Englishman who wasn’t really qualified to teach basketball, least of all to Americans, and Ken as a lone black man from a humble inner city background, in the very upper middle class world of rich Jewish kids at summer camp. I think we felt mutually disconnected from the strange world which we were temporarily inhabiting, a world which were not supposed to be in, and it gave us a kind of affinity with one another. Anyway, back to the token. As I said, I’d spotted my first one on a silver chain around Ken’s neck. I’d asked to look at it, slightly intrigued by both its punk like, almost anti-jewelry, status and the fact that it was a uniquely New York City object. To describe it, it’s about the same diameter, or possibly slightly smaller than a British 10 pence piece. On the one side it says “NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY” and on the other side it says “GOOD FOR ONE FARE”. Those words are around the edge and in the middle on both sides are the three letters “N Y C”. Those three letters are varying sizes in order to fit the centre circle, with the centre “Y” being bigger than the other letters. In fact, the “Y” in Ken’s original token was a blanked out hole, and that was how Ken had attached the token to his chain. The design has a utilitarian, but modernistic simplicity. The first time Ken’s token cropped up in conversation was when all the counselors at the camp were having a talk given by a New Hampshire state trooper. The Trooper was a strait laced, impeccably attired cop, who looked like he’d been sent down to us by central casting. His lecture was designed to advise us how to keep our noses clean in what was apparently quite a conservative state (by British standards, at least). He reminded us what the state laws were for things like marijuana possession and what the state’s view was of making a right turn on a red light. One of the things which he’d said in passing, was that it was a good idea to keep some form of ID with you. At the end of the talk, we were asked if we had any questions. Ken put his hand up and said “I don’t know whether anyone has noticed, but I’m a black guy and I haven’t seen too many other black guys around here, so how is it for dudes like me in these parts?” Ken’s question, I guess, with its obvious implications, was whether New Hampshire harboured any particular prejudices he should be aware of. The trooper was appropriately diplomatic and he simply advised that it was a good idea for everyone to obey the law at all times, regardless of whether they were black, white or any other colour. Then Ken added a more oblique supplementary question: “You said to keep your ID with you, well the only ID I have is this subway token” and he lifted the token from under his shirt and showed it to all the assembled group and the Trooper. The Trooper responded that the token wouldn’t constitute a formal ID, to which Ken went back with some vehemence and pride: “Yeah but man, I’m from New York City!”. There was some deliberate irony there in Ken’s question and his subsequent retort, but it was predictably lost on all the Americans and the trooper just looked slightly mystified before moving on. I think I started to like Ken from that moment and I also resolved to get my own subway token as homage to NYC and in a weird way as homage to Ken as well. Incidentally, Ken must have been partially serious as he clearly had absolute faith in his token as bona fide ID because it was officially used later that summer when we travelled together to Canada. When we got to the border we were naturally asked for ID and true to form, Ken proffered his token to the Canadian immigration officers as “proof” of ID. I don’t know how he did it but they did actually let him in with nothing more than the token as proof of who he was; Ken was like that – nothing phased him and he seemed able to say ridiculous things without the slightest embarrassment. I think I learned something of that ethos from him – it sat nicely with one of the few bits of advice my father gave me: “never don’t do something because you think you’ll look an idiot”. Incidentally, there was a group of us at the camp, various n’er do well counselors, who probably transgressed every law which the Trooper had warned against transgressing, but we got away with it all. Throughout that summer, me and Ken stuck together. He knew a lot about Jazz and the New York scene, which fascinated me, and he’d tell me all about it on walks which we’d have through the forests around Lake Ossippee, where the camp was situated. One time, we were supposed to be on some sort of hide and seek thing with the kids, but Ken appeared with a bottle of Bordeaux and a variety of French cheeses suggesting that we forget the hide and seek game and just be “un-American” as he put it. We climbed a massive tree together and sat there for an hour, on a branch about 30 feet up, discussing how superior French wine and cheese were to anything sourced in these parts. After camp, I travelled with Ken for a while and we went all over the NE US and Eastern Canada. In Brooklyn, we stayed at Ken’s grandmother’s house in a brown-stone in Hancock Street and, of course, at Utica Avenue, the local subway station, I picked up my own token, with some spares. Hancock Street wasn’t an affluent area and I learned there how to behave on the “street”. In a way, it was there where I learned how to be alive to the world and how to enjoy it, even the crazy bits, without getting hurt. Or, maybe I was protected by the token, and maybe that’s why it’s still right here, right with me.