I realized just how late it was when the black man working the gate of the Grand and Milwaukee stop told me to have a good morning. I also realized that CTA employees must only nice between the hours of 2-6 a.m. — when nobody’s on the train — because at any other time of day they’d just assume not acknowledge you as a customer.

I stood on the deck for a good ten minutes with just another CTA employee sweeping the floor. He looked at me — in all my drunken haggardness — with a suspecting eye. “Looks like that white boy’s been up to no good,” is what I’m pretty sure he was thinking to himself.

He was right. I hadn’t been up to any good.

The train eventually came and I rode in it with two slumped over bodies and a middle-aged guy who looked way to peppy for the circumstances. He sat facing me, but I don’t think he even took the time to notice my presence. He looked like he was either just getting off from work at a convenience store or on his way to one.

The only think I remember thing on this trip is that perhaps riding the CTA at 4 a.m. is the most optimal time to do so. There’s no people. No traffic. No attitude form CTA workers. It was kind of nice.

Slightly related note: earlier on that night of the 3rd a couple CTA trains in the Loop were stalled because of a power outage on the tracks. The cars were packed the gills with people leaving the fireworks show on the lakefront that evening. For over an hour a couple thousand people were stuck in sweltering hot cars with no lights or air conditioning and reportedly were not given any notification as to what was going on by the CTA. Apparently people (some of them surely drunk) were getting mouthy and a few scuffles broke out, creating a possibly disastrous situation. Sure enough the next day the papers are flooded with angry citizens telling the story, and the CTA comes out, apologizes briefly, then labels the situation an “inconvenience,” and says it is pleased the way the situation was handled and that employees “followed protocol,” despite the fact they hadn’t bothered to tell their customers what the hell was going on.

It’s funny, while I was reading the myriad angry comments on the Tribune’s CTA blog tonight I was watching the film The Queen at the part were England’s frustration with the Royal Family not publicly acknowledging Diana’s death was about to boil over. Especially the scene in which Tony Blair informs her that one in four polled said the country should do away with the antiquated Monarchy. One local parallel stood out immediately: The frustrated Chicagoans who are tired of its transit system ignoring their pleas for improvement and treating them like second-class citizens. I bet if you took a poll of CTA customers today, you might get one in four saying the whole operation should be privatized.

Question

Who is Duke? This is killing me.