NEW YORK SUBWAY: UNDERGROUND STANDOFF

I hear them before they all tumble in-a group of about 20 male teenagers, shouting and pushing each other through the door. We are on the Bronx-bound 4, an express subway that shoots north up the eastern spine of Manhattan. My boyfriend Ben is sitting next to me, and just like most New Yorkers in transit, we know how to tune out the world around us. But sometimes that world trickles in, uninvited and unavoidable.