Life down under
An 18-year ride on the Red Line has warmed John Clements's heart. Seriously.
The experience of riding the subway is often one of isolation among crowds. Put on your headphones; read; close your eyes. Avoid eye contact. Just get there. As a psychic space, a subway car is not really anywhere but a vague area between places. As a metaphor, it's a favorite of filmmakers - character alone on the train equals character lonely in the modern world.
On a recent day, as a Red Line train traversed its most majestic stretch - across the Charles River on the Longfellow Bridge, with its postcard view of the Boston skyline - most of the riders barely noticed the view. As the station approached, a prerecorded voice announced that the train was entering "Charles/MGH."
The automated announcement system on the 1800-series Red Line trains came online in the mid-1990s. The voice is mildly cheerful, devoid of any regional accent, and about as personable as the computer that controls its playback. As the train slowed into the station, there came a moment - oh so subtle - that reminded at least one passenger that she was not alone, and she was in fact somewhere very specific.
"Mass Aye and Eyah," said a not as cheerful Boston voice, which prompted one young female passenger to turn to her friend and comment on how much she loved the old-style announcements in that old-style accent.
John Clements smiled when he heard this story of a small moment created by one of his fellow train attendants. For the last 18 years, Clements has worked the Braintree line of the Red Line; each day he makes the roundtrip to Alewife four times, 53 minutes in each direction. Clements is not a big fan of the automated announcements; if he's on an 1800, he'll turn them off for the whole train.
"Among his peers, he's known for making good announcements," said Scott Andrews, the Red Line's superintendent.
Jerry Santos, who spent five years as a motorman on the same train as Clements, said he has a way of using his voice to get people to react. "When people don't like an announcement, it's easy to tell. But with John it was different. He has a friendliness to his voice that people would respond to."
It is a small honorific, Clements admits, but for him, those simple announcements serve a larger purpose. An automated announcement is cold, lonely, and impersonal, he believes, and creates a feeling among passengers that they are alone with a machine. With a human voice, it's more than transmitting information; he believes it can be a soothing and comforting influence on riders.
Clements never expected to make a career out of sitting in a small cabin on the fifth car, opening and closing the train's doors and making the same announcements day after day. He has an MBA from Suffolk University, and was working as a contractor when the last recession hit in the early '90s. While he waited for the economy to turn around, he got a job with the MBTA. He said he knew that he would go nuts sitting in that little cabin alone, so he made two rules to bring some meaning to an otherwise simple job: no one messes with his passengers, and make great announcements. Living by those rules made him fall in love with his job. Watching the passengers has taught him something else about the world.
"Someone studying to be a psychologist or sociologist would do well to spend a year on the trains," Clements said as he began his day on the train that rings out of Braintree at 2:27 and pushed a button to make his first announcement. "Entering Quincy Adams," he said with a lilt to his voice. "Doors will open on the left."
Ninety percent of the people are fantastic, he says. Best passengers on earth. Many recognize the natural warmth that comes through in his voice; they'll often stop to thank him as they exit the train. Acknowledging a stranger's existence has a profound and immediate effect, said Clements, who is seriously considering petitioning the mayor's office to declare a "Say Hello to a Stranger Day."
Clements, who is 61 and on the smaller side, with a pleasant face and a natural smile, goes out of his way to make the announcements do what they have to do. Per the MBTA, that would be identifying the stops and the connecting lines in a way that is consistent and understandable.
Per John Clements, there is some nuance to it.
If he sees a blind person get on, he'll make more specific announcements. If it's the summer and tourists are around, he'll elaborate a bit on what is meant by inbound and outbound. If they're in Quincy looking for Quincy Market, he'll become a tour guide.
He takes an especially keen interest in children, who are his biggest fans (and for whom the idea of riding a train is still fraught with grown-up excitement). As he leans his head out the window at each station, looking for the right time to open and close the doors, he'll seek the children out, say hello. They love it. They'll blow him kisses. They'll blush. "Mr. Train is talking to them," he said.
Of course there are the other 10 percent of passengers, what he calls the "frumps, humbugs, and nasties," as well as the DKs (the police radio code for drunks, which Clements refers to as "the entertainment"). With his head hanging out on a swivel, he is their human target. While the motorman at the front is in the railroad business, moving the train from A to B, the attendant is in the people-moving business. He is the human face of the train (he's regularly shocked by the number of people who think he's also driving the train from the fifth car) and the target for the 10 percent. Once, a group of college students in Harvard Square approached him and one asked what he did.
"I said, 'I open and close the doors,' " Clements remembered. The student giggled away, mocking his job. "You never have your gun when you need it," Clements said with a smile.
"When I first came to the T, I was a very serious kind of guy," he said. "But this job has just changed me. You have to be able to laugh or you'd go crazy. It's made me a social person in a way I wasn't before. It opens your mind about people. I had all these built-in assumptions about people, but the longer I do this job, the more I realize those assumptions are wrong. I see all types and I'm friendly to them all. And you know what, it works."
Just as he closed the doors at South Station, a blond woman came running up too late. He did not reopen the doors (they have a tight schedule to keep) but he did stick his head back out the window.
"There's another car coming right behind me in a minute," he said, though it was a slight lie. "It will probably be more like five minutes," he said after he'd closed the window. "But if I say that, it's soothing for her, and for me."
Billy Baker can be reached at billybaker@gmail.com. 
