Chicago`s first elevated railroad began service in 1892. The fare for riding that ”L” was first noted in the Chicago Transit Authority`s records in 1913. In that year it cost 5 cents to board the train that rode a 3.6-mile route from Congress Street to Jackson Park. While the ”L`s” fare has steadily increased since then, the CTA`s need for dependable ticket agents remains constant. Such an agent is Bryant Alexander.
Several years ago Alexander, 30, a South Sider, was working part-time as a ticket agent while attending the University of Illinois at Chicago. He became ill in his junior year and had to undergo costly surgery for which he had no insurance. The need to pay his medical expenses prompted him to leave college and begin working as a full-time ticket agent.
Although he would like to return to college some day, Alexander told Chicago writer Roberta Katchen Stein that for now he enjoys the challenge of his work and has no desire to leave. ”The job puts me in a different world,” he told Stein. ”It`s often dangerous and always a shocker.”
For the last three years the CTA has named Alexander Chicago`s best ticket agent. He and his wife, Sharon, have a 3-year-old daughter, Lindsey.
A lot of people feel that being a ticket agent is an easy job. It can be. If you have enough seniority, you can pick a quiet station where nothing much happens. But it`s a job that can be very wearing. If I`m working down in the Loop, all I`m getting from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. is money, people and questions
–money, people and questions.
I`ve chosen to work as what the CTA calls an ”extra-board person.” That means that I`m an extra, working at whatever places aren`t covered on any particular day. I like the constant change. I keep meeting new people, and my job never becomes boring.
I call in every day to find out where I`ll be working the following day. I can end up working in the same place two days in a row. For the most part, I work between 95th and 22d Streets on the Dan Ryan Line. Monday I can be working on 87th on the Dan Ryan and Tuesday I can be working at 69th on the Ryan.
Even the the times differ. I can be on a swing shift, working from 7:30 a.m. to noon, then coming back and working from 3 p.m. to 6:30. Or I can work 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. The feeling I have when I get out from working 8 straight hours down there is like a high.
It`s euphoria.
When I first arrive at work, I check all my equipment. I see that the PA system is in working order in case I have to make an announcement, that my badge number can be seen, that I have the right number of bags to put my money into and that the numbers on my Visifare are correct. The Visifare keeps track of how much money I collect.
I work most often at the 95th Street station. There, I may be getting fares from as many as 4,000 or 5,000 people a day. My hands get filthy, just filthy, from all the money that passes through them. I look like I`ve been working on a dirt farm, I`m so dingy and dirty by the end of a day.
I get long, long lines of people waiting to pay at rush hour. Sometimes people say, ”Hurry up! Hurry up!” I used to be the type of person who wouldn`t lose my temper with a crowd and who didn`t get flustered. That`s not quite as true anymore. I wish people could be a little more understanding.
How many people are asking me for directions? Oh, my goodness. At certain stops, like Randolph, Washington, Dearborn, I`m a public relations man. I`d better have it together to make the CTA look good.
Parents with kids as tall as I am–full-grown men–tell me their kids are underage, and the kids crawl under the turnstile. When I ask the parents how old these ”kids” are, they say, ”He`s only 11.” When people don`t have any money, they sneak past me and jump the turnstiles. I can`t stop them.
People give me expired transfers. Or they say that they`re students or senior citizens and have forgotten their cards. They give me fake monthly passes that they`ve made themselves. Some are terrible remakes. I can usually judge which people make honest mistakes.
Some things make me laugh my head off. Say a guy who doesn`t want to pay the fare is running for the train, jumps over the turnstile, then falls. He`s more embarrassed than hurt. The people around him are laughing, and so am I.
I see a lot of pickpockets in action. Those guys are dangerous. They`ll pull a woman`s wallet out of her pocketbook so quickly that before she knows it, she`s left with a purse minus her wallet. They`ll take a razor blade that is very light but real sharp and slash a man`s pants. The victim doesn`t feel it. Before he knows it, his wallet is gone and he`s walking around with his pants split open.
When it`s not rush hour, people come to me and just start talking. I had a couple who were having problems and I acted like their marriage counselor. It was at Cottage Grove, and it was midnight. The first time they came to me, after they said they were having problems, the guy actually hit the woman, in front of me. I told him that if he did it again, I`d call the police. He started to talk about the problems she was giving him. Then she told her side. Little old ladies will come up and talk about the way their kids treat them. They`ll complain that their kids put them in nursing homes and don`t come to visit them. They need to talk, and I listen to them.
Women give me their phone numbers. I had a woman show her breasts to me. She was reaching for money in her blouse. She opened up the blouse, went in there and got it. She had no bra on. Nothing there but her breasts.
I`ve had people get money out of their mouths. I really have no idea what the money is doing in their mouths. But they take it from their mouths and give it to me wet.
I have bums who are subway preachers. There`s a bag lady at Adams and Jackson who spends her whole day there in a corner with her suitcase. She just stays there continually unless she`s picked up by the police. But she comes right back.
I`ve been spit on. It was in a fare dispute. A guy had an expired transfer, and I told him he had to pay another fare. He got angry, started cursing, and out of the clear blue sky, he spit on me. It was extremely degrading. It was worse than hitting me.
Working nights is definitely more dangerous than working days, especially during the summer months and on holidays, particularly Christmas. At 1 o`clock one morning I had some guys at 47th and Calumet who scared the daylights out of me. They were up on the top of the stairway where the fuse box is. They opened up the box and took out all the fuses. Suddenly, the whole station was completely black. Then they started unscrewing the light bulbs and throwing them at me in the booth. It sounded like gunshots coming at me. The phone in my booth wasn`t working, so I ran out and called the police. By the time the police arrived, the men were gone.
I get pimps hustling women on the train at night. One night I was in a situation at 57th Street. A guy had a woman with him, and he asked me if I wanted her for five bucks. I said, ”All I want is your fares. That`s it.”
The guy told me he was taking the woman on the train and that he would hustle her while she serviced customers right on the train. And as far as I know, that`s what they did.
I`ve had people in fights. I`ve had nights with people coming up to me who are bleeding half to death. I had one guy who came down with his head split half open. I asked if he wanted me to call for help. But when I heard a train coming, I accepted his fare and let him through. What would have happened if the guys who had cut him were after him? If they came downstairs, I might have ended up getting knifed, too.
Sure I was scared when I first started working as a ticket agent. Most agents are. At first, I became easily upset. But the more I saw, the more I became used to it. I`m hardened to so much.
As dangerous as the job can be, I like it, particularly because I like the public and talking to people. I have a lot of responsibility. It`s a heck of a job.
