There are 10 million more Americans in 1985 than there were in 1980, and most of them seem to have squeezed into the entryway between the doors of car 9132 of the Long Island Rail Road's 5:47 to Syosset, N.Y. At exactly 5:41 p.m. the last seat is taken. At 5:46 the standing room in the aisles is filled. By 5:49, when the train begins its slow, stately crawl from Pennsylvania Station, only two minutes late, the throng in the vestibule has achieved a degree of intimacy known in other places as close dancing. An oldtimer, folded atop his briefcase into...
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