August 9, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:So there I was getting
So there I was getting on the train this morning -- a blessedly empty train with loads of free seats. I was towards the end of the line to get on, but who cared? There were all those lovely free seats.
And then I got on and saw the gentleman who was lying on the last bank of seats so as to simultaneously occupy at least six of them.
Even New Yorkers are polite enough not to want to get into a confrontation in a crowded subway car. I thought about walking up to the seat where his head was parked and saying "Excuse me!" loudly, but first of all, he probably wouldn't have woken up, and second of all, the kind of New Yorker who stretches out to sleep in a subway car during rush hour is also the kind of New Yorker that gets aggressive and refuses to move when politely asked to do so. I resigned myself to standing.
Then a young man in a gray shirt walked up, grabbed his legs, and moved them. He was probably in his early twenties and had a "Don't Mess With Me" look about him. Which was good, because the sleeper, when awakened, was clearly thinking of starting an argument until he got a good look at the guy he was confronting. He wasn't particularly large; just determined. The sleeper scooted over to one seat, and although I am sure our gray shirt hadn't meant to perform a public service, a number of us got to sit down, including me.
I think the young man was either in the military, or had some anger management problems, because he sat rigidly, staring straight ahead, for the entire train ride, behavior I usually associate with insufficiently deprogrammed plebes. Right before the sleeper got off, he tried to start something, poking the young man and saying "Next time you and I are on the train together, just tap me and I'll get up." The young man made no response except to say, very softly, "Don't touch me," whereupon the sleeper backed away to a safe distance.
"You didn't have to grab my legs like that," he said plaintively.
"You didn't have to take up six seats," rejoindered the young man, and defeated, the sleeper got off the train.
Thank God for people who don't allow the worst people around us to take advantage of the decent majority because we're too busy being "Nice". I don't imagine that I'll ever have the courage to take direct action against these types of boors, but I certainly appreciate those who do. And I know that the chances that he is reading this are very slim indeed, but if one of my readers is a guy in a gray shirt who was riding the 1/2/3 line around eight o'clock this morning -- well, God bless you, wherever you are.
Posted by Jane Galt at August 9, 2002 9:26 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"); ?>