The Train Ride

The boy who was seated a couple of rows behind me caused a minor disturbance when he opened a shaken can of soda. But he was only one among many adults on this train. We adjusted and went back to our paperbacks and naps.

Moments later I was rained on by a flurry of raisins that came from behind. I turned my head to confront the dear boy. He was nowhere to be seen. I brushed the raisins off my trousers and went back to doing what I usually do on the train most mornings. I look at people.

I was sitting knee to knee with an unpleasant looking elderly woman who was asleep. Her mouth was agape, and on her drooping, lower lip there nested two of the raisins. I was fixated.

After the train jostled a bit, the woman yawned and made several smacking noises with her mouth. She opened one lid and eyed me suspiciously. I noticed that the raisins had now attached themselves to the lipstick on her upper lip.

“What are you looking at?” she said.

“Nothing,” I said. I went on to explain that it was just one of those coincidental eye contacts. Awkward? Yes. But nothing to be alarmed over. She reached for her morning newspaper and covered her lower extremities. As though it were my secret desire to make a grab at her skeletal thighs. She went back to her nap, made a few more smacking noises, then drifted off to sleep. The raisins were now gone.

As I went on to busy myself with a mini-skirted and bra-less young woman who was hoisting her bags onto the overhead rack - she was a sweet little thing and had to stretch to such an extent that she just about fell out of her low-cut tank top - I, once again, found myself being rained upon. This time, though, it was with abuse from the mini-skirted girl’s father, who lay witness to my admiration for his scantily clad daughter’s agility.

“How would you like a punch in the face?” said the man.

I tried to weasel my way out by explaining that I was simply concerned that the young lady was about to topple over and that the placing of my hands on her trim young waist was merely a precaution. I did not want her to fall.

My words were wasted. The young lady’s father went on to offer me the option of, not only a punch in the face, but an array of humiliations that could best be described as a Kill Bill blood fest.

I went back to my seat.

With her head still tilted back in slumber, my seat-mate suddenly woke from her nap and gagged. Her blue-shadowed eyes bulged and her rouged cheeks turned an even brighter red.

She attempted to speak, but no words came out. She then pointed to her throat.

My first choking victim! What luck! I had only, just a few days before, finished an online course in medical emergency procedures. I sprang into action.

As we sat there knee to knee, I pressed the palms of my hands under her rib cage and pushed upward. I did this until, not one, but two raisins were ejected from her windpipe.

After catching her breath the woman looked down at the raisins that had fallen into her lap.

“Raisins?” she said. “I hate raisins! What the hell have you been up to while I was sleeping?”

Before I had a chance to explain, the woman slapped my face and went off to find another seat.

After applying a handkerchief to my lower lip, to stop the flow of blood, I heard our young raisin tosser skipping down the aisle on his way, no doubt, to the lavatory to cause further mischief with the plumbing.

As the sound of his childish skipping grew nearer, I placed my foot in his path and watched as, not he, but a little girl and her Teddy bear tripped and fell to the floor. She went on to scream bloody murder.

“Now you assault my granddaughter!” said the familiar voice of the man from a previous encounter.

When I came to, the train was empty and I was being lifted out of my seat by a burly conductor, who was shaking his head at my disheveled condition.

“Drinking this early in the day?” he said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Now get yourself home and straighten out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “”My sentiments exactly.”