Subway Pinch

The New York State subway, or MTA, was not normally an enjoyable experience. It was especially not enjoyable at 8 o'clock in the morning. The subway platforms were crowded with stupid high school kids going to school, businessmen in starched white collars and the token homeless man laying on the bench, stinking like beer and piss. The tile walls were covered in advertisements and graffiti put up there by some punk who had nothing better to do with his life. I always wondered how they got the graffiti way deep into the tunnels though. That always amazed me, to see blurred words in bright pink rush by right between stops. Once on the train there isn't hardly room for a cockroach let alone to breath. Everyone is crammed in like a bunch of stinking sardines, cheap perfume forcing its stench up into my nose mixing with somebody's random flatulent letting.

This probably wouldn't have been so bad except that I was sick, near death actually. Ok, no, I'm lying, but death was looking a lot better then being squished for forty five minutes against a germ infested metal pole. I wasn't dying, which sucked, but I did have the flu. I could hear people's iPods blasting meringue, bad techno (my head's pounding starting to match the monotonous rhythm. It was Cascada on top of it. That's all that's been on the fucking radio.), and cheesy rap music providing by the oh so intelligent vocal stylings of 50 Cent.

I had basically taken control of the pole, gripping with all ten fingers and holding on for dear life. The train rattled on, the swishing sound of the wheels on the tracks a constant vibration and shake. I was praying that I wouldn't puke. I was not going to puke until at least the 42nd St. Times Square stop. It was perfectly acceptable to puke there, everyone else did. People all around me sniffled, sneezed, coughed, scratched themselves, picked their noses, snored, and slept all while the train rattled on. My head was going to explode like an atom bomb and take out the subway system. I singlehandedly was going to cause every commuters nightmare. That's another lie, but that's what felt like was going to happen. As the bright yellow lights flashed by the open windows my eyes throbbed and tracks of white light remained behind my eyelids. The midnight dark of the tunnel made me forget it was only eight am. When I remembered I leaned harder against the pole and held back a whimper.

Whoa! What was that? Seriously, that shouldn't have happened. I'm surrounded by guys. Did someone just grab my ass? I lifted my heavy head from the pole and gazed around with my half lidded eyes. I jerked forward spasmodically as I felt a pinch once more, banging my arm into the pole. I muttered a grunt. Alright, so someone had definitely taken a liking to my butt. When Casey hears about this she's going to laugh her ass off. See, this is one of those things that's not funny while it's happening but gets funny when you tell it to your friends. There it was again! Another ass grabbing pinch. Now, that was enough.

"Stop grabbing my ass!" I yelled out in my nasally clogged voice.

"You got a problem, white boy." See if this was some gang thug I would have smacked him, but when I wheeled around on this guy, I gawked. I literally gawked at him. This was the biggest black man I had ever seen. He might have just looked like the biggest black man I'd ever seen, since my eyes were out of focus and my head was throbbing, but still he was huge. This guy had wrestler-esque broad shoulders, a stomach that was hard as lead and his arms muscles were the size of basketballs.

"Uh no? Not unless you were the guy grabbing my ass," leave it to me to be sarcastic early in the morning while I'm sick.

"Well, what if I was?" Jesus Chris in hell. Today was seriously not the day to get into a fight with the biggest black man ever created. I could barely breath let alone stand up properly. Lifting a fist with enough strength to take this guy, even though I knew I'd get the shit kicked out of me, hell, Dougal would even get the shit kicked out of him by this guy. Now, that's saying something, that kid never lost a fight.

"Uh, well...I just assumed you had better taste in men then me." A short pause later I flashed him a toothy fake smile. The look on this guys face went from docile to hostile in a matter of seconds. I still had three stops to go and boy was I starting to push it.

"Yeah? Better taste in men? What if I like scrawny little white boys?"

"Well I ain't uh, ya know, ragging on your taste or nothing." A squeaking raspy laugh came from the back of my throat.

"I think you were."

"No...no I wasn't."

"Yeah?" I was going to get beat up, right here and right now. Actually, maybe I wasn't the train was too crowded to get beat up on at the moment. The train doors opened and random faces plodded off the train while even more got on. I was trying to inch my way toward the door when he grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me close to him. Where the hell were my friends when I really needed them?

"Why can't we just go about our business? You don't want to get the flu do you? See, I'm dying." I cough, it was a fake cough but I still coughed.

"You think you're funny don't you?"

"No, I don't really." I tried to pull myself away but his grip was so strong that I stumbled instead. "Um, sir, could you let go?"

"I don't think so." Things were going from bad to worse pretty quickly.

"If I said please would that help?"

"No."

"At least your honest." So I stood there, way too close to this huge black guy that had a strange liking for my scrawny white ass. I didn't think it was that scrawny though, but evidently he did. So I just stared at him, trying to keep his face in focus, thinking about what to do about this very persistent problem. Then, miraculously, I thought of what to do. I raised my food rather slowly, still gripping onto the pole and just as the train doors opened I brought it down on his black leather shoe. He squealed in pain, yes the big black man squealed and while he was squealing he let me go. I shoved my way through the crowd of people surrounding the door, knowing that he was right behind me and just as the doors were beginning to close I leapt out onto the platform. Saved! No, not really. He was right behind me. Just for once couldn't a conductor save some helpless commuter? Evidently it wasn't in their job description.

"Shit!" I screamed as I forced myself to run. I dodged people lining the platform and walking towards the train, slamming into some man with a briefcase.

"Fucking kids!" He screamed while I fought my way up the stairs and out of the subway station. I finally made my way out into the fresh air where a wave of nausea washed over me. This was not the time to throw up. I gulped loudly and before I could manage to get to someplace discreet I vomited all over the pristine concrete. The bile burning my throat like a lit match. The guy from the train must have been turned off by my amazing digestive pyrotechnics. I'd lost him apparently. Well at least I was on 42nd street.