On the subway tonight I saw one of the classic New York characters, "Strung Out Avenger Looking For a Fight." As I boarded the train a woman wanted to sit in an empty window seat that was tricky to get into. Truth be told, the guy sitting on the end didn't do much to help her out. Really, he didn't move at all, not even the leg swing or the bag shift. And then the Strung Out Avenger Looking For a Fight (SOALFF) made his presence known.
He began his taunting by asking, "What's wrong with you man?"
This is where Inconsiderate Finance Guy (IFG) made his first mistake by replying, because he didn't hear what SOALFF said, "Sorry?"
And so it began. "Yeah, you are sorry." SOALFF got into it. How dare he not stand up for a lady? How could he be so disrespectful of women? Slur I can't repeat. When he stopped for a few minutes his foot would stomp and his leg would shake and he was right back in on the guy with the lecture about how to treat women right.
"You always get out of your seat for a woman. You better start respecting women. You ain't nothing but a bitch. BITCH! That's right, bitch, I know you can hear me. You ain't reading. You're hearing me. You know you're a bitch." Slur I still can't repeat.
He stopped for a little while again, muttering to himself and darting his gaze all around the train, looking over the top of his dark sunglasses. Stomping his foot when you just know he got all pissed about it again. He continued to mutter to himself mostly for most of the ride into Brooklyn. But just before he rushed off the train he made sure to finish his point, "You had better not be disrespecting women ever again because next time someone's gonna kick your ass, bitch [slur]."
The entire time I was pretty sure this was actually going to escalate to a fight. SOALFF was real jittery and definitely looking to get into it. His comments were far more colorful and full of expletives than I've recorded here. The only thing that stopped it was IFG just ignoring him the entire ride. Had he engaged this guy past his initial reply it would have been over. I'm pretty sure I read a chapter of my book on the ride home, but I can't remember a word of it because I was way too involved in listening to the rantings of SOALFF. Usually you don't see those guys until the sun goes down, it was quite amusing.
2 comments:
No pictures, what kind of blog is this? Who would you have defended had a fight started?
Tough choice, IFG really could have moved to let her in, but the entire time SOALFF was berating IFG I was standing right in front of him... for someone big on respecting women he sure wasn't willing to offer me his seat!
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