The Subway Ride
TRAIN’S CROWDED WHEN he gets on, he says, “Excuse me, excuse me, just want to get to the aisle, please,” bumps into someone from behind, a woman, who turns to him and says, “What the hell you think you’re doing?” and he says, “Excuse me, I was just going to say excuse me,” and the train starts and she says, “But you intentionally shoved your cock against my behind, you bastard,” and he says, “Did not, I swear, the train’s crowded; I was just moving to the aisle where there’s more room,” and she says, “You did too, you stuck your fucking dick up against my behind; who the fuck you think you are?” and he loses his balance a little because of the ride, doesn’t want to bump into her again, that’s all he needs; she’s holding onto the pole by the door, other people are looking at him, some men and a woman smirking, sort of, and he says to the woman, “Honestly,” and the train lurches and he grabs the pole she’s holding, his hand touches hers, and he pulls it away and says, “Excuse me, and honestly, I didn’t push you intentionally. I was moving to the aisle, past you, and someone must have pushed me from behind or just jostled me — I forget — or the car’s so crowded that I got closer to you than I wanted, believe me, and, well—” and she says, “Don’t tell me. This isn’t the first time it’s happened with one of you guys. You think you can get your kicks shoving your fucking dicks around where women are going to think it’s a mistake or be too scared to say anything, because who knows what kind of nut this creep can be, and so on. But I’m not one of them. My mouth is big. I don’t take shit from a man. Is there a cop in this car?” she yells; “because some goddamn guy tried sticking his pelvic region into me and I want a cop to grab him,” and someone from a few people away says, “Who did what?” and someone else yells, “I saw a policeman in the next car — the one further up — when I was getting into this one, but how you are going to get him, lady, is a problem.” A woman says to her, “Good, you’re doing it, that’s what every woman should do,” and a man says, “Maybe he didn’t mean it, accidents can happen, the train can push you,” and Gould says, “That’s what happened, I swear, an accident — I was moving into the aisle where there’s more room to stand, and someone from behind me must have pushed me into her and I tried pulling back, but when you start falling …” and the train slows down for the next stop and she says to him, “If you think you’re getting off”—for he made a move to the door—“I’m getting off with you, because I’m not letting you get away with this crap, thinking you can shove up against whoever you please,” and he says, “I wasn’t getting off, this isn’t my stop; I just got on. I was only trying to move a step to grab the bar above my head instead of the pole. I feel I’ll be able to hold on to it better and I also didn’t want to be too near you to accidentally bump against you again when the train pulls in and maybe lurches,” and she says, “Some accident, you bullshitter, you lying worm,” and everyone around them is now looking at them, and the train stops, people get off, on — no cops, she’s looking — and he says, “Honestly, miss — or missus — I didn’t mean it; why would I? I’m married. I’ve kids. I’d never do anything like that to a woman. That’s not how I get my kicks, and I’m sorry for bumping into you and I wish we could just forget it. I mean, who in this city hasn’t by accident bumped into the back and front and every part of some person’s body on one of these trains?” and she says, “You specifically did it. I felt your tube and you aimed straight for between the buttocks and you’re a slob for having tried it. If a cop was in the car now I’d have you arrested and prosecuted and accused and everything; you’re just lucky one isn’t.” He shuts his eyes. It’s going away. She’s becoming less threatening. The words, how she says them, not as much cursing and stridence; she’s backing off. She got out what she felt she had to and now she’s had her fill of it and it’ll soon be over with. If he got off at the next stop he doesn’t think she’d pursue him, though she might yell something at him as he left the car. She for sure would yell something. So what? He’d be gone. Some eyes might be on him on the platform and then fewer eyes as he went up the stairs, and once on the street that’d just about be the end of it. Maybe one person who had come upstairs with him from the platform might still be looking at him on the street and thinking of him in relation to what the woman had said, maybe two, and maybe both from the car he was in, but then that’d be the end of it, or it absolutely would once he was a block away from the station, walking in whatever opposite direction it was from the person who came up the stairs with him. If it had been more than one who’d come up with him from the same platform or car and maybe even out of the same door of that car — well, then he doesn’t know what he’d do: probably just stay by the station entrance till they were gone and then go down it to take the train. Or else — and this is what he’d do no matter what, since the woman might actually get off the train and then give up on following him and be standing on the platform — he’d take his time walking south to the next station on this line and get the train there. But the thing is, she might not have imagined what she said he did to her. He thinks he might have lost control for a few seconds and intentionally moved into her, something he never did to anyone in this kind of situation before. He was up close to her and was aware how close and also that if he didn’t want to cause a commotion by touching her he should stand still and not move past her, but he continued to move toward her and thinks when he got very close he suddenly thought of his wife, or was thinking of his wife all the time he was moving toward the woman or even when he first saw her, of the times when he wanted sex and to give her some indication he did he’d jam his penis into her backside in bed or bend it back a little and spring it against one of her buttocks or legs or, if they were standing someplace, then put his arms around her from behind and press his penis against her, and around that moment jabbed his front into the woman’s rear end. He was semierect or even erect when he did it — he forgets, but one of them, most likely from having just thought of his wife in one of the ways he mentioned — which the woman didn’t bring up, thank God. Maybe she didn’t feel his penis particularly but just his pelvic area moving into her backside, since it doesn’t seem like something she’d hold back in her accusations against him. Though it could be that’s where she draws the line in describing what happened in something like that and also feels that anyone listening to her could figure out or imagine for themselves what state his penis was in. Train doors open, people get off, others are waiting to get on; one man slips around some people getting off and grabs the one free seat near Gould. He thinks, while gripping the overhead bar so nobody getting off or on shoves him into her: Make a dash for it now; so many people left the train to go upstairs that he’ll quickly get lost in the crowd, when a man in the car shouts “Officer … say, Officer there … over here, you’re wanted, something important,” and the woman says to Gould, “Finally, now you’re in for it,” and he says, “For what? You still onto that? I did nothing,” and sees a tall policeman making his way through the car from the direction the man before said he saw one. “Step aside,” the policeman’s saying, “please, folks, move, move, I gotta get through.” He could still make a dash for it, policeman might not be able to get to the door in time to stop him, and if he was caught on the platform or stairs or even on the street by this policeman or another one — for this one could radio to another transit cop or even to a regular city one about a bald white guy in green corduroy jacket and chinos and button-down blue shirt getting away — he’d stop and say … he certainly wouldn’t put up any resistance if one of them approached or ran after him or ordered him to stop, but he’d say … well, he could give several excuses why he was trying to get away: the woman was bothering him, cursing at him, harassing him, even — the train would have left by then, he thinks, so there’d be little chance, if she got off it with the policeman, that she’d have any witnesses—“I just wanted to be rid of her. Believe me, I wasn’t six inches from her”—not six inches—“I wasn’t anywhere as near to her as she says, but she jumped on me like I was the worst masher there was; something must be wrong with her and what I think it is I won’t go into, but I swear to you, Officer, I swear…. “Train goes, he’s still clutching the overhead bar with one hand, book’s tucked under his other arm, woman’s telling the policeman what happened, policeman interrupts her and says, “Too bad I didn’t know beforehand what it was, I would’ve asked you both to leave the train and all the witnesses to the issue, pro or con, to join us. But this is not something to discuss in a crowded car while we’re still going,” and Gould says, “I agree. Besides that, what she told you is absolutely the biggest crock of—” and the policeman holds up his hand for him to stop and says, “Save it; don’t make things worse for yourself, that’s my advice. You’ve something to say? Later. Now, you and the lady and me will get off at the next station with any witnesses to the incident, if one occurred,” and looks around and nobody volunteers, and he says to the people standing and sitting near them, “Excuse me, folks, I don’t want to take you out of your way. But are there any witnesses to what this woman’s claiming? You heard what the charges are if you were around then, and it’s not within my jurisdiction to repeat them. So did anyone, I’ll only say, see anything for or against what she claims about this man?” and some people shake their heads or quietly say no, others just stare back blankly or turn away or look at their newspapers, and the woman says to a woman standing beside her, “You were here when it happened; you had to see him do with his front what I said he did,” and the other woman says, “I was here, all right, but I didn’t see anything. I only heard you saying it. I’m sorry, I wish I could help,” and the policeman says, “So just the three of us will get off and we’ll settle it there, or if there’s any rough talk, then in the transit police station on Thirty-fourth,” and Gould says, “No rough talk from me. My argument is simply that I didn’t do it. I was moving to the aisle for more room and to read when I accidentally must have brushed up against her when either someone pushed me from behind or the train suddenly shifted or did something, but where I lost my balance, causing me—” and the woman says, “You bullshitter,” and the policeman says, “Please, the two of you, we’ll talk off the train. And
you”—to Gould—“I thought I told you to save it for later.”