The Look

The NYC transit system is a wonderful thing. sure, there are lots of bad things about it but generally speaking it amazes me that you can get from the outer reaches of one borough to another for only $2.25. Yesterday, I was on the train for a short trip and had a hair raising experience that left me a bit shaky.

I've been lucky over the years, I've only been a crime victim once when my apartment was broken into years ago. I've never felt threatened or at risk for harm even working in the projects on a daily basis, which is a pretty big deal for the many years that I've lived here in NYC. Yesterday was different.

I was coming home, the train wasn't too crowded but there were quite a few people out and about doing holiday things.I was sitting in my seat, minding my own business and there was a young Chinese man sitting across from me. He too was minding his own business. He was wearing earplugs and listening to music. At some point a small group of young people in their early 20's got on. They were African American. There was a young woman and two men. They sat at the other end of the train. After a couple of stops they looked at each other and got up and walked to the area where I was sitting. The seats around me were free. I had a shopping bag on the seat next to me. The young woman gave me a nasty look as if she was trying to intimidate me into moving my bag for her to sit down. There were about 6 seats that were vacant all around me so I did what I've done for years when people act stupid. I squinted my eyes, curled my lip a bit and turned my head away from her in a dismissive gesture.

I remember years ago when I first came to NYC and I worked with a bunch of women who had lived here their whole lives. At that point I was a total goober and I actually made eye contact with people. I am from upstate, people from upstate are friendly to strangers. I hadn't caught on in my short time here that making eye contact with people is something you never ever do here, generally speaking. My co-worker Margie showed me "the look". I remember her telling me, "you need to let people know that you will not be fucked with but you don't want to provoke them, you want to just look as mean as possible but not in an aggressive way. Sort of like you're smelling something really bad". So on that day about 23 years ago, I developed, "the look". I rarely use it, I rarely have to but yesterday was a situation that called for some serious vibe. When I use "the look" I never directly look at the person who is getting it, it's more of a general facial expression that lets people know that I am not a goober who just fell off the turnip truck yesterday and I have no patience for nonsense. Truthfully if someone really did mess with me I would want to run away like a scared little girl but letting troublemakers see fear only makes them happy that they chose an easy victim.

After getting "the look" from me, the young woman sat a seat away from me. The two men were on either side of me. Then, out of nowhere the woman took out a straw and in a completely shocking gesture she blew a spit ball directly at the Chinese mans face and it stuck to his cheek. She and her companions laughed hysterically. It was the most bizarre thing I've seen in ages. The Chinese man looked completely enraged. he flicked it off his cheek, pulled his earplugs out and said "what the fuck was that? you think that's funny? what the fuck is wrong with you?" He got up and I seriously thought he was going to pull out a knife or a gun and truthfully I would not have blamed him a single bit if he did. Fortunately he was getting off the train. It was my stop too as well as the people who were doing the harassing. We all got off and went our separate ways. I wondered a lot about that whole situation. Would they have done that if the Chinese man had been a 300 pound African American man? A Latino man covered in tattoos? What was going on in their lives that makes something like that amusing to them? Why did they not bother me? Was it my general vibe, look, being a woman? It also made me think about stories on the news daily about violence and murders and how it escalates from stupid situations like the one I witnessed and made me sad for those people behaving like animals. How does a person end up like that? Who raises people like this and how do they derive enjoyment from disrespecting strangers like that? Are their own lives that meaningless and do they really feel that hopeless that this behavior is normal to them?

In the end, I felt lucky that I wasn't targeted but also amazed at the workings of the minds of others. I truly wondered why people just can't be nicer to each other sand see that we all have the same On a humorous note, in the midst of all of this, a perfectly normal looking man took his shoe off and proceeded to sing a ballad into it with all his heart and soul. People just looked at him with stunned amusement. He really unintentionally broke the tension in the car. He appeared to be "normal" right up until the point where he sang into his shoe. It was quite the treat really. Just another day in NY :)