Sometimes You're The Guy (Or Gal)

Have you been on your way to somewhere, when someone, in an effort to get by, virtually runs you down? These are the people that, when driving, are usually in a great hurry to gain just a few yards of space, racing to–I’ve always assumed–nowhere.

Usually I somewhat smugly sit in silent judgement over such people, as if on some level I was convinced of their actions being the result of a lack of some essential motivating force, or perhaps moral turpitude manifesting in a flaw that lie hidden just below the surface, till now.

Conversely, this enhanced my own feelings of rightness.

Such thoughts never left the privacy of my head, though I imagine that a perceptive person could have picked up on some reveal in the way I held my head, or the tilt of my mouth.

That is, till for a moment I became that person.

I was on the way to work, and the train had stopped at Fort Totten Station where I transfer from the Red to the Green Line; the next to last leg of my daily commute to work. There’re three escalators, one that leads to an upper level, which is soon followed by two more that lead to opposite ends of of the Red Line tracks. As I got on the escalator on the right, I looked up, and saw a flash of light on the grey concrete canopy that covered the platform against weather as the motorized staircase bore me upward.

I had seen this flash of light before, and I always connected it with the arrival of a train.

There were numerous people ahead of me, all of which happened to be women. From my perspective, none of the seemed particularly cognizant of the fact that a train had just pulled into the station.

Or perhaps they were taking the Red Line in the opposite direction, in which case that the train had pulled into the station going in the my way didn’t matter.

Though at that moment I wanted few things more than to catch that train. I knew that my feeling were somewhat irrational, though I had to film a presentation at work, and didn’t want to be late.

So I forced my way forward, engaging in way too much contact with these ladies as I tried to get around them.

I made the train, as did some of the women who were a few steps ahead of me, though my actions so shamed me that I did not sit anywhere near them.

Because, for a small moment, I had become those people I thought so little of.