The short answer is that nothing about Trash Angeles is safe. It’s a trashy city that gets trashier and filthier by the second.
I got on the metro on a Sunday night. It was already dark. This is not the smartest decision in the world to make. But that was how it turned out.
However, everything was normal and quiet. The specific thought that occurred to me was: “Wow! This is the second time I’ve been on the metro on the weekend, ever, and no outburst or illegal activity has happened.”
Of course, this state of the affairs cannot abide in Trash Angeles. A robust young man in a baseball cap got on the train. He leaned against the wall, and scrolled on his phone, and was quiet. But there was something about him that made me think he was drunk or in some way not quite at ease.
And indeed, an outburst soon followed. It wasn’t long before he was stomping up and down the train carriage. He ended up sitting down right in the thick of several quiet passengers. He started yelling and cursing. From what I could tell, he was specifically yelling and cursing at an old, Black, white-haired man who was not making a peep, was just still and silent with his arms resting on the bag in his lap. And the loser in the baseball cap just kept shouting at him. By some miracle, he decided to get off at the next stop. He doesn’t go quietly, though. He backs out the train door still shouting. He is shouting at the top of his lungs a word that starts with “f” and rhymes with maggot. And he just keeps shouting and shouting, even when he’s on the platform, still walking backwards, looking back into the train at the old man. It’s not just the profane, ugly words he’s shouting, it’s threats — something like, “just wait till next time!” or “you’re gonna get it” — that kind of violent-laced growling.
And I think I’ve seen this Loser of Loserville before. He had a memorable outburst that time, too. It was morning on the train platform. What people don’t understand is that walking onto a train platform in Trash Angeles is basically like holding a venomous snake. Sure, it might not bite you. If you’re cool enough, if you’re smart enough, if you know exactly what to do, you might escape unscathed. The way Trash Angeles works is, if the snake bites and kills you, it was your own fault for “provoking” it.
That morning, I did my usual quick calculus as I walked up the train platform: where exactly should I position myself so that I’m as distant as possible from anyone who looks like they might be one of the stand-outs amongst the peculiar brand of savage barbarians that Los Angeles is full of?
Well, that morning, I chose wrong. I came to a stop next to a tall and robust young man in a baseball cap. Next second, I thought I heard him cursing. No, I told myself (this was still in my early days in Trashy-ville. Look how naive I was!!) Why would someone just randomly be cursing? So I stayed where I was. Bad choice.
And do I know that he wasn’t just randomly cursing, rather, actually specifically cursing at me? No, I do not. It’s very possible he was.
By the time the train arrived, I was starting to get the inkling the Loser in the Baseball Cap had some sort of issue, possibly was drunk. With that in mind, I made sure I didn’t enter the same door of the train as the Loser did. But the venomous snakes of Loserville are more cunning than that. No sooner had I sat down on a train seat, then the Loser in the baseball cap materializes through the train mid-section, and of course, he has to sit down right next to me.
It wasn’t long before he started talking to someone in the train-midsection. I honestly don’t know if he was talking to an imaginary person, a random person, or someone that he knows. Whoever the recipient, the baseball cap loser was telling him: I’m sitting in section A because there’s someone in section B I can’t talk to, and I’m going to step off the train at the next stop (he didn’t). Pretty much, he wanted to fight whoever was sitting in section B. I didn’t want to end up as collateral damage in whatever was about to happen, so I got up and walked to the other end of the train. Just as we were getting to my stop, though, it didn’t matter where you were on the train — all of us heard him. He started bellowing “F— this” again and again, and punching the wall of the train, again and again.
No one ever does anything when things like this happen. Everyone just stares.
That morning episode was a few months ago. The more recent Sunday night screeches were just the other day. So this guy, if it was the same person, is still going at it.
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