It was an amazing, stellar night, the night of my first big opening
in New York. I had done my hair up
in a spectacular, crazy fashion, with pom-poms and yarn creating a colorful
crown and dressed in my finest, and my friends and plenty of strangers came to
admire my work. Afterwards, exhilarated,
three friends and I had walked to a nearby French restaurant in the Meatpacking
district and dined sumptuously, drinking celebratory champagne served, on the
house, by a charming, sweet waiter who congratulated me for what he knew was a
very big deal. Walking to the 14th
street and 8th avenue subway with my friend chatting about shoes, we
witnessed a guy hanging out of a car, making a grotesque noise at a lone
woman. As we passed her, we asked,
“what did he say?” And she
shrugged her shoulders and said, “something stupid, no doubt”, and then asked
us where the subway was, confessing that she was a bit tipsy and not in her
element. We invited her to join
us, and relieved, she fell into step, joking and laughing along as we made our
way to the A train.
I
needed the L to the Q, so I parted ways with the others and headed to my train,
awash in the glow of a magical night and donning my headphones so I could bob
my head to Janelle Monae’s Queen while I rode home. Sitting on the wooden benches on the Q platform filled with
girls on platforms and hipsters in trucker hats, a semi-drunk guy with dark
hair and a plaid shirt sat next to me and said, in a friendly voice, “Mind if I
smoke”? “Well”, I said with a
smile, “as long as you’re asking, yeah, kind of”, thinking to myself that
surely, I had seen at one point in time “no smoking” signs on the subway
platform anyway. He looked
surprised and said, “well, I appreciate your honesty. Most people seem to have trouble expressing
themselves”. I laughed and lifted
my eyes upwards towards my elaborate hairdo and said, “clearly, that’s not a
problem for me”. He squinted and
said, “Yeah, because most people, you know, they’d let me smoke”. A low rumble behind us indicated the
train, and I said, “well, sorry”, and got up to wait at the edge of the
platform. His initial friendly demeanor
had given way to a scowl, and I thought to myself, “well, you DID ask, after
all”.
When
I got on the train, I carefully chose a seat between two people as opposed to
the long open seat closer to where I entered the train. The drunk guy shuffled towards where I
was sitting and hesitated, scanning the seating situation, and then asked the
guy next to me if “he would scoot over so he could sit next to his
friend”. My seat neighbor
shifted, and alarmed, I spoke up, “hey, he’s not my friend – a two second
conversation doesn’t make us friends”, and hardly glancing up from his phone, I
felt my seatmate’s weight shift back to resting. The drunk looked confused, then decided to occupy the still
open seat next to my neighbor, and began talking to him as though their
maleness made them compadres. I
still had my headphones on, so I ignored what he was saying until I heard the
word “bitch”, and then, still staring at my open book, I discretely removed the
ear bud furthest from him to monitor the situation. “Some chicks
don’t know what’s good for them, am I right? Fucking bitches think they can say whatever they want, man,
know what I mean”? My seatmate
didn’t acknowledge his solicitation for agreement, continuing to stare at the
game on his phone. If he was
afraid, he didn’t show it, but I doubt he was afraid, whereas I was growing
increasingly alarmed.
The
drunk shoved the cigarette between his lips and continued muttering. “You’re allergic to smoke? Yeah, well I’m allergic to bubblegum”,
I guess referencing the carefully placed decorations in my hair. He continued to loudly and aggressively
speak to no one. The full train
continued to stare at their books, stare at their feet, stare anywhere but at
the spectacle. Every once in
awhile he asked loudly, “so really, no one minds if I smoke?” staring at me in
the window opposite of us to watch for a reaction. I continued to read the same sentence of Edwidge Danticat’s
prose repeatedly, without meaning, only glancing occasionally up to check if he
was still glaring. “Yeah, tough
crowd – no one wants to talk, huh?”
His protestations grew louder, over the wine and squeak of the rattling
cars. “Fucking bitch, I’ll show
you what kind of asshole I am.
Yeah, you’ll see. I’m a
five star asshole, you won’t forget it.”
I began to tick off the stops in my head. At each station, I held my breath, hoping he’d get off as
the train slowly emptied, stop-by-stop.
Still, no one said anything, and he continued to rant. “I’m a man. Pushing a broom ain’t no job for a man. I’ll show these fucking bitches. Yeah, got nothing to say now, do
you? Wanna express yourself
now?” I continued to pretend I
could comprehend even a word of my book, continued to pretend that the ear bud
closest to him, still pounding out a quiet beat, blocked the sound of his nasty
voice. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of existing to me,
didn’t want to let him have a taste of my fear. And yet, I also was fighting within myself, fighting with
every breath not to “express myself” and let him know that he had no fucking
right at all, not one fucking bit, to intimidate a carful of people going home
after a night out, and not even me.
I had not wronged him – he asked a question, I answered, in as friendly
a way as possible. My rage bubbled
behind my lips but the icy clutch around my heart and my common sense stifled
my tongue.
At
Atlantic-Barclay, 4 stops from mine, I knew I needed to make my move before the
train emptied even more, leaving only me and my tormentor. Tightening my grip on my bags
discreetly without looking like I was going to move, I waited for the doors to open
and bolted, dashing to the next car up and jumping on. I heard his sarcastic snarl yell out
“goodnight miss”, but he didn’t follow me. I could see him through the window of the car one over as
the train leaned around a corner, continuing his hostile rant. I kept nervously glancing through the
shifting windows, but didn’t catch a glimpse again.
Getting
off at the Beverly stop, I looked behind me on the platform several times to
make sure I was alone, not quite believing I’d dodged this psycho. By the time I reached the house, my
chest had stopped pounding, and my sweat had crystallized to a cold veneer on
my skin.
What
right does he have? I thought, to
take a piece of my perfect night and piss all over it? Where does he get off? What kind of privilege allows a man to
feel so entitled to do what he wants that he can terrorize another person,
simply for speaking their mind?
This
is what street harassment looks like.
It isn’t always flirtation, it isn’t always the wolf whistle or the catcall;
it’s the entitlement, the emotional blackmail, the casual intimidation. It’s feeling you have the right to be
an asshole, the rest of the world be damned.
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