Rapid Transit

I felt a surge of relief when the large, mohawk touting, transvestite sat down by me. The stranger sat down, listening to his/her music and quickly entered into that doze that people find on buses, trains, and subways. In this moment I understood a little bit more of God’s protection for me and felt something new in me, a relaxed air, around my he-she companion that would normally leave me a bit unsettled.

Some stops previous, a man entered our BART rail car holding a manilla envelope. He stood for a few moments with his head in an upwards gesture and with a wry expression on his face. His demeanor and look - especially in the few seconds he gave looking upwards at nothing - gave me the impression that he might be unstable, this was true. Not too long afterwards he dropped his envelope and sat down in the upper part of our car nearly alone. Then he began talking. It was the normal crazy stuff you might hear: a mix of information about people he’s seen, an old girlfriend, various descriptions of his own self and justifications of behavior, and a mix of reality and memory and make-belive interwoven in his stream of words. But he kept looking at me; usually as his monologue turned into tirade and became a touch aggressive. That made me nervous.

So I sat there, the person closest on our side of the rail car closest to him. It seemed that as soon as the remaining people on his half had emptied that he let his craziness unloose, maybe his captive audience made him feel a little more at ease (I wonder). I sat there with a mix of fear, and sorrow for the guys sad state. I wanted to reach down and give him his manilla envelope but my common-sense reminded me of the last time I tried to dialog with someone showing disassociation traits.

Some years ago I talked to a man who was talking to me about my dogs and then about his time running the Iditerod (or was that Klondike) races with a mush team. Then I asked questions, trying to make polite conversation ... oops. My asking questions about my naive understanding of the racing forced this stranger to confront his fantasy and the result was his agitation with me and the situation. I realized a little too late what my faux pas had been.

Keeping the aforementioned memory in mind I reminding myself of the wisdom of not looking into the eyes of the irate crazy man on that train. However, I could tell he was periodically looking at me and leveling various dialog at me. In response, I ventured a glance and see him staring at me, eye-to-eye. Giving myself relief I stared somewhere else, avoiding the awkwardness of the situation, still feeling that mixture of sadness for the guy, empathy, and fear. The scenario happened over and over again; sometimes him looking at me and at other times me finding him talking to the window in the car.

The situation climaxed when he decided that we would benefit from his impersonation of an announcer voice. (He had just heard something spoken over the train-car’s speaker system.) He stood up and approach the mid-center of our car and then did a short sports-announcer type of description of himself. Then, with a little more intimidation in his voice, he described our situation: a scary guy on the car that could do something dangerous with some frightened people on the car watching and wondering what to do. Then he described himself doing something .. or not. At this point he flung himself into the side door of the train, as we speeded in a sub-way tunnel, quite hard.

I realized that I was giving into fear and I noticed myself going into a defensive body posture, crossing my legs and arms. I just did not know what do with a situation like this. I spent most of the previous moments with silent prayers for the man but had little else to do. Then, at this moment, I realized that my physical actions should be in concert with God’s heart of the person. I uncrossed my arms and legs and purposefully took a more relaxed posture.

His point made, he sat back down. (The train door was wrecked by his actions since it would not close the next time it was opened.) He wasn’t calm though, I think he was on an up-and-down cycle which could have gotten worse. However, at this time our shuttle entered into the heart of the city and a bunch of people boarded the BART train. This is when my transvestite friend entered and sat down with me. The crazy person’s face screwed up and he threw open a door and left the train at that stop. I remembered him rambling about a woman-man (or vice-versa) earlier in an earlier rant. The person who sat next me was very large, strong, and something that the other could not stand.

The experience for me was a mixture of emotions. Fear, defensiveness, a loss of what I could do, wonder, sadness at his state, a desire to help, and a myriad of other feelings. The night proved how strange such little things like traveling to a baseball game can be. I have been giving a lot of thought to what it means to be “light” and this seemed like a reaction, a "did not comprehend the light” response. There was a spiritual element to be sure in the whole thing and the timing of that bi-gendered person getting on the train was amazing and so fitting a cure for the crazy person’s own state.

Well, that’s enough for now, just wanted to capture some of this while it’s fresh in my memory.