Metro-North

I am on a Metro-North train, departing from Grand Central Station at 7:37, August 14, scheduled to arrive at Union Station in New Haven around 9:30ish. I found two empty seats towards the back of one car, which I took immediately. The only problem is that the luggage rack up top doesn’t come back this far, so I’ve got my two bags crammed underneath the window, taking up like 75% of my legitimate legspace. Had this been a non-peak hour train, this might not have been a problem, but as it happened, the car filled up fast and some old guy with gray hair wearing a “nice” shirt (I say “nice” shirt not because the shirt is nice--it is white and nothing special and doesn’t even fit him very well--but just because I don’t know what else to call it. It is a white button-down shirt one might wear a tie with--white-collar work shirt, obviously. “Nice” shirt seems easier) and black pants and “nice” (again) shoes took the seat next to me.

Which, OK. There are two seats here, and it’s a crowded train, so there should be two people here. I understand this. My thought as the guy was sitting down was, all right, at least he’s a reputable businessman and not some dirty drugged-up weirdo or stone-faced decapitator, and he’s got the aisle so he can stretch out and give me a little more room and I’ll be uncomfortable but I don’t take up a lot of room because I’m so skinny and I’ll manage because that’s what I do, I manage, but then just about as soon as he sits down and whips out his BlackBerry (of course he has a BlackBerry), he puts his leg right up against mine and leaves it there. This, to me, is weird. Especially because I am wearing shorts. So he’s rubbing his pants right up against my bare calf--or not rubbing, because it’s just sitting there--and seems completely unfazed.

At first I think, OK, I’ll continue to manage. I do this thing which I call “Maybe That Guy’s Wife Is In Labor.” Basically, the purpose of the game is keep your cool in the face of dickheadedness, because maybe that person has a perfectly legitimate reason for it. So, like, when I’m driving down 84 and some bozo is weaving in and out of traffic and cuts me off and nearly causes an accident, rather than flying into a rage and making things worse safety-wise (or, at the very least, taking a significant toll on my immaculate hate-free psyche), I take a breath and say “well shucks, how do I know that guy in the Firebird” (we sometimes must suspend our disbelief) “isn’t speeding off to the hospital because his wife is in the back seat panting and puffing and having painful contractions? Why, I would be quite a nasty guy if I were to get all steamed up about something like that, wouldn’t I?” In the city I have to get a little more creative--obviously the guy who jumps in front of you at the bodega while you’re standing there, carton of juice in your hand, waiting like a jackass for the cashier to call you forward, isn’t rushing to get that pack of batteries back to the hospital where his wife is giving birth, but the general principle of the exercise is the same. Maybe the guy needs the batteries for his father-in-law’s pacemaker. Or maybe the guy’s life is just way shittier than yours, so just let him win this little passive-aggressive everyday battle and let it roll right off your back. If He Doesn’t Get You Angry, Then He Doesn’t Win. This kind of thing is essential, I find, esp. when you’re driving up 91 from New Haven with a bunch of Wall Street A-Type personalities who just came in from Grand Central who need your lane more than you do, and esp. when you’re getting shoved around every day on subway platforms and esp. when you’re working in retail.

So I try this with this guy who’s placed his leg right against mine. Maybe he’s crippled, or he’s just got stiff legs or something and doesn’t have a lot of mobility in general. But he keeps squirming around, so I don’t know if I can credibly keep that up for very much longer. I shrink further towards the window, trying to give him as much room as he needed without touching him, because I really didn’t want to touch his leg anymore. I think, well, I give a little and he’ll give a little and we’ll have a little Korea-esque demilitarized zone and I’ll read my book and he’ll pluck away at his little BlackBerry and all will be well. But no. He refuses to give.

The thing is, because my bag is taking up so much room, I basically have enough room on my side for my right leg that that’s it. I try to kind of stack one on top of the other, but it’s not really happening. So yes, my left leg is hanging over the edge a little bit, onto his side of the seat, and so technically we are coming into contact on his side. So, OK.

But still. He’s got the whole aisle to work with. If he swivels just, like, an inch to the left, then he’s perfectly fine--I may as well not even be there--and I’m a little cramped but perfectly content--I understand that I can’t expect to be comfortable with this hulking bag of mine on my side (gotta do laundry for free when you can) and the world works in perfect harmony. Or, you know what, he doesn’t even have to turn to the left because, as I notice, his legs are like two inches apart. He’s not even scrunching them together in any way, he’s fucking spread out in this little Metro-North two-seater, while I’m crammed in here like a lobster in an oyster shell (?) and he’s clicking away at his little BlackBerry with headphones in (for whatever reason) and I try to imagine that he’s crippled, his wife is in labor, or maybe he just likes having a young man’s bare calf resting up against his, but none of it is helping and before the train has even rolled out of Grand Central I realize I hate this fucking dickhead.

Basically, I am in a Situation. Technically, there is no reason he has to cede an inch of his precious legspace to me--again, I do not pretend that I am not over the line--but when a person is in a Situation, sometimes the polite thing is to accommodate that person. That is what I was hoping for. This guy could not care less, and if that means resting his calf against another young man’s calf, by God he’s going to rest his calf against another young man’s calf, all the way to New Haven, if that’s how far we’re both traveling.

He is Law. I am Society. People think Law and Society get along, but they do not.

***

Someone has written on the back of the seats in front of us, “Deirdre and Dan. [Heart] 4ever. 8-13-08.” Yesterday. For some reason, this makes me incredibly sad.

At some point, I decided, all right, old guy. You want to play this game? Then LET US PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME. Whenever the train hit’s a bump or rounds a curve, I “inadvertently” rub my leg up against him. Sometimes I try to do it hard, bump into him, like trying to jar him out of his sociopathic puppy-guarding of the invisible barrier between our seats. Other times I try the more creepy route, and am almost delicate and sensual about it. Ooh yeah, I try to think, I’ll rub reeeal slow, you like that, sir? You like that?

Maybe he does like it, I don’t know. Maybe his pants are like three inches thick and he has no idea what’s going on. Point is I’m starting to think I could start dry-humping his face and I don’t think he’d bat an eye.

He had one phone conversation, and though I wasn’t really eavesdropping (listening to music, reading, trying to completely zone out and somehow mentally psyche myself out of having any sensation whatsoever in my left leg even as I’m waging this awful passive-aggressive psychological nearly-psychotic warfare against this guy), I believe he is in the restaurant business. He was talking about checking out a new restaurant, I think, though the conversation was brief.

“You work in New York and you live in Connecticut,” I think, trying to direct all my mental energy through his thick skull. “Oh how I pity you.”

And then, just like that, he rearranges himself. I quickly rearrange myself too, and it’s like a dream. I have just the few centimeters I need--really, I need so little--and he’s perfectly fine--he must be, I’m not even sure he knows what’s going on. Could it be we’ve reached a détente?

But no, as quickly as he leaves he’s right back in there, calf against calf. It is weird. It is not delicate at all. We are both kind of pressing up against each other, I think. It’s less like holding hands and more like putting your palm right up against someone else’s palm, but unspoken, without really looking at one another. It is weird.

***

All right, now it’s out of control. I am convinced he knows what’s going on and thinks I’m a real jackass, but I could give a shit at this point. He must be able to feel my muscles tensing up as I try to push exactly as little as I need to so that he knows that I’m pushing, but if he were to suddenly flip out and ask me what the fuck my problem was anyway, I would be able to keep my cool and ask him whatever could he mean and even though he’d almost certainly see through it, maybe just maybe I could make him feel like a real goofball and he’d have to hang his head in shame and just sit down quietly and curl up in a ball like I am doing and mutter to himself until he gets off. Plausible deniability is the key.

He has a muscular calf. It’s pretty hard, considering what an old man he is. Keeps in decent shape, it seems.

(I mean, he’s not such an old man. A few years older than my parents, I’d say. His gray hair is mostly what I’m going on. “Old” is really more of a stand-in for a whole list of associations including boring, way less important than he thinks, drained of hope, etc. And you can be 80 without being old if you just do what you do without pretension, but this guy and like 90% of Manhattan is fucking old.)

His legs are, like, four inches apart at this point. It is absurd. I feel like I might be able to stick my head in the empty space on the seat between his thighs (just for a second, of course, and just to make a point. Theoretically, I mean). There is absolutely no reason for him to be like this, except that he hates me. He must see my youth and my vitality and my spectacular hair and my general contented demeanor and figure “this kid represents everything I’ve lost in life and because I am a bitter, desiccated husk of an old man who lives in Connecticut, and I hate him.”

He is old. He does not have lovers. I see no wedding band. You are a sad old man, I think, who has nothing but his modest house in Connecticut, his ill-fitting boring clothes, some boring job he’s way too proud of, a dog (probably) and this legspace.

***

We are at Westport, and just like that, he pops out of his seat. I am not even sure he’s actually getting off at this stop or if he’s just rearranging himself or pulling something out of his briefcase or something, but I don’t care. As soon as he’s up, I stretch out and take what I feel I need, and then some. We do not look at each other.

And he does head off down the aisle to the doors. The train still hasn’t quite reached the station, but he’s up waiting by the doors. For a second I think, ok, it’s over, you don’t have to jump into his seat just yet. Don’t embarrass him, wait for him to leave the train then take a nap on both seats if you want to, but let’s try to do this with a little dignity. But then I think, fuck dignity, and I’m in his seat in a flash, and I stack my bags up on my seat so that he doesn’t get any ideas about coming back or anything like that. I swivel into the aisle, like he could have done. It is nice.

As the train pulls into the station, he looks back. It is obvious that he is doing that thing where you want to look back at some stranger but you don’t want that person to know you’re looking at them so you pretend to be looking at something like three inches above or to the side of that person’s head. I stare right at him. He looks down and our eyes lock. Both of us still have plausible deniability, I feel--it’s not like we’re making faces at one another. But if we’re being honest with ourselves, we are looking right at each other, and it is weird. It’s like two boxers bumping into each other in the elevator after wailing the shit out of each other for twelve rounds. He gets off the train and I watch him go.