Red Line, 8:45am. I’m running late today, which by the standards of the 9-5 existence, actually means on time. After two stops, the train is jammed, as I am too, in my seat, due to the immense width of a woman who had burst onto the train in a frenzy for the empty seat to my right. “Courtney,” she waved and called out to a young black man who had boarded the train like a normal person. He stood in front of her, grasped the pole, and stared at his newspaper. “Somedays I get a seat, if I hurry,” she told him, and he nodded.
She is in her thirties, with short and sexless brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Her voice has an odd, slurred quality that hints at a developmental disorder. “What do you do for lunch?” she asks the man as she settles in the seat. “Oh, I go out with the kids, someplace around the school…” he said in a quiet voice that trailed off.
“I bring my lunch every day,” she boomed. “To save MONEY.” She is rummaging through her bulging purple backpack in such a way that her chubby limbs rub against me without mercy. It was as if she didn’t realize I was a person. Finally she pulls out a clear plastic bag filled with what appeared to be generic Fig Newtons. She fed them whole into her mouth.
“Are you going on vacation this summer?” she asks the man in between cookies. He softly says he is going to Los Angeles to visit a friend, and then to Philadelphia to visit family. She chews while he talks. Crumbs fall on my right arm. “I’m going to Florida,” she announces. “But I haven’t bought the tickets yet.” She polishes off the last of the cookies and rummages through her backpack again. I’m inching away from her, impinging on the seat of the slim woman on my left, trying to lessen the effects of her soft elbow in my side, her knee knocking my knee, and her stalwart cushion of hip flanking my thigh. She pulls out a bottle of juice and chugs it.
The train has reached Central Square and it is totally full. I’ve been staring at the same article in the New York Times about Iran suspending negotiations with the US, and I’m unable to mentally digest it nor physically turn the page to try another subject matter.
“What time do you have to be at work?” she asks the man. He answers something about classes starting soon after 9. “I have to get to work at 9,” she says. For whatever reason, she begins jiggling her massive left leg. My whole body begins to shake, and finally I allow myself to give a fitful, annoyed sigh to register my discontent. She appears not to notice and continues her nonsensical leg movement.
At Park Street, the train empties out a bit, and I decide to stand up rather than allow this woman to continue her oblivious molestation of my person. When I stand up, I notice that the entire right side of my body is sweating. I spend the remainder of the day feeling sullied and gross.
