New York City the self -proclaimed "Greatest City in the World." Sure it's expensive but that money pays for non-stop excitement-even at 11:00am on a Saturday morning in the safe neighborhood of 59th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.
There I was with my metro card (that's a little plastic card you use a debit card to pay subway fare.) in hand ready to swipe it at the turnstile. There I continued to stand in the non-crowded, subway station repeatedly swiping my card. The little swipey machine mocking me over and over as it tells me to "please swipe again at this turnstile." Yes, through all the fare hikes the NYC MTA has levied they have yet to upgrade their magnetic strip reading device. I thought to myself, "Well, I'm lucky a bunch of ambitious in a rush New Yorkers aren't in back of me telling me to 'Fuck myself!'"
I should not have counted my lucky stars so soon. As I'm battling with the turnstile I notice a woman standing in front of me on the other side of the turnstile. Kind of like if one of us was visiting the other in prison. She seems to want to exit the subway platform, but she does not move to one of the many empty turnstiles to my right. "That's weird," I think. Finally, the steel Praetorian Guard of the 4,5,6,Q,N, R trains reads my metro card and lets me pass. However, this lady does not. She mumbles something at me that I could not make out. So I just walk away toward my train. She follows me, repeats her inaudible utterance toward me. What do I do? The only sensible thing. I yell in her face, "WHAT?!" and run. She surprisingly follows me. I stop running.
She gets in my face and yells at me for yelling at her. She starts telling me a sob story and how all she needs is some help. “Don’t you feel guilty now?” she asks. “Um, no.” I reply. As she doesn’t walk away I begin to realize oh this is some sort of attempted mugging. And that’s the thing, being mugged by a woman takes forever. There is so much talking. I learn this woman’s whole life story, she’s a few months pregnant and from South Boston. She was on her way to her one year old's birthday party, (So I guess she’s having Irish twins.) Sadly, now she's lost. Someone took her money and her purse. She wants to know how would I like it If she took my bag and money. I’m like are trying to mug me or are we breaking up. I inform her I have no money, so good luck.
She takes a fighting stance of sorts.
Before we could go fist-a-cuffs, my 6ft tall boyfriend stepped in between us. (Sorry I didn't mention him earlier, but I was very preoccupied with the turnstile. Just know that due to our co-dependent relationship I rarely go anywhere without him.). My assailant changes from excon to doctor Phil and asks my boyfriend Patrick, “What are you doing with her? You could do so much better.” And I was like, “Thank you. I knew my mother was wrong about him, he is a catch. I can’t wait to shove the opinion of a crack head in her face.
This five foot four substance abuser will not be deterred from getting the money she thinks I have. She tries to get at me by going around my boyfriend. So I put up my fists. And she starts criticizing my fighting stance. “What are you doing? You don’t even know how to fight? You got to put your hands up like this." Rocky Marciano proceeds to bring her hands so far up that her elbows are by her chin and her forearms are completely blocking her vision. I saw my moment, not to diffuse the situation, but to prove that it is she who has the stupid fighting stance. I reached around my boyfriend and pushed her hands in her face. “She screams I’m pregnant I’m pregnant. Everyone down here heard me tell you that before. You hit a pregnant woman.” I think she was trying to scare me into believing she was going to sue me?
"Um. You don’t know my name. And well, I think you’d be better off suing your crack dealer. He probably has more assets."
Now, here’s where I screw-up. Instead of running out of the subway station I run down the stairs toward a train. Why? Because I don’t want to have to pay an extra $2.25 to get back into the subway. She chases us down the stairs and onto the train. Patrick again stands between us where she then starts trying to coax me to fight her. “You’re\a such a coward? You’re sucha pussy you have to hide behind your boyfriend?”
"Uh. This is actually the gender appropriate response. I'm a girl, I'm not supposed to have an ego so fragile as I can't walk away from a fight. You can’t emasculate me. I was never born with testes." These thoughts just lead to horrible feelings of guilt on my part. Am I setting the woman’s movement back 30 years by not kicking her ass? Or maybe all that violence is the problem with men. Is that really fair to say that men are violent? Isn't that gender stereo-typing? I mean who is really fighting in American anyway these days? You know with all the obesity. This woman should be proud she can actually lift her hands that far above her shoulders.
As we ride in the complete opposite direction from my home she keeps trying to grab my bag, and I’m like, "Look, lady! I’m not willing to spend an extra 2 dollars to get away from you. What kind of money do you think I have? She’s trying to kick me despite Patrick being in her way. She sticks a hypodermic needle in his face. The train gets above ground at Queens Boro Plaza. I grab my cell phone and call the cops. As I’m on the phone repeating “Queens Boro Plaza” again and again to the 911 operator the drug addict mom runs off the train.
And of course through this whole saga of running, being chased, screaming to onlookers, "She's terrorizing me! She's terrorizing me," and the harassment by one crazy bitch, not one new Yorker did anything. No one even bothers to whip out their cell phones and video tape it. I mean that could have been my big break, a viral You Tube video. I could have been a guest on the Today Show or Letterman. They would have introduced me to America as the girl who wouldn’t spend an extra 2dollars and 25 cents to save her own life.
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