Fight or Flight

A woman in her 20's, dressed rather stylishly and with a hipster hair cut and dark make-up on, sits a few seats away from me on the Q train. As the train stops on top of the Manhattan bridge (as it often does for no apparent reason) she throws an angry fit. A sudden psychotic outburst. "I'm NOT gonna say I'm FUCKING sorry!!!!" she yells. Who is she talking to? There's no one next to her. In fact, I'm the only person sitting sort of close to her. She's not talking to me, is she? Avoid eye contact.

She takes off her eye glasses and throws them as hard as she can against the seats opposite to her, and they shatter into a bunch of pieces and land on the floor, close to my feet. Oh no, she's really crazy. Avoid eye contact.

I look around the car to see if other passengers are noticing what's going on over at my end. The two women across from me are already doing what New Yorkers do best when confronted with unstable people or pregnant women looking for a seat - pretend to be asleep. I look at other passengers and they are also doing the pretend-sleep-trick. I wish I could join them, but I'm too scared of this woman. I need to have at least one eye open. More yelling and screaming "FUCK, I'm NOT sorry!!! FUCK!! FUUUUUCK!!" and then she bangs her fists against the window, hard. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

Come on train, start moving please, please. The crazy girl stands up suddenly, I sink into my seat, and she walks past me. She walks with loud angry steps all the way to the opposite end of the car. The train starts moving again. Thank you, God, I think to myself. Then, the crazy girl stomps back to my end and screams: "Don't FUCKING turn AROUND!!" I'm really scared of her at this point. If she begins to involve other people into her craziness, it will be me, since I sit so close to her. I consider my options if this happens: 1) Curl up into fetal position and cover my head with my arms 2) Hit her first.

More screaming and hitting the windows and doors. Still, everyone else on the train is asleep. The train slowly rolls into the station. I plan my escape - don't stand up too soon, don't move until the doors are fully open, and then run out fast. She won't have time to react. It worked. I'm off the train, safe.

Walking towards the exit someone taps me on my shoulder from behind. My first thought is that it must be the crazy girl. It's not. It's a young blond woman. It takes me at least five seconds before I realize that the blond girl is my sister. "Heeeey, we were on the same train?? Were you in the same car as that crazy girl??" I ask. "Yes!" my sister says, "she walked right by me when she did that walk!"

Ha. So this whole time when I was frightened I had back-up all along. My sister would totally have helped me out if need be. Unless, of course, she was asleep.