Brenna Swift: Red Line Friday Night

It’s about 11:30 on a Friday night, and I’m on the subway platform at Jackson, waiting for the Red Line to take me home.

An old Chinese guy serenades me and the other waiting passengers by playing Silent Night on his violin. A drunk in a Cubs hat and T-shirt spits on the rail. The train finally arrives. The car I choose is crowded and smells like sweat and old cheese.

At this point, I’ve been in Chicago for about two months and public transportation is still kind of a novelty for me.

I’m from Colorado Springs, where trains only exist to haul in coal from Wyoming. I love not having to drive everywhere. I love the fact that trains come every few minutes. Tonight the train is filled with tired-looking travelers from the airport, kids heading home from parties, and people going who-knows-where.

At Chicago and State, a teenage boy—white as can possibly be—gets on alone. He’s wearing baggy pants, a backwards baseball cap, and bling in the form of a huge chain necklace.

Bling looked a little like Eminem….

I turn away and zone out, but it isn’t long before I hear somebody shouting. Talking like a “gangsta.” I turn back and realize that, yes, it’s the white boy with the bling. He reminds me of a lost puppy.

He’s asking a girl in a red miniskirt about her cell phone, and he’s not really making sense. He’s informing her that she’s been on her phone all day. The girl tells him to go away.

He switches seats and starts other conversations with similar results. Finally he stands and surveys the rest of the car. By this point I’m watching his every move.

His eyes alight on a morose-looking twenty-something guy with greasy hair and a goatee.

“Yo, dude,” says the kid. “Ya’ straight?”

Goatee guy looks up. “Yeah.”

And Goatee kind of looked like Johnny Depp — though not as handsome….

Longest pause in the history of mankind. The entire train car is quiet now.

“But, ya’ straight? Tell me, man.”

“You know, I don’t like people fucking with me,” Goatee says through his drunkenness.

“I ain’t fuckin’ wit you. I just askin’.”

Goatee sits there, looking straight ahead. He’s as still as ice. Then in a flash, he explodes like a firecracker. Jumps up and decks Bling — hits him right in the face.

And just like that, fists are flying….

Goatee and the kid run back and forth along the train car, hurling punches. Goatee pins Bling against the filthy floor, but Bling manages to slither up. The two of them roll and writhe over every available surface.

At some point their shirts come off , and they lock in some weird, hostile embrace. Cuts and bruises appear on Bling’s shoulders. They fall onto the seat next to me, and I shrink against the wall.

Bling continues to hold his own until Goatee starts slamming his head into the window glass. The remaining passengers crowd around the doors, waiting to escape at the next stop.

“Stop!” shouts one passenger, a fat matronly lady who looks like she wants to ground the pair of them from video games. She’s strangely calm. How many of these fights has she seen?

“Both of you sit down right now,” she says.

They ignore her. Blood gushes from Bling’s forehead.

As much as I don’t want to attract the pair’s wrath, I decide that I also don’t want Bling to die. Nobody else is doing anything. Am I going to be a hero? I get out my cell phone.

“Stop,” I say hesitantly. “Or I’m calling the police….”

It works right away. They stop fighting. Bling gets down on his knees. “Please, ma’am, don’t call the poh-lice,” he pleads. “I’m on probation. Have you called them already?”

“No.”

“Please, ma’am. I’m begging you.”

“Why don’t we get off at the next stop,” says an elderly black guy. The matronly woman nods. The guy takes Bling by the elbow and escorts him off the train at Granville. Goatee sits in the seat in front of me.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says.

I don’t reply. What kind of guy would beat up a misguided, forlorn, intoxicated 15-year-old?

From this point on I’m not surprised by anything the train can throw at me, literally or figuratively.

By Brenna Swift

Editor’s Note: Brenna‘s last bit was Random City….

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