The subway pulls up to the platform. I close The Time Traveler’s Wife on my fingertips and head to the closest set of doors. The car is barren. I sit in the empty pew-like seat across from the closing doors.
“She’s sitting there,” a woman’s voice pierces the silence. “She’s sitting in that seat.”
I look around, thinking maybe someone has gotten up to look at the map, and I have unknowingly taken her seat. No one is standing. I look at the woman. She seems normal…I think.
“She’s sitting there,” she mutters.
The woman puts her chin to her chest and start to babble. “This woman,” I decide, “is not quite sane.” I start to read my book, though I can feel her looking at me.
“White girls cannot ride my train. No white girls on the train, you movie star white girl!”
I wish I could time travel right about now. The woman does not elicit the reaction she seems to want, so she stops talking. No one on the train seems to notice her. I continue trying to read, though I’m using my peripheral vision to keep an eye on her. She pulls some socks out of a black plastic bag and put them on to wear under her sandals. They have fuzzy pink stripes.
Some hair falls into my face as I turn a page, and I grab the wayward piece and return it to its normal place. “Ooh, my pretty earring got caught!” the lady exclaims. “My nice hair. She fixes her white girl hair!”
I stiffen, and do not look up. This woman could snap my body in half, plus she’s crazy and racist. Would any of the other people on the train be able to jump in and take her? I don’t think so.
She puts one sock on inside out and is working on putting the other one on the right way. The train jerks back to motion after a stop. Another plastic bag at the woman’s feet slides across the train to me. A bottled orange soda rolls just to the right of my feet.
You could not pay me to be courteous and hand the bag and bottle back to that scary straphanger. I sense that she wants an excuse to rip out my white girl hair and her pretty earring. It helps that I’ve been so ensconced in this book I’m reading. They say to limit the direct eye contact, but I’m ready to run, if it comes down to it. The downside is that I don’t know what the next stop is. Be my stop, please!
The train slows. My stop. White girl gets out of her seat and steps off the crazy train and out into her next scene.
