June 8, 2009
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Scene from a train
It’s 3am. I am sick for reals. Springtime cold. Can’t sleep. Snotty. Achy. Breathing like a pug dog. But it’s not just the cold keeping me up tonight. I’m having bad dreams.
A weird thing happened on my train ride home from work today. Just as my northbound red line approached the Wilson stop, the train screamed to a halt in a scary, completely out-of-control way. I slammed into the seat in front of me, my chest cushioned by my gigantic purse. Standing passengers were knocked to the ground. A bucket of Harold’s Chicken went flying, drumsticks chasing underfoot. And then the power went out. We were locked on the train. No announcements were made. We were all just sitting there, cursing the driver, wondering what had happened.
Soon though, from my window, I noticed a man laying face up and out cold on the platform. He was one subway train window ahead of mine. Platform bystanders gathered, crouching to try to wake the man. He was not bloody. Rather, his entire head, shaved clean as it was, gleamed purple and swollen. Like a rug burn. Soon, one of the bi-standers was gesturing wildly, explaining to the others what he’d seen.
From what I gather, the man was knocked from the platform (pushed? fell? jumped?), into the oncoming train. Instead of getting pulled beneath the tracks, he was violently bounced back onto the platform.
Bi-standers shook the man, called out to him. No response. Where was our train conductor? Where were the transit authority personnel? I’m no expert on CTA-accident protocol, but surely someone should have stepped in to tend to the situation. But no one did. Bi-standers took watch of this man. Bi-standers called 911.
Meanwhile, on my train car, the stress of the event had divided passengers up into “us” vs “them” camps. Those Who Had Places to Be and Needed Off This Train v. Those Who Had Compassion and Were Disgusted by the Selfishness of their Fellow Passengers.
Those Who Had Places To Be jostled at the door, trying to pry it open with the handles of their umbrellas. Those Who Had Compassion told them to calm down, that someone had just been seriously hurt. Those Who Had Places To Be cursed the Compassionate. The Compassionate cursed Those Who Had Places. Everyone cursed the conductor for not making an announcement. I sat fixed to the window, shocked at the events unfolding, appalled at the behavior of my fellow passengers, and slightly afraid of the aggression mounting in the train car.
The police and paramedics arrived about 5 minutes later. The paramedics did no better to rouse the man than the bi-standers did. And they did not seem that rushed to help him, either. This is either a very good sign or a very bad sign, but judging by the unnatural shade and size of the non-responsive victim’s cranium, I’d put money on the latter.
Once the man was taken away via stretcher, the doors opened. Police were still there, interviewing people. It did not look like the train would be moving for some time. I exited and called my friend Squee. She was meant to meet me at my place for a quiet dinner and a movie (we both have the same cold, so there was no risk of infecting one another), but she ended up picking me up from the Wilson stop in her car and we drove over together.
I told the story twice, once for Squee and once Shaun. I was a bit shaken, but Shaun’s delicious mac ‘n’ cheese eased me back into the normal world. I was home. The train ride was over. Auntie Squee felt the fetus move. We watched a movie. We gossiped.
After, at bedtime, thunderstorms rolled overhead. Rain pattered softly on our windows. The downstairs neighbors had sex. The upstairs neighbors had sex. I blew snot into countless tissues and fell into a restless sleep.
I dreamnt of exiting a train only to find that the conductor had opened the doors on the wrong side of the car. Instead of walking out onto the platform, I was falling from the elevated tracks onto the bustling traffic on Broadway. I woke before I landed, clammy and tangled. A picture of battered, purple skin lingered in my mind, the thick stench smell of fried chicken clinging to it.
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Have you been haunted by something recently?
Comments (6)
I’ve been having some weird dreams about being followed. I wake up when they catch up to me.
Had I been on that train I think I would have been one of “them.” I probably would’ve told someone to sit down and shut the eff up. Maybe I have a lot of patience. Or maybe impatient people freaking out in a small space would cause me to freak out.
Or maybe the fact that a man is possibly dead would overshadow any rush I’d be in.
I dunno. That is a scary train situation and I’m glad I’ve never been in it.
Those kinds of things stick with you for a while especially if you are from the compassionate camp. You have my sympathies for the toll it takes. When a teacher got hit by a mini van a school counselor was only two feet behind her. He was shaken and he said it kept flashing in front of him for the next week. The only accident I ever saw like that was a dog that ran across a busy street to investigate me and got hit by a car. I kept seeing it for weeks after. It faded, but can still be called back.
I am sorry you had to experience that and hope it doesn’t haunt you for too long.
Only the average everyday hauntings going on here these days.
What an experience… it’s strange sometimes how opposite people can be. Just where in life do people lose the ability to see outside themselves? Maybe it just never developes.
I get haunted by our recent run-in with u-haul, and I am ashamed by how much it pops into my head and grinds around in there. Of all the things. On the up-side, if I ever play truth or dare again I will finally have a real answer for “Do you have any regrets?” I’ll say “Yes,” and then I’ll pull a DVD from my sleeve and place it in a handy player and we’ll watch an infomercial all about it. There will be dramatic reenactments showing the first real fight about anything between Jes and I, and perhaps some experimental abstract animation that tries to put the feeling of anger, abuse, soul crushing defeat, and the comlete loss of faith in human decency into stunnning visual effect. Everyone will cry. It will be the best truth ever. I will win an Emmy. My biggest regret will have become a catalyst for my greatest success.
@Ally - Don’t worry, love. Renting a U-Haul makes every couple fight. It is part of what you pay for when you get one.
TDog, I hope the nightmares are gone. While I’ve been in a few situations that created similar feelings – the scariness, the quickness of the mob’s polarization to “sides,” the how-should-I-handle-this thoughts – the seriousness and intensity of your train experience are well beyond my own, and I don’t envy you for that. So sorry you were there at all.
At the same time (and not to distract from the experience itself), your telling of the incident was brilliant. You’re a poet, TDog. For that, I do envy you.
When I was still at school I was haunted by the child that ran out in front of my stopped vehicle and smacked herself into the front fender of the car traveling beside me in the left hand lane! (not an oncoming car, but the other same-direction lane) – I re-told that story to somebody on Sunday. It still seems like it was my fault for stopping. I needed to turn right, so I was about to turn when I saw her crouch down to start running. So I stopped instead of just turning, because I couldn’t decide if she was about to run out in front of me. Ugh. I have visual recordings of certain things in my brain, and that was one I played back for days and days. I can’t see it so vibrantly any longer though.