The direct interaction wasn’t particularly interesting; a Caucasian female early 20’s, working in a salad bar said “Nice tattoo” as she gave me my lunch. I’ve been listing my interactions in chronological order, but for today I’m going to switch it around, because one was amusing and the other was pretty intense, so I’m listing the amusing one first, even though it happened in the late afternoon:
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I was hurrying to meet Matthue and his family at a café near my house, and had to skirt around a group of about three adults and two children. A little girl of about six or seven turned as I approached. Her eyes grew very wide and she grabbed her mother’s hand. From her expression, I was expecting a reaction of fear, but she surprised me: “Mommy! Look out! Here comes a rock star! Mommy, mommy it’s a rock star!”
I smiled, (trying VERY hard to keep my composure) and said “No, sweetie, I’m not a rock star, but I really wanted to be one when I was your age.” Her mother and I smiled at each other, and as soon as I was out of earshot, burst out laughing. I glimpsed myself in a window: black tank-top, black cords, black boots, camo shoulder bag and cotton-candy pink hair with major roots, and of course my ears and ink, and thought: “Yeah, if I was seven I’d think I was a rock star too.” I remembered being six and dreaming of being Boy George, and how embarrassed when a hostess at a restaurant caught me singing “Karma Chameleon” as I waited for a table with my parents because I didn’t think anyone was listening…then I was at the café.
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I’m a creature of strange and particular habits. For example: on the train I always like to sit in the center of the car facing forward; where I get on in the morning, those seats are usually available. But when I got on Friday, I noticed an empty seat on the opposite side in the back facing forward, and thought I’d mix it up. I was deeply engrossed in a book, and several stops into my commute lifted my head to stretch. I rotated my neck clockwise and something caught my eye, so I did a double take.
The man across the aisle in the single seat facing outwards (not forward) was masturbating. I don’t mean rubbing his crotch through his jeans. No, this gentleman was, in fact, rocking out with his cock out. Way out.
I gasped and snapped my head back to my book. My first thought was “Holy shit! There’s a guy across the aisle JERKING OFF!” My instinct was to switch seats or even cars. A sliver of instinct wanted to yell, but something stopped me. I examined the situation:
*He wasn’t being invasive or threatening.
*He wasn’t making noise or otherwise calling attention to himself.
*I would have been completely oblivious if I hadn’t stretched my neck.
Then I realized I was shocked, but not particularly offended. If anything, I was annoyed because I really wanted to return to my book, but the guy jerking off (I kept an eye on where his feet were in my peripheral vision) made concentration impossible. Plus, I really wanted to crack my neck again; I’d gone dancing the night before, got in late and slept poorly.
He was obviously a seasoned exhibitionist. He knew which seat to seat in; he was holding a daily paper (nice to know it’s useful for something) in his right hand to make it look to the rest of the car like he was reading. He saw me see him, but he never said anything. He exited the train before it went underground, all zipped up and composed. It was fascinating. I almost wanted to tell the next person who sat in that seat, but that would have violated the unspoken fiction urban transit riders construct: unless we see evidence of the person before us, we need to believe there was nobody in a seat before we sat there.
This is related to a lot of the reading and thinking I’ve been doing lately about social constructs, behavior and the body: why was my first reaction to a man quietly ‘reading a paper’ and masturbating, more visceral than a person on the train shouting obscenities or aggressively panhandling? Why is my first response to the latter to grit my teeth and roll my eyes, and my response to the former to run?
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