Odd People and Incidents on Public Transportation Redux

CTA train, Chicago

I was reading a piece lately about some rather deplorable conditions (bedbugs, ew!) and raunchy actions (primarily sex) on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) trains. The evidence originated from those who should know, the operators of the trains.

Now I am a regular rider (both by choice but also because of financial constraints), and I have noticed some odd behavior lately, and one could possibly attribute some of the aggressive behavior to the polarized climate of stress since the last election, but let's face it, the transportation is for the public. And no one in a public environment is ever completely placid and uniform, despite the presence of certain social etiquette mores.

I won't discuss the panhandlers or persons who sadly are suffering from some form of mental illness, specifically, as they, regardless of their individual backstories, have always been a constant presence on the subway. I will instead focus and comment on the more odd, and one even charming, people and actions I have noticed through the years.

A heavyset African guy plugged into headphones was falling asleep. His head gradually ended up on the shoulder of a young woman sitting next to him. She actually responded nicely, gently nudging him, and I heard her say, “You were falling asleep.” He looked dazed and immediately shut his eyes again. This falling asleep on people is not uncommon; a former coworker of mine told me she did the same, and she told me the nice elderly woman next to her just let her rest that way through most of the journey. I have never fallen asleep on anyone on the subway, though I have often through about resting my head on the chest and shoulders of a few hot guys here and there on various trips.
 

Two men leaning against each other on subway train

One rush hour, on a particularly crowded train car, a woman began flossing her teeth. I think this action ranks with the bedbugs. People were so jammed in and in obvious discomfort that this action went unnoticed, though a heard a few tsking sounds here and there. Ew!

I overheard a woman (and yes, I was listening), overall rather in coarse in clothing and flat of voice, firing someone. Yes, on a cellphone, and yes, on the subway. The corporate jargon words and phrases I heard included, “I don't think this position is working out for you.... as a manager, I've felt the need to discuss what is going on with you recently.... you are just not a good fit for us right now.” On the subway? Come on! Where is the sense of proportion, boundaries?

I've noticed these three incidents involved boundaries. People are doing actions in public that one normally does in private, either at home in the bedroom or the bathroom, or in an office.

And speaking of boundaries, I must admit, I've never seen any overt sexual activity on the subway, and I really don't remember any particularly passionate public displays of affection. But then, I don't take the CTA that late, when more of these incidents might occur, the results perhaps of intoxication other factors that cause one to break taboos.

And lately, because the majority of the riders are plugged into phones (perhaps the new conventional subway behavior), certain actions tend to stick out more, even a conversation. For example, I overheard a heated conversation between high school boys who looked like conventional nerds with big thick glasses, 90-pound weaklings who would get sand kicked in their faces by jocks, about obscure astronomical data. Something about orbits and velocity. Really advanced math. Well, in a few years, these kids will be making the big bucks and never have to ride the subway again.

Still, in my subway observations and musing, I would rather fantasize about the more conventional hot young business guys in their tight dress pants and gleaming brown derby shoes or the rougher types in athletic gear freeballing.
 

Manspreading guy in athletic gear

People on the subway have come a long way since Ethel refused to ride it in blue jeans when she had to take Lucy, vaguely disguised as a beekeeper, to the silversmith. Lucy had somehow gotten a loving cup/trophy stuck on her head.
 

Lucy on subway with loving cup on her head

But that's so much interesting than staring at a phone screen, eh?

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Weird People on the Bus

 

 

I Love Lucy subway image - woman wearing a vase on her head on a train with passengers staring at her


I've noticed lately there's almost a cult on youtube of people filming antisocial behavior on public transportation. The range of antisocial behavior is wide, but of course obvious brawls accompanied by foul language are almost sure to go viral, or at least get multitudinous views. 

Not surprising, this trend, in a world where senior citizen middle school bus monitors are brutally scapegoated (the Karen Klein incident) or where a girl is brutally attacked by her peers (not in public, but the video was disseminated on the Internet), and her attackers are even thrilled when they end up on the news after they get arrested (see the Lifetime movie, Girl Fight, based of course on a true story). Overall, these incidents (and many others) point to a disturbing pathology of voyeurism and narcissism. 
 

Karen Klein on bus - video stills

I'm not necessarily espousing the view of many “Make America Great Again” people who support the (ah, so ironic given my opinion here, the vulgar boor "President") where American was supposedly a kinder, gentler (maybe the word is genteel), less narcissistic place in their white bread 1950s. But in the days when one got dressed up to go outside (remember, Ethel Mertz would never wear blue jeans on the subway), one wonders if one's clothing might somehow reflect or even monitor one's behavior. Of course, one can act like a brute in a suit (again, look at the vulgar boor), but still, I wonder. 


I do wonder how many fights occurred on buses in the 1950s. But then, one couldn't just immediately whip out a phone and film them for posterity. 

Cell phone footage still from CTA bus fight

But when one takes “public transportation,” and in Chicago, that means the CTA (Chicago Transportation Authority), one is exposed to a vast array of people and their behavior. And in Chicago, especially, where “public transportation” is considered to be the province of lower-status people, there's a stigma. 

 

Crowded public transportation


One takes the bus only when one is too poor to own a car, or disabled, or old, or very young, or non-white. And one only takes it when one's car breaks down. And it's almost like if you own a car, even in densely populated areas where you don't really need one, you've made it. And the high-end developments going up almost always contain garages. 

And in Chicago, certain bus lines are stigmatized in the stigmatized CTA system and those who take it. The number 36, Broadway, carries a reputation for being the bus “weirdos” take. Yet that bus goes through an area of Chicago, Uptown, an area especially hard hit by the lack of governmental funding for certain programs released mentally disturbed people onto the streets from shelters and other facilities. 

I'm not certain which other routes carry this stigma, and I don't want to overgeneralize that buses in underserved areas carry passengers who are necessarily more dangerous or “weird.” Well, there was the woman on one bus on the South Side who claimed to be a bike; see this photo. 
 

Woman riding on bike rack on CTA bus

Anyway, I've been taking the CTA for a long time (for multiple reasons, and I fit some of the stereotypes of those who take it), and I've seen much, but an incident that occurred on the number 81, Lawrence bus, (which travels through one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Chicago) stood out. 
 

Number 81 Lawrence CTA bus

I was waiting for it with my friend from out of town. We had just returned from the casino. We saw a frowsy older woman (maybe sixtyish) with very short hair and very thick round coke-bottle glasses practically leap in front of the bus as it pulled into the terminal; yes, she leaped right in front of the yellow line. The sign tells you to not cross that yellow line. The bus driver, a heavyset African-American woman, yelled at her, harshly, claiming that she had almost hit her as the bus pulled in because she crossed the line. I got the sense this woman takes this bus regularly and always disobeys the sign, and may have been almost hit previous times as the bus pulled in. I heard her respond snarkily to the bus driver, “I have to be the first on the bus.” Uh, OK ... 

Yes, she was, and she sat down and pulled out what looked like some kind of Christian fundamentalist tract from one of her multiple bags (yes, a cliché, but watch for multiple bags, and I don't mean newly minted bags from a recent shopping trips to Macy's or Bloomingdales). My friend (we were sitting a couple of seat pairs behind her) saw she had made many notes on one of the pages. The theme of the tract was the usual societal decay apocalyptic doom end of the world scenario, and my friend later told me he was able to even decipher one of her notes on a section of the tract: It's the television, the source of evil. 

I must claim, though, based on what I said about these viral videos, she may not be that far off track, but I imagined her sitting in her tiny apartment wearing a tin foil hat monitoring the Satanic messages coming in from a test pattern. 

But then, and this is where her behavior became really bizarre and offensive, a young Hispanic woman got on with a baby in a stroller. The woman with the baby pulled down the disabled seats right in front of the weird woman so she could get the stroller out of everyone's way. The weird woman proceeded to hold her nose. She then retrieved from one of her multiple bags a small, sample-size container of Lysol and spray it around her. 
 

Lysol

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My mouth remained open. Shock. 

Weird woman exited at Pulaski and Lawrence, not exactly a high-class area. In fact, it looked rather overcrowded and depressed. Gentrification had not arrived. Many people were thus waiting for buses. 

And no, I did not film this incident. I'm not sure what conclusions I can draw, but I get the sense, other than that the woman was obviously disturbed, that perhaps she was one of the people who lived around Pulaski and Lawrence in the sixties or even the fifties when the area was white, and I think, predominately Jewish. And she was still living there. But the world changed around her. She couldn't embrace the change as positive and took refuge in a reality that could be safe only by through segregation and scapegoating. 

And this disturbing dynamic is still occurring as youtubers film and view videos that show “the other” as someone or, more accurately, something, to be mocked and dehumanized by not only physical strangers, but by millions, even billions of impersonal, invisible voyeurs. 

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