Paul, I have been putting off writing about this because it sincerely upset me so bad.

So, after we spent the first half of the day at Luna Park and then rested a bit at the hotel, we walked to the nearest train station so we could go into Manhattan. However, the one we needed to get had a sign up that said it wasn’t servicing Manhattan that week until after 3:30PM because of track something or other. I stopped reading the sign. The alternative was to take the train the opposite direction to Coney Island and then transfer to another train that runs to Manhattan. It was either that or stand there for 30 minutes, which honestly would have been the smart thing to do.

But instead, we got off at Coney Island and then immediately crossed over the platform to another train that was just sitting there waiting. This station is the end of the line so it was really nice to get on empty trains every time!

Anyway, we had JUST sat down in the mostly empty car when there was a really loud and angry scream from outside on the platform. Then the owner of the scream came STORMING onto the train. Two people were like, “Nope, nuh-uh” and swan-leapt out of train just as the doors were closing.

Wish that had been us, but instead, we were now stuck in this car with a RAVING MAD PERSON who was screaming literal death threats at someone we couldn’t see. I don’t think he was on the phone. I think he was having an actual psychotic break.

There were two older men who were sitting near him and, after exchanging a look, got up and walked to the other side of the car. This left NO BUFFER between Mr. Manifesto and us. On the other side of us were maybe 10 other people. I kept making eye contact with a woman sitting cattycorner from Henry who had the misfortune of FACING the man. None of us made a move.  And at this point, after jumping reflectively each time he PUNCHED THE SIDE OF THE CAR WITH HIS BARE FIST, I was afraid of calling attention to myself by trying to move further into the car.

He also had a backpack which is never a scary thing. Nope, we’re not scared of screaming, furious men with backpacks.

I will say that he was a man of a certain religion based on his attire, and white, but from what I could piece together his raging didn’t seem religiously motivated, unless he was accusing Mother Mary of fucking someone else. Because that seemed to be the impetus here—someone had cheated on him and he was going to burn their fucking house down, kill them, kill himself, burn it all.

It was this, over and over again, while he paced up and down, back and forth, picked up his backpack, slammed his backpack onto the floor, punched the metal wall.

There was an MTA worker who kept a watchful eye on the situation from the window in between our car and the next, but like…was she calling the police? What was going to happen? My pulse was off the charts. Henry and I held eye contact from across the car and all I could think was, “Is this it? Is this how we die? Are we all going to be killed because I just HAD to come here for my birthday? I dragged them to Brooklyn and now we’re going to get gunned down?”

Of-fucking-course this train had ZERO STOPS for what felt like 15 minutes. I was staring out of the window  next to Henry’s head, thinking over and over inside of my head, “PLEASE DON’T KILL US, PLEASE DON’T KILL US, PLEASE DON’T HAVE A GUN. OR A KNIFE. OR A BOMB.”

OK look, pretend like Chooch is bigger than me or that this was 2016. My Mom Brain still pictures him as a 10-year-old.

This man NEVER STOPPED. I was jolted out of my cower from yet another loud punch or aggressive hurl of his backpack, like a kid hiding in their room from an alcoholic parent. (I always go right to that analogy even though my parents aren’t alcoholics but my birth dad—who died when I was 3—was, so maybe I have subconscious trauma stemming from that, 47 years later. And now this HAVING A BAD DAY guy on the New York subway was triggering THE FUCK out of me. I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t on the verge of tears.

I didn’t even try to set my phone to record because I didn’t want to make any sudden movement that would draw attention to us. For the most part, it seemed like he didn’t notice the existence of anyone on our end of the car and I wanted to keep it that way.

Finally—F I N A L L Y—the train came to a stop and almost ALL of us in that car hurled ourselves out of the door and ran into the next car. I canNOT believe some people stayed on, but those of us who escaped all shared knowing looks with each other while sitting down in our new threat-free car. And then, maybe 8 stops later, another person from our original car got on and all I could think was, “GIRL, how did you last that long on there with him???”

I have no idea whatever happened to him after that. I hope he didn’t actually go and burn down someone’s house. But you know I am not exaggerating when even Henry and Chooch were like, “JFC.” Henry wasn’t concerned that we were going to die though. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you,” he said.

“OH WOW SO YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE A BULLET FOR US?!” I cried.

“He did not have a gun,” Henry said calmly. OMG you guys I can’t believe I have been with Henry all this time and didn’t know until now that he has x-ray vision and scanned the man’s backpack from a distance with nothing but his bare eyeballs.

Once we got closer into the city, the doors opened and a man walked on with a fifth of something or other in a bag and a speak blasting THE BEST 80s and 90s r&b. It was the complete opposite end of the spectrum from that other guy and I finally felt my shoulders sink a little bit because this guys BROUGHT THE VIBES. Granted, he was blitzed AF, but there were a few of us who were seat-dancing a little bit because he was playing the JAMS.

Please enjoy these two short Charmera videos with extra shitty audio quality:

I kept hoping he would spill his subway hootch on Henry LOL.

Come on, though—CHAKA KHAN!

While the other guy was hands down the lowest of lows on this trip, this guy was one of the highest (probably literally lol). I wish he knew how much he improved my day—I was so sad when he got off before our stop! I will always think of him when I hear this song now.

I mean, in the end, it felt like we had a very authentic NYC subway/train experience. So, there’s that!

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