Dirty Eyes and One Treacherous Finger

The train car rocked back and forth as it rolled over the track towards it's various destinations. At every stop, one group of spent financial invalids were returned to their hives and exchanged for the tomb sweepers of the economy. It was the ten o'clock hour and a day of work had been exhausting. My eyes were closed and my body was in tune with the sway of the train. When the train arrived at my station I stepped off and began walking toward the escalator. Four steps before my foot would find the platform that would soon become a stair, I looked up from the ground and found the first pair of glaring eyes. They were slighting and prejudiced. Each one was an open book that was being written by the shaky hand of a pretentious fraud. The title: Confessions of the wanna-be thug. Behind this lanky, giant, glass body walked two others.

At the top of the escalator an inclination to turn around came over me. I found all three young men doing the same. They were going in the opposite direction toward the train. There was some nudging about them until one gave me the finger. My body became hot and my legs uncontrollably hurried up the remaining stairs. I took my headphones off and wrapped them around my ipod then put it in my pocket. By now I was already down the first escalator and was taking my sweater off as I descended the second toward the boys on the platform where people would be waiting for the train to take them back to their hives.

I stood behind the giant and waited. None of them looked long but all took notice of the familiar eyes standing uncomfortably close and now rabid. I noticed a co-worker in front of the line waiting for his train. "Shit, I can't just hit this guy in front of a work mate", I say to myself. " What will he think? How would I explain this at work? Wait... what am I doing? "Did I just say mate?"

This made me cooler but I was still hot, I was up, I wanted blood and I didn't know why. Where are the middle fingers now, you gutless shits? The first train arrived and neither of the three boys got on. The giant skeleton, only a year or two out of high school, moves aside and makes a more than polite gesture that signals this is not their train and for me to board in front of them.

"I'm good right here, fuck tard".

He turns around and joins his friends in silent fear. I could smell it. We could all smell it. They had watched to many movies they didn't understand and I had pent up frustration waiting for release. The second train came and I watched them board. As the doors closed the three boys all took out their cell phones and looked up find relief in my presence not on the train. I let my eyes meet theirs for one last time. No middle fingers, no nudging, no words. I went back up the escalator to hot to sleep. I walked down the street to the bar and had a beer.