When I was waiting for the light rail this morning, a woman walked by carrying a Bible and asked me if I believed in God.
As I boarded the train, I thought to myself, ‘Well, there’s our light rail excitement for the day. Guess we’re safe ‘til next time.’
I was wrong.
Coming home much later in the day, the security guards who happened to be on our train checking passes had to detain a guy who caused a commotion at the other end of the car. I’m not sure what happened, if he tried to fight someone, if he was on drugs or if he just fell ill.
Again I thought to myself, ‘Well, there’s our light rail excitement for the day. Now we’re safe ‘til next time.’
And again, I was wrong.
A few stops later, a man boarded. Most of the seats were taken, but he managed to wedge himself next to a woman who was sprawled out sleeping across a whole row. A couple times I caught him looking at her with a really gentle expression on his face, as if he cared about her.
After another couple stops, he woke her up, telling her that her stuff was next to her and pointing at the bag tucked under her arm.
He seemed to think this was her stop for some reason, and she seemed to not remember where she was supposed to get off. She asked if he’d seen where she got off the previous day, but he said he hadn’t been on the train then. He suggested asking some of the other passengers if they had seen her before.
The train continued on. She abruptly rolled up her sleeves and showed him her forearms, covered in bruises, scratches, and needle marks.
“I went to the doctor today,” she said. “They did this.”
He winced sympathetically. “You must have small veins.”
“I’m going to sue them,” she said.
“Do you want some of this?” he asked, offering her a drink from the large can of beer he had hidden inside a brown paper bag. “It’s OK, they won’t see if you keep it in here. No one is looking.”
I quickly looked away.
She took a long drink, prompting him to chide playfully, “Hey, not all of it!”
She passed the beer back, and he took a drink. It went back and forth a couple times before he finally told her she could finish it.
“Do you have any pills?” he asked.
She didn’t.
“So where are you going?” she asked him.
“To have a good time!” he replied immediately. The invitation was obvious.
“Good.”
“I don’t want to go where everyone else is, you know?”
I never got to hear if she did know what he meant, or if they ended up spending time together, because the train pulled up to my stop right then. I took one last look at them and began my walk home. For both their sakes, I hope they did have a good time that night.
Contact the columnist at ddworth1@asu.edu
