Street Car II

I didn’t see her before she screamed, so I don’t know whether she looked different in stillness, whether her cheeks were less red and her eyes less wild before she yelled, “You!” or something like that.  I don’t remember the first word - the one that broke into the hot rumbling quiet of the street car.  After that, we were all primed, so we heard “Get your hands off me!”  Clear as a rock hitting water.  And then, “I am going to kill someone one of these days. I just might do that!” We turned to look, and saw her well trimmed curly hair, her well fitting jeans, her clean enough blouse, her watery eyes and blotchy cheeks. Ruddy. Ruddy is the word one uses for the cheeks of a drunkard.  But she wasn’t a drunkard.

The man sitting next to me had already apologized wordlessly for letting his elbow hit mine, and settled into a slightly more relaxed posture because I said I didn’t mind that his skin connected in a sweaty bond through my sheer blouse to my own skin. His English wasn’t perfect. Nigerian maybe. He only spoke as he was getting ready to leave. “Parliament Street,” he said,  as he pulled  himself up by the seat in front of us. “Have a good day,” I said. He nodded with a tiny smile.

We didn’t speak when she screamed at the top of her lungs, “You are all listening to him!” He’s the one!” We looked together instead, toward a man within our line of sight  who smirked involuntarily and held on a silent, unreciprocated conversation with the crowd. Somebody’s losing it ….  He glanced around - hey dude, dude? Check this out - she’s losing it - hey - heh- uh.
My seat-mate seemed to know about voices in heads. 

He looked down at his strong brown hands, and then, I think, to my face. But I was welling up, so turned just slightly toward the window.  How terrifying it must be to hear what no one else can hear and see clearly something that this oddly calm and disparate and benignly trapped throng of dull-headed people cannot.

When the woman stormed off the streetcar, we all turned to look. Every one of us. She threw her bag down on a metal side walk bench and looked back up at us.  “Worst. Ride. Ever!” She screamed.   Well dressed. Civilized. White. Here. And not here.  Screaming. Screaming perfectly sensible words.

“Have a good day.”  I said to the man who knew about voices in the head. He smiled. He said nothing. Or he said, “you. make. your. way, too. “