I wanted to be "Cornteeth" but it was taken

At last, some real urban shit goes down

January 07, 2005 - 3:05 a.m.

I got scurred tonight! Really scurred!

I can’t remember the last time I got scared on the subway. There’s always a certain level of fear living in the city, but it’s really more of an awareness of one’s surroundings. Pay attention to everything, all the time. Learn to daydream while still keeping your peripherals peeled and your back against a wall. It just becomes second nature, every person passes through your criminal filter and if a red flag is raised, you file him into your inbox. Note to self: He is displaying too much confidence, and making eye contact. Watch him.

Tonight I felt in genuine danger, and I am (clearly) not the kind of girl who cries wolf.

I got on the train at midnight and in a split second had assessed my surroundings.

Hello, Mr. Negro Man. We are the only ones in this car.

*regard one another*

Typical late-night cuckoo-rider trying to stay warm and maybe pee himself.

He is behind me. I smell weed.

Station stop. No one gets on.

(Inner dialogue): “Huh. That’s pretty brazen of him. The subway has gotten so much cleaner and safer the last few years, hardly anyone has the balls to smoke, much less weed.”

Station stop. Still alone.

*marijuana fills the air*

*gag*

*headache*

Using all of my six senses, I sense that he is growing agitated and shifting around in his seat. I turn my head halfway and he looks at me. More shifting.

Station stop. No one gets on.

Remember news tidbits…the three subway rapes in Wrigleyville…the woman who was raped on this same line last week, in broad daylight.

How did she describe her attacker?

African-American. 170 lbs. 5’ 10”. Black jacket.

Hurmph.

Describes 20,000 black men.

Six senses are now going haywire, *DING-DING-DING*.

He’s too confident.

He’s too brazen.

I can feel the crazy in the air.

He’s looking right at me.

Station stop-empty.

FYI, black men typically don’t stare at white women in the city, for no other reason than it makes them look like creeps and rapists. Only the real creeps will keep staring once they see you are uncomfortable.

Shit.

He jumps up and runs past me to the front of the car. He sits, facing me, a few feet away.

Uh, oh.

He’s wearing RUBBER GLOVES, like doctor’s gloves.

He’s wearing a mask. Kind of like a doctor’s mask, but more industrial, like someone who does sandblasting for a living, with pull straps at the sides.

My mind: NO DNA! NO DNA! SHIT!

I look down at my hands, which have no fingernails at all, therefore nowhere for me to store his skin cells when I try to claw his face off. I’ve chewed them down to nothing, because of all these damn boys in my life!

I took my mace out of my bag 2 months ago. Arrogance.

I have nothing sharp or pointy on my person.

I am a defenseless idiot.

STATION STOP AND WE’RE STILL ALONE.

I look right into his face and give him the look of, “I ain’t afraid of you nigga. We both live in this city and that makes us comrades, a’ight?”

Crazy Face.

Heart pounding.

He’s completely covered from head to toe, with just his eyes peeping out from behind a black hood and a creepy fucking mask.

OH FEH JESUS.

I have 5 more stops until I’m home. I can’t wait that long.

He jumps up again and runs behind me, and sits two rows behind me.

Ah hell naw. That’s just wrong.

I turn around and look at him and he looks at me. He is carrying a bunch of little tiny plastic baggies full of…stuff. Looks like specimen baggies. Liquid inside. Is that blood? Shifting with his baggies, holding them up and kind of flapping them. Agitated.

FUCK ALL THIS.

There are emergency doors that let you walk from one car to another, but I am deathly afraid of tracks and refuse to use them, because then you are outside, bouncing around on the ledge of a speeding train.

The next stop I jump up and head out the door. I look back at him and he is smiling.

I run up to a car near the front of the train, one that is full of people.

*PHEW*

THANK GOD. Old men, Mexicans, girls, people.

Wonder if he will come into this train car.

Wonder if he will get off at my stop and follow me.

Concerned.

Unfortunately, tonight I have to ride to a different station, where my bike is parked, and then a long ride home. (Long story). Very cold out. Worse neighborhood.

What if he gets off with me?

FINALLY CHRIST it’s my stop.

I stand up and wait for the door to open.

The crazy masked man comes busting into my car through the emergency doors. He runs up and stands right behind me.

Ah-ah-ah-ah, my hair stands on end. I bust out the doors and start hauling to the exit, where I know there is a guard seated behind bullet proof glass.

I look behind me and he’s not there. He stayed on the train, which is now pulling away.

*boggle*

Walk outside into 2 feet of snow. It’s not over yet.

Now all the world is scary. Walk 2 blocks to get my bike. Streets are deserted.

Dead quiet.

10 degrees with a Real Feel of 8. Windy NE.

Hop on my Schwing covered in snow, freeze my bum.

Haul ass.

Now I’m home and I’m too scared to watch my taped episode of Extreme Home Makeover. Too upset.

Write this bullshit instead and save Ty Pennington for another day.

Will go to sleep and have nightmares. Will wake up with irrational fear of Blackie.

G’night ya’ll. Somebody send me a boyfriend.