Subway Terror

So I’m riding the New York City Subway, just minding my own business on a downtown D, when the train pulls to a stop at West Fourth. A guy with a greying, red combover boards and something about this guy puts me on high alert. Perhaps it’s his blue, lifeless eyes — like the eyes of a Siberian Husky — and an expression that seems devoid of humanity. Over the muffled din of the station identification, I can hear him muttering in a foreign language that sounds like Russian. The doors close and while the train is still accelerating, he walks right up to a baby stroller and punches the baby.

Before I can get over my shock — first over what he did, and then over how the rest of the passengers didn’t seem to care — he punches the baby again.

I knew that I had to do something.

Growing up in Paterson, New Jersey, I never stacked up as a fighter, but what does that matter when someone is punching a baby? Besides, this guy looks about seventy, and he’s a half-foot shorter than me. Furthermore, the guy next to me is as big as a bouncer and so I nudge him with a nod to enlist his help, figuring that our course of action, together, is obvious and a fait accompli. But when I move to get up, The Big Guy claps a meaty hand down on my thigh.

“That guy is crazy,” The Big Guy says.

“Obviously he’s crazy!” I retort, moving again to get up, but The Big Guy presses down, pinning me to the seat.

“He might be armed,” The Big Guy says. “Did you ever think about that?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I yell, grabbing his wrist. “And what the hell is wrong with all the rest of you?!” I call out to the other passengers, who — most maddeningly — just keep their faces in their phones. “That guy is PUNCHING that baby!”

One passenger looks up from his phone to cast a pitying and annoyed glance in my direction, as though I were the crazy person.

“We have to stop him!” I again say to The Big Guy.

“Look,” he says. “We all support the baby. All of us. Every single person in this car stands with that baby. And NO ONE is going to drink Russian vodka for like, a month.”

“What are you talking about? We have to stop him RIGHT NOW!”

“We can’t,” he said.

“Why?!”

“Because that baby-” he shakes his head. “-is not a member of NATO.”

“THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY?!”

His eyes then tighten on mine as though I’m the dimmest, most hopeless case ever. “That baby-” he points, “is not a member of the Naturally Athletic Toddler Organization.”

“WHAT?!”

“Just so you know,” he says, “I think it’s wrong that we value athletes above other kids but that’s what we do. You see that baby over there?” He then points out a stroller at the other end of the car. “That’s a member baby. And if that guy were to punch that baby. It’s on. Believe me. You, me, this whole car — we will take that guy DOWN. And he knows that. But I’ll remind you: This baby is not a member baby. And like I said, we don’t know if he’s armed. And so long as he’s just punching a nonmember baby, we can’t risk having that guy go nuclear on us.”

“WHA?… Why?…” I didn’t even know where to begin. “How can you tell which baby is a member baby?!”

“I’ve got babydar,” he says. “Everybody does. Except you, obviously. I mean look at the femurs on that kid.”

“So…we’re just gonna…sit here? And watch that guy punch a baby?”

“No one is making you watch!” The Big Guy says, losing his cool. He lets out a sigh and brings a hand across his forehead, pivoting closer to me. “Why don’t you just look at your phone like everyone else?” He gestures at the other passengers scrolling in their own personal glow. “Aren’t you on TikTok?”

“NO I’M NOT ON TIKTOK!” I grab his wrist with both of my hands, putting everything I’ve got into freeing myself, but I couldn’t even budge his iron grip.

“I don’t get it,” I say, on the verge of tears. “Punching babies is bad… Right?”

“It’s horrible,” The Big Guy says. “It’s like the worst thing. That and when people misuse the word ‘literally.’ You know, like when they say ‘My head was literally spinning,’ when of course that only ever happened to Linda Blair in The Exorcist. People need to know that when their goal is emphasis, they should literally stick to expressions that still adhere to the general laws of-”

“THIS IS NOT THE TIME!” I scream. Then I draw a breath and try to focus. “So…let me get this straight: Even though all of us could easily overpower that guy, we’re instead going to just sit here and do NOTHING. But! If he starts punching that member baby over there, THEN we go Defcon 5 on him?”

“I’m just not sure why it took you so long to understand that.”

The Baby Puncher then steps away from the stroller and locks eyes with me before breaking into a series of Judo moves, culminating in a somersault — like one of the “Showtime! Showtime!” kids — before uncurling upright in front of me. He’s gripping the bars on either side of my seat, his blank, robot expression taking on a menacing look as he leans toward me, treating me to a full course of spittle as he proclaims in his heavily-accented and monotone English:

“I protect baby from Nazis on train.”

Then he somersaults back to the stroller and draws his fist back for another punch when a siren begins to blare.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

And then The Big Guy morphs in to Joe Biden saying “Listen, man…”

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!

And that’s when my alarm wakes me from my bizarre and vivid nightmare.

In the kitchen, I make some coffee, power on my computer, and then take in the grim news of the war. Not the one in Ukraine — the war in Yemen, waged by the Saudis, for which the U.S. has provided intelligence, logistical support, and damn near all the weapons that have been used to target and kill so many civilians that prominent people in The State Department have publicly feared that the U.S. could face war-crimes charges for our support.

Maybe I should just get on TikTok instead.