Coming out at the underground downtown
Berkeley station. A bench full of
boys,
teenagers. Two or three
girls walking in front of me. Boys growing louder and punching each other in the
shoulder. There must be ten of them. They surge up, and one is propelled to the front of the miniature
mob. They're so
loud. He's yelling
MTV endearments at her. He's calling her his
girl. She has never seen him before.
He is suddenly
all over her, touching her
shoulders, her
arms, her
chest.
She stumbles away from him, toward the
tracks. Her
friends do nothing but
giggle in
embarassment. The other
guys are yelling, hooting,
bouncing up and down. She has kept walking all this time, though, and he doesn't stay with her for more than a few
steps. He
swaggers back to his
bench to the shouted
approval of the others. Their single
stare turns back toward the approaching
train, waiting for the next
amusement.
Upstairs I saw a
cop. Cops don't like any sort of
disturbance on the transit system; better yet, this is a six-feet-tall,
female cop. I watched the stream of
commuters ahead of me as they passed the gates and then the cop. Nothing. I've been
debating me the entire time.
I tell the cop, in
mild terms. She looks
peeved and heads for the
stairs.
It was a
strange day.