Chivalry

“Are you a she male? You know, one of those transvestites or something?”

I pause my iPod and look across the aisle. A scabby faced man had moved from the back of the max to sit next to a young woman wearing too much makeup and not enough skirt. His face is close to hers, dangerously close, and the young woman scoots in her seat, back against the window. She stammers a quiet “no,” her face red, redder than the thick rouge smattered across her cheeks. The man pulls down his black hood and moves in closer.

“Do you still have your cock? You can tell me, I’m not gonna judge.”

I scan the train, hoping to see other passengers with worried looks on their faces, ready to intervene, but they’re all in mass transit mode, heads down, avoiding eye contact.

“I like chicks with dicks. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

I take off my headphones and turn towards the aisle, hands shaking. They shake partly out of fear and adrenaline, but also from the steroids I have to take to keep my immune system from attacking my body. I am almost two years on the other side of a bone marrow transplant, still dealing with the complications, my body weak and atrophied from convalescing. The man is large and unnaturally energetic, head darting from side to side, arms waving emphatically.

“What’s wrong with you? Leave her alone.”

The voice comes not from me, but a teenager sitting with several of her friends a few rows back. The man in the black hood gets up and walks over to the girl, inches from her face.

“Fuck you, you little bitch. I’ll make you suck my dick.”

“Fuck you too asshole, you can eat my pussy.”

She gives it back as good as she gets, although I can’t help but think the oral sex insults don’t carry the same weight cross gender. The man gets off at the next stop, flustered and fuming at being shown up by a teenage girl, and I feel a little embarrassed as well, too caught up in my own insecurities to do what I should have done. I think to myself, “If he had touched either of those girls, I’d have done something. I’d have done something.”

I step off the train and start walking. The man in the black hood turns the corner heading towards me from his stop a few blocks back. His hood is up, his scabby face dark under the streetlamp’s light.

“What are you looking at faggot?”

I stop walking, pause my iPod, and take off my headphones. I say nothing. He gets right in my face.

“What are you gonna do fag? I could fuck you up and steal your shit, you faggot motherfucker.”

I am quiet and still, completely frozen. He seems large, immeasurably large, and I’m swallowed up in his shadow. I stare at his face, at his scabbed and pocked cheeks. In these kind of moments the fight or flight instinct is supposed to kick in, but I have neither. He clears his throat and spits in my face. It is hot and thick and pungent. He walks off, muttering “fucking faggot.”

I wipe the spittle from my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater. People walk by me, heads down, striding confidently to wherever they’re headed. I take a few deep breaths and walk to a nearby pub to find a bathroom. I turn the faucet for the hot water, let it run until it’s steaming, and scrub my face raw.