“My castle crumbled overnight; I brought a knife to a gunfight…” Taylor Swift, “Call It What You Want,” from Reputation.
.
I love Taylor Swift and she helped me see that when you get knocked down by some random wind you have to stand up. Tall. I can do that. I am tall as f*ck.
My room mate Claire helped convince me to “get some b*lls and get back on that f*ckin’ train” after our last journey where I was scared to death by the guy with the knife. Ms. Swift had gotten knocked down. She felt it was because she was not prepared. She prepared herself for the new battle coming…
Claire helped me shave my head. One of the young boys I take care of has cancer and is now bald. I shaved my head and acted like nothing was different. I went about my work.
HE WAS DELIGHTED WHEN HE SAW ME AND HE SHRIEKED!
I asked him how he was doing and he asked, “What did you do to your long hair?” in total disbelief, it seemed.
I replied, simply, “Oh, I changed it.”
He gave me a great big hug.
Claire and I picked out some wigs for me to try on the train…
They all looked bad, but I chose one and decided that would be my new look… Since I am over six feet tall, we thought we would go as a couple. The other riders on the train could decide if I was a White kid with a pretty Black girlfriend—or if we were simply lesbians who hug a lot. I wore NO makeup and Claire wore TOO MUCH.
Nobody said a word to us on the train. We would travel among the homeless and we would fight for them, as needed. That is what we are about. We will tell people about the unhoused people in Chicagoland and we will report on the crazy sh*t that goes on when we travel with our homeless brothers and sisters.
I will defend the homeless and try to spread the word far and wide that it is NOT the homeless on the train that is destroying our world. Our world is going through changes, yes. But the homeless are not the ones at fault.
Yes, there are some out-of-control unhoused people on the Red Line train doing outlandish things and acting like zombies on a mission. These are the unhoused hungry zombies and there might always be people like that. I cannot do anything about them.
I cannot make eggs cost only $1 or make gasoline cost only $2. I can only do what I can do.
For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was write. I love to write—even when my parents told me not to major in anything having to do with writing.
My grandmother (I call her “my Babi,” rhymes with hobby) paid for me to go to an awesome school of journalism and allowed me to spend an extra year taking writing courses in other schools in the university so I could write in different ways. My grandma encourages me all the time to keep going and keep learning. She is my rock.
Thank you, Babi, for letting me take not only writing courses but learning about music theory!
Although many of the unhoused people on the train love music, too, they do not want to hear it on the car where they are trying to sleep…
Claire and I have noticed that even in the “head car” or first car, the operator does not often tell the person playing loud music in the middle of the night to turn their music down.
Even if it is clear the exhausted homeless people are trying to rest, the operator rarely tells the person to turn down their music. Loud phone calls get ignored usually, and the constant stream of idiots walking through the train to sell weed and cigarettes is invisible to the driver too.
The guy with the knife we reported on the other night was out of control. By not confronting him, having him arrested, or even announcing over the speakers that the police would be at a station coming up (Claire said, “tell him they will be at Jackson and that will give him like three different damn stops to get off at…”) the operator was telling him it was “okay” to act that way. Or so some people might think that is what is happening with the operator.
.
(Note to readers: that was not a long run-on sentence. It was a challenge for more advanced readers so they would not get bored during the story. If you did not like the sentence, please go read something else.)
.
It could seem unclear to the reader why the operators let lunatics run around fighting, chasing people with knives, and just generally acting like crazy as*h*les. It seems clear WHY to me and Claire, as we watch this stuff happen every single time we ride the train.
The operators are afraid of the riders.
In some cases, it seems the CTA employee is too afraid to say anything to people. Maybe they will announce over the speakers that “there is no smoking on CTA trains.” Maybe sometimes an operator—especially a big male one—will open the door and say, “Put that out!”
However, most the time the operator seems to avoid talking to the person doing whatever thing—sometimes an outlandish thing—they should not be doing. One reason for the fear, which is probably justified given the out-of-control of many of the riders, is that those riders often have co-conspirators. They can tell their friends and their business partners: “Give the operator who looks like such-and-such a hard time…”
Or they also have a memory. They might see that operator every night—and can bring a knife or stick or gun—to show that the rider is going to “win that argument” that happened the other day.
We did see some K-9 personnel, and a dog, come onto the train, but they walked right back off and got on a different train. At Roosevelt, seemingly the headquarters for a lot of criminal activity, we saw some thugs get on the train—and we saw security personnel on a different car of the same train.
The various security forces—and the police—stay together in tight groups. There are always several personnel of whatever peace-keeping force in a group. There are usually about half a dozen together. They enter the cars with few people—usually sleeping homeless people—and then laugh and scream and joke and flirt and talk on their phones—thereby waking up sleeping Chicago residents who usually have no other place to sleep…
Chatting briefly with homeless persons we have learned long ago that those Chicagoans would much rather have a place to live and a safe place to sleep—somewhere other than the train. We have heard this from many people.
The other night, a young man came onto the train and went to the operators door, jumping up and sitting on the seat back—instead of down on the seat. He started playing his music loudly, and he lit up a cigarette and sat up there, smoking it. The operator said nothing.
Later on the same train, a kid came onto a kid with TWO open bottles of booze. He drank from each, alternately, and the operator ignored him. This “two-fisted drinker” had made his way about half-way through one bottle and almost all the way to stupidity on the second one. He was loud, and he was arguing with another guy, who said he was “going to kick some ass” right away.
This fighter took off his winter coat, then started swinging at the kid drinking the booze. The drinker kept walking backwards, screaming, “I’m not that guy, bro!” He must have screamed this identical phrase 100 times. It seemed to mean he would not fight—or he refused to get hit?
The guy swinging also seemed to be drunk. He had a hard time walking, and as the train raced down the tracks with nobody stopping the “fight” this guy kept weaving and rocking and almost falling on the people sitting there. Some were trying to sleep, others were hoping they wouldn’t get punched or killed.
Through all of this—it lasted for about five stops—the operator ignored the fight and kept the train moving at lightning speed. Finally, the two got off to argue, and the moment they cleared the doors, the operator slammed them and took off like a bullet. The train pitched and bounced along the track and some of the people in the car almost fell out of their seat.
People were cheering. We both breathed a sigh of relief. We started breathing more deeply, like astronauts stepping out of a rescue boat onto dry land.
The operator had whisked us away to safety. Or what seemed like safety in comparison to the fight in which both players were so drunk they could barely stand—but both still seemed dangerous. Getting hit over the head with a bottle of booze is not the best way to enjoy a drink—as a recent victim recently found out!
Operators have a very difficult job, and they are pulled in many different directions. Some people are complaining there are smelly homeless persons on the train. The homeless are complaining there are people playing music loudly and waking them up. Other riders—such as the early morning old biddies leaving from 95th Street and “going to work” are mad at everyone on the train.
Operators have it rough. For these and other reasons, they are often mean to the homeless. Sometimes they do in fact seem inhumane…
Although the operators tend to be mean and judgemental to the homeless, there can be surprises. We saw an operator do something awesome the other night…
When we reached the Howard Station, where the train heads in and waits to be taken back out toward the south, the operator came out of the little booth. He opened the doors, stepped off the train, and then he did something shocking.
HE CLOSED THE DOORS!
This means the sleeping unhoused people would remain WARM while they rested! We had never seen such a thing! Even Claire—who likes to be known for being tough—had misty eyes as we watched that.
WE WERE SO HAPPY THE OPERATOR DID THIS! THERE IS HOPE FOR WOMANKIND! OH, AND FOR MEN, TOO.
Now, recently we did see an operator at the end of the Howard line come out of the booth, open the doors ALL THE WAY SO THEY COULD NOT BE CLOSED BY THE RIDERS BY HAND.
She yelled at another operator at the next train, “Some people gotta be wakin’ up!” and the other operator agreed, saying, “I hear ya!”
Man’s inhumanity to man.
There are indeed some unhappy people out there. Mediocre people who like to bother others as a way to feel powerful. Boring people who feel the need to push others “down” and kick them. Foolish bullies who enjoy making others miserable. Unfulfilled persons with dirty agendas. You get the idea.
Always blaming the homeless. They should not be allowed to sleep anywhere. They should instead just keep walking around like zombies, hungry for sleep.
Whoever came up with the notion of zombies was not creative, was not brilliant. The person was simply remembering when she was homeless, when she was not allowed to sleep, and when she was not allowed to sit down.
You could make movies out of this sh*t!