Subway Story (I of II): Drunk.

The other night after an academic reception and then another drink, I was heading home, and like two stops after I got on the subway, this older (black) man in really dirty clothes opens the door between cars and starts staggering around asking people for me.

"THIS IS TWENTY-THOUSAND AND ELEVEN," he would say incredibly loudly at people, "DON'T YOU HAVE ANY MONEY FOR ME? I DON'T HAVE A HOME OR NOTHIN'."

He did this a lot, and would lean in and make (younger white) women nervous - some of them actually hurried off at one stop and ran to a car a few cars down from where he was - and then he went back to the car he came from for a bit, and then he staggered back.

By that time, I was reading a free newspaper, and I was on the "food and drink" section, and I was eating an orange I had peeled while I did so.

"LOOK AT THAT," he said, staggering up to me, holding his hand to the paper, "'FOOD AND DRINK', WHAT'S UP WITH THE FOOD, ALL I NEED IS THE DRINK!", and then he said something about me laying my orange peels on top of my bag (I did that because I didn't have anywhere to put them and I didn't want to litter), but I could do that because it was my bag.

After he yelled at me for like 3-4 minutes, he staggered over and sat down, and some (younger white) woman who had gotten on a few stops earlier was laughing out of nervousness, and this fat late 40s (white) gay guy was looking at him out of the corner of his eye...

At some point the guy got up again, and a bottle of whiskey in a black bag fell out of his coat, and he started yelling and moaning and being like, "OH NO OH NO, THAT GONNA GIVE ME A STROKE!", and as he picked up the bottle, he pointed to all the whiskey that had seeped out onto the floor, while the gay (white) guy shook his head and grimaced.

Then, the homeless guy sat down, and he tipped back the bottle and drank up the 10-12 shots of liquor that were left in it.

Like 5 minutes later he staggered toward the door to another car, and he started saying something about smoking and how he didn't mean to bother anyone, and he let himself out in the space between cars, and at first it seemed like he was going to go onto the next car, but then he just kind of stayed there, and the subway car started going around a curve -

And at that the late 40s white (gay) guy jumped up and was like, "He's drunk, he could fall off the car!", and he ran and opened the door and got the guy out and helped him to his seat, and I felt ashamed I hadn't realized what was happening as quickly and didn't move to do the same. Within a minute the homeless guy was blacked out on the seat.