Prudence or Fear?

I'm a wimp. I don't make waves. On the subway recently I sat at a right angle to (and several seats away from) a large young man. He slouched over two seats, but the car was not crowded, so I didn't begrudge him that extra space. He wore a ball cap pulled over his eyes. And his face was set in a scowl.

 

I noticed him only when I realized that I was hearing really ugly rap music. Two girls and a boy were beyond him in the car, and I hoped that the music was coming from them. (They looked a bit more approachable.) But as I kept glancing up from my reading I had to admit that the music was coming not from the two girls and their friend but from the glowering young man nearer to me. The music was not only truly dreadful, but it was not bleeding from his i-Pod. He had a radio or some device (I never did see it) playing at top volume into the subway car. This was not accidental. You might even say it was provocative.

 

Here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to say to him, in a non-censorious tone, that I did him the favour of not blasting my favourite opera into the public space of a subway car, and I wished he would pay me the same courtesy.

 

Here's what I did: nothing. I was afraid.

 

 

Copyright 2011 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com