Are you gonna take that?!

Riding alone on the metro at night is something I would recommend to anyone who wants a glimpse into humanity at its most fucked-upedness. Being an adventurer (and an alcoholic), I decided it would be a good idea to take the metro around midnight to meet some friends at a bar. My travel was going smoothly enough until I ran into three middle-eastern guys—no, men—who mistook me for their arranged virgin bride back home. At first I decided the best thing would be to ignore their admittedly smooth pick-up lines—it’s not everyday you hear a man say: “If I was your father, I would lock you in the basement to keep you safe from men like me who only want one thing.” You can see how difficult it was for me not to cave in to his advances and start making babies right there on the platform. Alas, I restrained myself and fought them off the best way I knew how….I stared at the ground, at my watch, in my purse, at the ground again and then walked away.

This harkens me back to the sixth grade, when Chiniqua Northorn punched me in the face in the girl’s locker room because I’d told on her for throwing my friend’s clothes in the shower. Most of the girls standing around were waiting for me to take action. “Hit her back!” they yelled, “Are you gonna take that?!”—No, I thought to myself, fuming…I’m NOT going to take that. Chiniqua will be sorry she ever met me. I picked up my bag, stared around for a while, felt my nose to see if it was broken (it wasn’t, I only have heredity to blame for its shape), and walked straight up to the gym coach and told on her…again.

Fast forward to ten minutes later—Ms. Burns’ English class—my nemesis Chiniqua walks up to me and bitch-slaps me in front of the entire class…all gasp, except Ms. Burns, who at that moment is conveniently standing outside the door. Again come the yells, “You gonna take that?!” and my favorite, “She hit you twice!”..by one helpful friend who maybe thought I had suffered amnesia and wanted me to fully appreciate the situation. But I hadn’t forgotten. Although Chiniqua was thoughtful enough to slap me on the opposite side of my face from which she punched me—the pain was still too real. I knew what had to be done. I mustered all my strength, raised my hand, and bellowed “MS. BURNS!”—What happened next is a blur…

All this to say that I am a coward. I am not confrontational in the least, especially when I have no friends to back me up, and as much as I looked around, there was no one on the metro platform I could go and complain to. Hussein and his two friends stumbled around after me making various lewd remarks and giggling like little girls. I remembered a trick my father taught me to tune people out—I started to recite poetry in my head…two roads diverged in a yellow wood and suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door, tis’ some visitor, he muttered as he lay in his blood on the highway...realizing that poetry was not my forte, I began to recite the alphabet instead and this worked until the train showed up.

As I sat on the train, I thought about many things… how men didn’t realize the fear they could instill in a girl by just talking to her when she didn’t want to be bothered, how my father must’ve had the shit kicked outta him as a kid, and how maybe, if there really was a God, Hussein and his posse would unwittingly run into Chiniqua Northorn that night.