This morning, having defused my alarm clock without really having awoke, I was forced to eject my ass out the door at a normally undesired rate of speed. I grabbed what I could, made sure I was clothed and nothing that might get me arrested or slapped was hanging out of my pants and charged the subway station to make my daily commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

I have a personal rule of always riding in the very far front or back cars of the trains in New York City. My theory is two-fold. First, the middle of a train is always the most crowded, much like how when entering a subway car, people take two steps in and stop completely, therefore crowding the entrance while leaving the rest of the train quite spacious. This is due in large part by the fact that people in general are fucking brainless sheep and deserve to die. We of the smarter elite should eat them, but that’s another post. My second reason, by virtue of the first, is that if ever there was a bomb or some crazy-ass motherfucker (aside from my innocent self, of course) decided he wanted to kill a bunch of people, all that shit’s going to go down in the middle of the train because that’s where you can cause the most damage. Call me paranoid, but its a habit I picked up in 2001 for what, at the time, I saw as a very good reason and to this day, I don’t really see a need to change.

So, when the train pulled into the station, I hopped into the very last car. Usually, the train is moderately crowded at it’s ends during the morning rush hour, so I was surprised to find an empty seat available. I looked around and saw at least four people standing nearby. If you get on a train during rush hour in NYC and there’s an empty spot with people standing nearby, understand that something is up.

I checked the empty seat. No spilled coffee or sketchy foreign smears of unknown organic nastiness. No half-eaten chicken wings. Nothing wrong there.

I checked the other occupants of the bench. Two middle-aged Asian ladies speaking mandarin and elderly white man in a ratty tweed coat, knit hat and serious case of ear-hair who appeared to be snoozing. I can handle that. I sat down next to the man and after settling my bag and getting out a book, I started reading. About two minutes later, I was startled by a sound to my right.

“Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuungh!”

It was the old man next to me. I looked over, noticing that his eyes were still closed and aside from the outburst, he still seemed to be sleeping. Whatever, I thought. Old people make fucked up noises all the time—it’s part of being old. I fully intend to make a shitload of disturbing exclamations in my sunset years, so who am I to take offense at his? I went back to my book with part of my brain painting rosy pictures of a withered and ancient visage of myself screeching profanity at children and whipping my catheter tube around like a dangerous weapon.

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Yesterday, I was doing the morning rush-hour commute to the city, hungover, late and addled with lack of sleep. A typical morning for me. I sat there in the subway car, shifting from position to position, trying to find the one magical contortion that would prevent me from blowing massive chunks all over my fellow passengers like a poor man’s metro rendition of “The Exorcist”. A warning to the wise: if you are riding the 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 trains in the morning on a weekday and you see a skinny, pale and sketchy looking white dude with glasses that keeps leaning back and forth, shifting from side to side, make sure to stay out of range. Possibly, you might want to switch subway cars because it very likely could be me, very close to painting you with the contents of my twisted and unhappy stomach. You have been warned.

That morning, my voyage on the good ship nausea was not off to a particularly good start as I sat down in the one free seat in the car to a smell that made me think of the taste one might come up with after licking a few used ashtrays. Whoever had been sitting or had died there prior to my arrival was one hell of a fucking champion cigarette smoker. Perhaps it was the ghost of the Marlboro Man, come to haunt my morning hangovers, who knows, it stank like a motherfucker though.

So, up to my waist in stale cigarette stank, I held it down. Green in the face with a sweat beaded brow, I braved the bumping, the jostling, the screeching and the squealing, holding the lid down on my stomach with an iron will.

Finally, I made it to my last transfer. After switching trains, I only have a few more stops till I can hide behind my desk until death, or lunchtime releases me. I leaned against one of the platform pillars, proud that I’d made it so far without decorating some senior citizen or homeboy with hangover barf. The train arrived. The doors opened and I entered into the welcome air conditioning. Almost there.

Upon entering the car, I see this huge, black young man. He looks at me, smiles and says, “I’m on American Idol!” and proceeds to screech, not quite coherently, Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”, only just the chorus part, over and over, hanging from the bars in the train. As quick as I could, I made to back out the door, but I was too late. The doors shut and I found myself taking a seat, front and center for a one-man diva-thon without the medication.

This guy was clearly having a psychotic episode. Screaming, laughing, squealing his way through those four words much like the guinea pig at a “proctology as chainsaw art” seminar might do.

“Ladies and Gentlemen…I’m on American Idol! AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WIIILLLLLLLLL ALWAAAAAAAAAAYS LOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOUUU!!!! AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Over and over, this crazy fucking nutcase assaulted my eardrums. He screeched so high, it was actually painful and I swear to god, something inside my head ruptured. Fifteen years from now, as I sit on the edge of the exam table and the doctor delivers the bad news of an inoperable brain something or other and asks, “Were you ever exposed to any high-frequency sound?”, I’ll look back and it will all make sense. That nutty squealing bastard will be the death of me.