The Quiet Car

     On the quiet car there are signs about how to be quiet; directions, suggestions, vague pleadings…
     On the quiet car there are announcements about the quiet car; how to recognize that you are in the quiet car if you've missed the six or seven signs hanging from the low ceiling along the aisles.
     The quiet car is mostly quiet. Mostly. This alone is a fair indicator that you have found your way into the quiet car if you happened to wend your way onto it by accident or, as is the case on many occasions, you never even knew there was such a thing as the quiet car.
     There are occasionally other things beside quiet on the quiet car. There are brawls on the quiet car; screaming matches, arguments, altercations and insults – a lot of insults… oh boy.
     Even though it is the quiet car, there is enough noise and hubbub to go around.
     The quiet car is an experiment in human behavior: It is an experiment in perception, a study on relativity, a closed environment within which the gangly, untamed aspects of our minds and bodies meet the rigors of defining reality inside a steel drum filled with folks who believe that their reality is the reality, and if you don't like it after one polite try you can go to hell…
     It has to be said that about eighty percent of the people who sit in the quiet car just want to be quiet, know how to be quiet, and respect the idea that you don't have to make noise to exist. A small percentage of those gentle folks also understand that it is not necessary to elicit any reaction at all from the universe to confirm our own existence. Believe it or not, I also suspect that there is a fraction of those few who can also sit quietly without a care this way or that way regarding existence, life, or the idea that any kind of idea might be required for any reason whatsoever.
     And then there are the rest of us.
     The page turners, nose pickers, game players, bag-snackers, foot tappers, heavy breathers, mumblers, fumblers, make-up artists, typers (there I am), scribblers, tic-jockeys, nail clippers, pencil nibblers, coffee sippers, sneezers, wheezers, nail biters…
     Seat kickers…
     Page turners…
     “Excuse me! I said, excuse me!”
     There is a woman, sixty, grey hair pulled back into bun so tight her face has gone red, and she is up out of her seat, pitched forward, pinched face snapping out vicious words at a pair of  middle-aged women who have just boarded the train with some great volume and have announced to everyone in the car that they are aware it is the quiet car but they are bellowing all the same.
     “It's ok, it's fine, we can talk! So Daisy hasn't gone, you know – number two – in six days. I'm beginning to think I might have to take her to the doctor…”
     “I said, excuse me!” The pinched face woman is leaning over me, her bony elbow knocking me in the head as she jabs a finger at the women. “It's not okay! Shhhhhhhhh!”
     She’s shushing them with enough violence to stimulate an anurism, which is what seems to have happened because she’s rolling her eyes at anyone will look at her. She sits back down and exhales herself inside out.
     The two women are not impressed.
     “That was rude.”
     “Who does she think she is?”
     “Anyhow, about Daisy;  if I could get her out of bed I'd take her to the doctor…”
     This sort of thing happens routinely. It is common rudeness. It is large and grotesque and very obvious. There are few surprises aside from the scope of grandeur and the amount of hostility some people have stored up for immediate use, for any reason, just dare me, go ahead and dare me!
     But the page turners and the others, so very many others…
     These are folks who seem to have a deep-rooted, sulfur-in-the-marrow kind of suffering that can only be exorcised by exhibiting the most heinous acts of passive aggressive behavior that can be displayed on the 7:14 into Grand Central Station.
     “Excuse me! Excuse me!”
     These are deeply troubled people who have squashed their loathsome aggression down so hard they are like Daisy, poor, poor, Daisy…
     “Excuse me! This is the quiet car!”
     These are people who are tired of love, tired of God, tired of pretending every single day that can make it, with smiles, to the end of the road and greet death with a firm and cordial handshake before slipping, headfirst, into the great beyond.
     “I haven't said a word!” shouts the man with the newspaper. He is offended and slashes his newspaper about like a sword. Another man stands up a few rows forward. He's large and pale and clenching his fists.
     “Knock it off! This is the quiet car! What's the matter with you people!”
     The pinched woman snicskers and wipes some drool from her mouth with the sleeve of her worn, pink  sweater. “It's a racket!”
     “Why don't you sit down and shut up!” says the man with the newspaper. He's smashing the folded paper against his knee. It's the anger, it's rising, the smell of sulfur, burning steel. “Just shut up cause you’re the one making all the noise!”
     This is how it opens up. Those on the edge get baited in. Others hold on tight to their sanity knowing how slippery a sloppy slope this can be.
There is a fracas on the quiet car.
     Again.

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