adina
by adina
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I was heading home from this dinner party in Chelsea It was 3 in the morning,I promised my friend Greg I would take a cab. Thing is, I was broke and there was no way I was going to blow my cash on a taxi ride uptown.I hopped on the #9, all drunk and sleepy and settled into a seat.
Somewhere after Times Square, I was jolted awake by loud voices. Two men had entered the car and they were shouting something like: "Fucking police! Fucking racists!" One of these guys had a bloody nose that was dripping down his T-shirt. As he walked past me, he used the back of his hand and wiped blood across his face.
That night police brutality was fresh in my mind. A guest at the dinner party that night had described being pinned to the ground and cuffed by police officer son Amsterdam Ave on suspicion of buying drugs. [The irony of his story was that he actually had been looking to score cocaine ("I simply must have coke to clean my kitchen") but hadn't found his dealer]. I concluded that the two shouting guys had had a similar run-in with some cops.
Thet made their way down the car. A woman reached into her purse and took out a wad of Kleenex. She handed it to the guy with the bloody nose. Instead of taking it, he started railing on her. "You white piece of shit. All of you are fucking racists. Go to hell."
At this point,a man sitting across from the woman stood up and said: "Don't diss the lady. She was trying to help you, you sack of shit!"
All three men began arguing with each other. My car-mates began exchanging wary glances.When would we pull up to the next station? Then came the motion universally recognized as the single most provocative motion known to mankind: The Poke.
I don't know who initiated the poke, but I suddenly knew it would come to blows. Or worse. I looked away. I mean, I have not been around that many fights, but I know something gruesome follows a poke. And I didn't want to see. The woman across from me looked pretty spooked, too.
Then I heard the strangest thing. A song through the shouting.
I knew that song. It was Amazing Grace. I looked back to the scene of the fight and saw a tiny, hunched-over woman with shopping bags at her feet, hanging onto the pole in front of the men, but facing away from them. Where had she come from? This tiny old woman was belting out her song. And what can I say? My body betrays me in moments of cliche: I had a goose bumps all over.
Then things got surreal. By the time she got to "twas grace that taught my soul to fear", the three men were hugging.I looked around and all of us in the subway car had these dazed smiles on our faces. I was stunned. Such an unlikely moment that it occurred to me that I might be dreaming, so I gave myself the proverbial pinch. Nope. I was there and awake. Two of the men helped the bloodied third into a seat, and the woman tentatively re-offered her Kleenex. This time it was graciously accepted.
Then my stop.
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