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Fear & Self-Loathing in Terminus
Jul. 2nd, 2014 12:20 amDespite the hard authority he was trying to project the kid didn't look old enough to drink much less have on the uniform that came with the pistol he had trained on me with both hands. His hands shook. It was even money that he hadn't had pussy since pussy had him, yet here we were. Him, the MARTA cop rookie standing on the Five Points Platform with his sidearm drawn on me. Me with my back to him, arms frozen with the doors to the Eastbound that was about slam in my face pried open by my hands and gaze locked over the shoulder at a situation quickly heading South.
"I'm going to ask you again, sir." His voice the voice of a hundred hall-monitors finally given a badge to do all those beautiful things their collective balls could not. "Step back away from the doors and wait for the next train."
Terror. Nausea. Lungs burning off oxygen quicker than they could pump it in. Heart cocaine fast with none of the numb flash of bravado. Muscles that would have openly trembled had they not been locked on keeping the door pried open. Yet not once did I so much as blink or shed a drop of sweat when I told him flatly - "No."
"Sir." He stepped forward cocking the hammer back.
"No." I repeated louder stopping him in his tracks. "I can't. I won't. See, here's how this is gonna work. I'm taking not only this train but this fucking moment as well. Not just from you and your pussy ass gun, not just from MARTA with its four fucking hours of my day pissed away already, not just from every minute stolen by every asshole in this city who sees me not as a person but a type of person, but from anyone's who's either wasted my time or been too busy to care when I needed them. So, shoot if you gotta shoot. But this? This is my fucking train and my fucking moment to catch it."
"Please son, that's no way to talk." A bespectacled priest spoke softly to me from the crowd pressed into the car of the Eastbound. "Your death would only serve to impede us further from getting home to catch the last few minutes of the big game and that would be the real sin."
"Damn, why ya gotta be a lil bitch about it." A young man protested adjacent to the priest after emerging from his phone, "Just catch the next train. What's the big deal?"
"Hey!" A young woman shouldered through the crowd to get right in my face. "Never mind all that. What if he shoots and misses you but hits one of us? Did you think about that? Huh, you selfish bastard?"
"Ma'am." I turned to look her dead in the eyes and winked. "I assure you no one has missed me in a long, long time."
This didn't get the chuckle it gave me b to go full strength. I pried the doors open further. The pneumatics of the train fought me every inch of the way with the doors binging in protest and the rookie behind me yapping away. All "Sir" this. All "Stop" that. It didn't matter. It's not the anger that makes me strong. It's not even the fear or the regret anymore. I'm fueled from a place much colder, a place I belong, a room without a door that only I can enter and stepping into it I stepped onboard the Eastbound.
Turning around I saw the rookie still frozen in his advance with pistol gun aimed in hands that clearly no longer trembled.
With the unforgivable heat of several dozen glares upon my stance, I snapped the kid a salute waiting to see what his next move would be.
What I got was another mechanical sigh off the train as the doors truncated us irrevocably from one another. Salute severed, then a lurch of gravity, a shudder forward, the rookie vanished as we were sucked out of the subterranean and into the light. Next stop Georgia State Station and back to the reality.
"I'm going to ask you again, sir." His voice the voice of a hundred hall-monitors finally given a badge to do all those beautiful things their collective balls could not. "Step back away from the doors and wait for the next train."
Terror. Nausea. Lungs burning off oxygen quicker than they could pump it in. Heart cocaine fast with none of the numb flash of bravado. Muscles that would have openly trembled had they not been locked on keeping the door pried open. Yet not once did I so much as blink or shed a drop of sweat when I told him flatly - "No."
"Sir." He stepped forward cocking the hammer back.
"No." I repeated louder stopping him in his tracks. "I can't. I won't. See, here's how this is gonna work. I'm taking not only this train but this fucking moment as well. Not just from you and your pussy ass gun, not just from MARTA with its four fucking hours of my day pissed away already, not just from every minute stolen by every asshole in this city who sees me not as a person but a type of person, but from anyone's who's either wasted my time or been too busy to care when I needed them. So, shoot if you gotta shoot. But this? This is my fucking train and my fucking moment to catch it."
"Please son, that's no way to talk." A bespectacled priest spoke softly to me from the crowd pressed into the car of the Eastbound. "Your death would only serve to impede us further from getting home to catch the last few minutes of the big game and that would be the real sin."
"Damn, why ya gotta be a lil bitch about it." A young man protested adjacent to the priest after emerging from his phone, "Just catch the next train. What's the big deal?"
"Hey!" A young woman shouldered through the crowd to get right in my face. "Never mind all that. What if he shoots and misses you but hits one of us? Did you think about that? Huh, you selfish bastard?"
"Ma'am." I turned to look her dead in the eyes and winked. "I assure you no one has missed me in a long, long time."
This didn't get the chuckle it gave me b to go full strength. I pried the doors open further. The pneumatics of the train fought me every inch of the way with the doors binging in protest and the rookie behind me yapping away. All "Sir" this. All "Stop" that. It didn't matter. It's not the anger that makes me strong. It's not even the fear or the regret anymore. I'm fueled from a place much colder, a place I belong, a room without a door that only I can enter and stepping into it I stepped onboard the Eastbound.
Turning around I saw the rookie still frozen in his advance with pistol gun aimed in hands that clearly no longer trembled.
With the unforgivable heat of several dozen glares upon my stance, I snapped the kid a salute waiting to see what his next move would be.
What I got was another mechanical sigh off the train as the doors truncated us irrevocably from one another. Salute severed, then a lurch of gravity, a shudder forward, the rookie vanished as we were sucked out of the subterranean and into the light. Next stop Georgia State Station and back to the reality.
