Drugged Out Punk Weirdo Smokes Cigarette… On the Train

At first the guy was slouched over, his head hanging down toward the ground, playing with his cellphone…

I noticed he was wearing one of those wristbands with spikes on it that were so pervasive around this town during the height of “Punk” movement in the 80s, and he had long natty silver hair (similar to the “Snot Drips Down” guy) that was covered on top by a black wool cap…

When he finally sat up, I noticed a scab on his forehead, right above that unmistakable blank stare of someone who is on some serious-ass-shit-I-don’t-even-know-about.

At one point, as the train turned through the tunnel he swayed to the point he nearly put his head on the poor-girl-sitting-next-to-him’s shoulder.  Fortunately, we pulled into her stop and she got away before he could…

Either way, I’ll cut to the chase and get to the point of this post, which is that at a certain point along the way I noticed this fella holding a cigarette in his mouth… Then I noticed him pull out a matchbook and light up and start smoking, right there, on a packed morning-rush-hour train.

I was agitated and wanted to say something, but looked to my fellow passengers to say something first: there were larger, more intimidating men aboard who were closer to this crazy asshole and who seemed even more distraught than me about his smoking – one of them should have said something first.  I’m pretty sure that the rest of us would have jumped in to have his back if someone did…

But no one said a word.  I guess we all just wanted to hold our breath and get to work as fast as we could without incident.  Cause you really never know what’s going to happen when you say something to a scabbed-up spike-bracelet wearing crackhead who’s smoking a cigarette on the subway at 9am.