Retardeous

I've always had a strong sense of societal fairness. I can't stand when people cut in line, talk loudly on their cell phones or text message during films. We're all trying to live together and we should all take each other into consideration. I follow the rules; why can't you?

Anyway, when someone violates these little unsaid edicts I begin to stew; my heart pounds, my anger rises; and I try to remedy the situation, not only for myself, but for the community. I'm kind of a fucking superhero.

This brings me to an autumn day towards the end of 2004.

After finishing up an edit of my short film, I hopped on a packed 6 Train at 23rd and Lexington.

There was a middle-aged Hispanic man sitting next to me dressed in a slightly-better-than-shabby suit. He was playing a loud game on his cell phone which was not only beeping with game noises, but also playing some sort of 8-bit style soundtrack.

I felt like saying something, but I held back. Everyone else on the train was annoyed. It was prime rush hour traffic and when you're in New York, there's pretty much nothing worse then a crowded subway train with unnecessary hullabaloos annoying you.

Finally, a 60-something year old woman spoke up:

"Excuse me, sir, can you please turn that off?"

The man looked up at her with an unreasonable amount of scorn in his angry face. He did a childish, high-pitched imitation of her:

"Excuse me, sir, can you please turn that off?", and he looked back down at his game.

Now this bullshit pissed me off; I spoke up:

"Hey, you wanna turn that off? We're trying to have a civilization here."

He looked up at me, made a "fuck you" face, and looked back down.

My blood started to boil. Seriously, we are trying to have a civilization and in a civilization civilized people attempt to follow civilized rules. I believe in self-governing.

"Hey, seriously, turn that off."
"Fuck you!"

Well, that was the last straw. Sure, I could have chosen to ignore him or switched cars, but what the fuck. I slapped the phone out of his hand. Seriously, it felt better then an orgasm.

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

Well, I didn't really know how to respond to that, so I went the Groucho Marx, "fuck the fucker" route.


"You get so cute when you're angry, do you know that?"
"Are you a fucking faggot?"
"Are you flirting with me? Because I'm not that kind of guy."
"You're a fucking faggot. I'm going to kill you!"
"At least take me out to dinner first, buy me a nice wine..."

Anyway, it was around this point I began to notice the people on the subway thinking I was the weird one; which is probably true, but at least I was amusing myself.

Things quieted down for a few stops, with the exception of an occasional "I'm going to kill you" to me and a "fuck you, old lady" to the 60-something who initially told him to be quiet.

He began to play the game again, mostly while staring at me (so I guess he wasn't actually playing, more idly touching buttons while gazing angrily at me).

I was sorta stuck, because my stop was coming up and I could tell he was waiting to follow me. Instead of doing something exciting and getting off, then leaping back on the last second before the doors closed (which might have happened if I was a character in a cop drama), I simply decided to get off at my stop on 86th street.

When I got up, he got up too. I turned to some of the other passengers:

"This guy's going to try to kill me", I said glibly.

A Middle Aged Woman spoke up: "You deserve it".

Really? I thought I was the good guy.

Anyway, I exited and he followed about two steps behind. I noticed a large, friendly looking black guy (I think he worked for the MTA) and told him I was being followed and if he could help me walk out.

As soon as the Cell Phone guy saw the Black Guy, he disappeared. Slowly coming to the realization that this gentleman might have actually been serious with his threat, I hopped in a cab and went straight to my mother's house.

I still think I was pretty righteous, but maybe I was just retarded. Or both? Retardeous?

Matt "Retardeous" Manson has a ring to it, no?