Blog

by Cheyenne Tobias

Your alarm rips though your slumber and you enter limbo between your reality and your dreams. Will you ever wake up without that snooze button? Stumbling into the chill of morning, you drag yourself to the bathroom, the light splashing greens and blues into your vision. You’ve got a full day ahead. Brush teeth, wash face, comb hair, stick lips, slide jeans, slip docs, pull shirt, sling backpack, eat breakfast, grab keys, and hold phone. Check. You’re off to art class. Here begins the arduous 7-block journey to the train station. And you’re talkin’ Brooklyn blocks.

The first two blocks are residential: they’re clear. Proceeding your hard left of Ralph Avenue is where the every day difficulties of being a living, breathing female begin to make themselves apparent. The following comments, you hear but do not reply. But you comfort yourself knowing that it would be much worse if you’d worn a skirt, or leggings. In fact, you don’t wear either very often, to avoid the extra hassle. There’s no beginning, middle and end to the story of comments you receive. Some guys are bolder than others.

“Mmm, mammi, you fit all that in your jeans?”

“Common, gimme a smile.” Don’t smile at him.

“Don’t gotta be a bitch, damn.”

Don’t look back no matter how much you want to tell him to go fuck himself. You are not him, and it won’t make your feel better. Plus, you don’t want to provoke him. Someone makes sighing noises as you pass. Put your earphones in. Someone bites their lip. You might relax at the next block; it’s the elementary school and the crossing guard knows you. Would she protect you if she had to? You’ve got three more blocks left. You’re sweating from walking so fast and your shins are starting to hurt. You’ve got a little left to go when two guys who seem to be your age stop you in your tracks. “OOH GIRL CAN I MARRY YOU! UMMHH you fine as hell.” His friend dry humps the air and laughs. You push past them, rolling your eyes at the absurdity that is teenage boys.

They also made you late and now you are running for the train like a madwoman. There’s a man standing in the doorway and he holds the door when he sees you, starting to lick his lips. You’re not put off enough by this to care; at this point you’re just glad you caught the train because the local only comes about every ten minutes. You remain at the edge of the door in an attempt to keep from being pushed inwards, but this is inevitable. The next guy pushes in and even though you can’t see him, you can feel his entitlement. He reeks of it and it radiates from him standing behind you. You stay near the door so no one pushes against you. You can feel his warm breath on the back of your head making the hairs on your neck stand up. He leans with in with the train as it bumps and breaks. He gets closer and it feels hotter. The air is saturated with your own discomfort and inability. Your back gets hotter and hotter until you’re sure that it’s not all just your heat. You put your backpack back on just to be a jerk. He grunts. You want so badly to shove him right out of that subway car at the next stop.

This is the worst part: the G train. You hate that train so much. You hate it so goddamn much. And you especially hate it at 8am when you have to wait what seems like hours for the train to come in the first place. Time is marked only by the passing of mechanics and construction workers. The train hurdles into the station; “stand clear of the closing doors please.”

As always, there aren’t many people on the train, so you don’t listen to music: you keep your ears alert, but take out a book to distract yourself from the eeriness of your nearly vacant surroundings. You’re finally leaving your morning haze and you have a conscious recognition that you are vulnerable in such deserted space. You’ve wrapped your mind around the characters in your hands and have begun to dig into their world. Suddenly you are awakened by a tap on your left knee. The finger belongs to a tall slender man in a baseball cap and over washed jeans. He leans in just enough not to pop your bubble of personal space. It seems to happen in slow motion as he drops his voice and says “look, you ought to get up, watch your back.” This doesn’t make sense, what is he talking about?

There’s another man looming above you in a navy blue uniform from Dickies. An array of keys swing violently from his hip. His face reminds you of mush. It’s that feeling you get when you see your oatmeal on the floor and it begins to turn into some alien cream. His lips a slicked with saliva and his gaze intruding your headspace. His eyes float beneath the darkness cast by his hat. You follow his right shoulder down to his hand that disappears into his pants, heard and held aloft. Back and forth, all you can feel is the sense that someone is violating you. His body rocked from the up and down of the train. His left hand is hanging on loosely to the railing above you and your body goes cold. It’s never been this bad and you never believed the stories of such extraordinary sexual harassment. You never thought that anyone would actually masturbate so blatantly, so shamelessly in front in public. You can’t help but check your shirt to see if it’s low, so you peer down and there’s really not much to see from above your t-shirt. You have your backpack so your obviously a student. Your hair is all frizzy from the summer heat and a drop of sweat rolls down your back. Your body feels clammy and your vision is a blur. You stare back at him, into his eyes hoping to show him the fury in your eyes.

You get off at the next stop and sit on the dingy platform. The station is empty and for a second nothing else exists except the sound of the train rolling out of the station. You can’t reason with what just happened so you just let your day pour out of your eyes. Let it cascade buckets of helplessness, like someone just reached inside of you and burned every ounce of dignity they could find. But now there is no thought to think, no tears to cry and no sound to make. So you stand up, brush yourself off, wipe your face and walk on to art class and you just tell yourself that it didn’t happen.