I’ve started commuting to San Francisco every day on BART. The last time this was a daily routine for me was in the early 90s when I was student at ACT. Back then it was unusual to be on a train with more people standing than sitting. In 2016, during the morning and evening commute hours, the trains are packed.
Today there was a young man on the train who looked different than most of the other commuters. His hair was unkempt. He was carrying a plastic Target bag. And he was moving around alot, so he had created a pocket of space around him that others on the train were trying to maintain. When we got to West Oakland station he made his way to the door and got off. But just as the doors were about to close he got back on. At this point there was no way to grant him the extra personal space he’d had before, so he reached over to grab onto the vertical bar next to the door to steady himself. This meant that he had to move very close to a woman who was also using that grab-bar. Their physical closeness at that moment appeared to make the woman a little uncomfortable, but she was facing away from him and seemed resolved to accept the circumstances.
This did not go over well with a short balding guy sitting several rows away. He stood up and stared intently at the situation, trying to get the attention of the other passengers standing around the young man and the woman who was cornered. He kept pointing as he tried to make eye contact, indicating that the passengers should do something to help the poor lady. Finally, just before the train pulled into the Embarcadero station, the woman closest to the pair realized what the bald guy was upset about and moved her body to make room for the trapped woman to work her way free of the young man.
The sad moment for me was making eye contact with the young, disheveled man. I couldn’t tell if the confusion in his gaze was his general state of being or if the interaction with the other passengers had triggered something. I tried to hold his gaze for a moment, but he looked away quickly.