almost midnight on the brown line

Five hours of babysitting done, I took the brown line from Ravenswood back towards downtown Chicago and home in Humboldt Park. It was 11:45 at night in a chilly October, but I was young, confident and careless enough to be quite fearless getting into a train carriage that was quite empty save for an old lady who was asleep and carrying nothing but a tired countenance and a strong smell of urine. I sat at the far end of the carriage from her, in the seat next to the door.

At the next stop, a man got in. He wore a hoody that revealed straggly once-blonde hair and was scruffy and unshaven. His eyes seemed wild, bloodshot and I hoped he did not sit next to me. He sat next to me. He did not smell of alcohol. After the train pulled out of the platform he pulled out a lighter. And ran his thumb over the pad to reveal a bright, steady flame. “You have pretty hair”, he said I smiled an uncertain ‘thank you’. “Fire is pretty too” he said. “You know what would be really pretty? If I set your pretty hair on fire.”

Words started falling out of my mouth from God only knows where. “Well that would be a bad idea because then there wouldn’t be any more pretty hair”. “That's true ” he said. “But there would be more fire”. 

“But this is a closed cabin and being dead, neither of us could enjoy either the pretty hair nor the pretty fire. That would be a shame”. 

“That's true too” he conceded. “What about your eyelashes?”. “Eyelashes, hair, same difference. That's just details.” The flame had gone out and he revived it. “So are you telling me I can’t set your hair on fire?” he sounded angry. “You can do anything you want,” I said, “I’m just saying you might want to wait till the next station till some fresh perspective blows in. Think about what you might be giving up to enjoy something you think might be nice”. I babbled on for another couple of minutes about the weather and I don't remember what, till, blessedly we pulled into the next train station. He had barely said another word, just stared at my hair, squinting through the thin flame of the lighter. The stop wasn't mine, but I got off anyway, even managing to smile a goodbye to him. He didn't follow me. 

Feeling oddly exhilarated, I decided against taking a cab, and shivering, waited for the next train. I hoped it didn't smell of urine too.