It isn’t as if I have not traveled by train before. Proud to say I commuted to Manhattan for work daily for two summers straight, gaining a new ability to sleep sitting up and appreciation for my father enduring decades of communiting. Admittedly, the majority of the people who take the 6:45 am train from Greenwich, Larchmont, and other stops along our way to Manhattan are people like my Dad. Clean cut, well dressed, exhausted and just hoping and praying the person who just sat next to them won’t break out their cell phone. So pretty run of the mill. But wait, before you can accuse me of being transportationally sheltered, I’ll see your pointed finger, and up you a New York City Subway. Make that an ace: a New York City Subway out of Greenwich Village. When I stayed over at Auntie’s for work this summer, I would take the subway from the village to times square. I was newly educated on how to distinguish a large woman from what looks like a large woman but is actually a man in a dress, the trend of low cut shirts to show a hint of nipple…again, on a man, and how to clasp a bag to my body and still looked bored enough that nobody will mess with me. And so I would say that I am pretty experienced in rubbing shoulders with some wackos on public transportation, but I was unprepared for the amount of sketchiness found on a Eurostar. These people specialize in sketchiness. They have passed sketchy 101 with flying colors. They are beyond making you uncomfortable with a lingering glance, and have moved on to a straight on stare complete with hand gestures. They are pros in freaking, disgusting, and frightening the people forced to travel with them. Essentially, me. Sketchers or Creepers, whatever term you prefer, can be classified in a few ways: 1. “The Non-Blinker” is always a man, the non-blinker does not have tear ducts, and thus does not have to blink. He can spend the entire train trip, no matter how long, staring at you. Looking you up and down, licking his lips, and occasionally, sighing. 2. “The Discreet Nose Cover” is a man or a woman who pulls out a weird and unidentifiable meat that has an incredibly pungent smell, and proceeds to cheerfully tear it apart, usually with their hands, and let the meat/sauce/smell saturate the entire car, causing you to do the “discreet nose cover” move, where you try to cover your nose with your sleeve and pretend it isn’t because it smells like something died. 3. “ The Belongs In Jail” is always a man, and he always accidentally drops something in your lap or down your shirt the second the train enters a dark tunnel. Whatever he accidentally drops is so important he must grope you to get it back. Of course. (another form of “The Belongs in Jail” male can be found on the subway, and in this case he drops something on your bottom. This weekend, on a train returning from Venice to Perugia, approximately five hours, a new category was defined: “The Non-Blinker Drug Dealer Who Found God.” To set the scene of this discovery, let me describe how this particular Eurostar train was set up. It did not have regular seats in lines all facing the front, but compartments with clear glass doors that have 2 rows of seats, 3 in each row, with the rows facing one another. So you have two people along your side, and you face the other 3 people, with about 3 feet of space for leg room between the seats facing each other. Cozy. Important to note that in a Eurostar, your seats are assigned, so there was no other choice but to sit in that compartment. Sara, Alex and I go into our compartment, and see this tall lanky African American man sitting in one seat, with two huge plastic trash bags on the seats next to him. Sara, poor thing, was assigned to sit next to him, so he moved his trash bag to the luggage rack above, and I sat opposite him with Alex next to me. Part 1, he immediately started off with the non-blinking. He stared at me, and was not even shy about it. When I felt his gaze and met his eyes, he did not even avert them, but continued to stare. An hour into the five hour trip, the conductor comes to check tickets. Turns out this creep does not even have the right ticket, but for whatever reason, the conductor lets it slide after some rapid Italian explanation on the creeps part. The conductor leaves, and the guy is extremely happy about his good fortune of not getting kicked off the train, and smiles a toothless smile to show this. He resumes his staring, propping his head up with his hand as to not tire himself from freaking me out. He only stops when he gets a call on his cell phone, and in English starts yelling at the person on the phone, “Yes, I’ve got the stuff…..I’ve got it….you need to understand…. I’m coming with it…. on my way…yes I’ll throw out the phone after….you better have my money.” Part 2, he is a drug dealer. Perhaps seeking salvation that he is a snake of a drug deal and non-blinker, he pulls out a bible from his trash bag and then a “Rain Prayer Book” and starts humming and murmuring to himself. I am exhausted by this point, and decide to take a nap, but knowing I would never be able to relax enough with his eyes on me, I take my winter coat which is long enough that it hits my knees, and put it over my head, covering my entire body. I awaken some time later, disoriented because in my sleep I got my head stuck in the sleeve of the coat and couldn’t find my way out, to the train slowing down on one of it’s stops. Sketchy drug dealer grabs one of his trashbags, gets out the compartment and goes outside to the train platform, still visible through the window in our compartment. He hands off the bag to another African American guy dressed in black, takes money from him, tosses his cell phone over his shoulder, and hops back on the train. I’ve watched Law and Order enough to know what to do, memorize details of the faces of the two men, check the name of the train stop, and look at the time on my watch so I know when the deal went down. If I have to testify, I’m ready.
