The T Ride

I step on to the T in Braintree and take my seat along on side of the subway. To my right are two women who appear to laughing hysterically, to the point where each one of them is in tears. They are loudly laughing and everyone in the car, including me, is looking at them. At first I shrug it off, “Something must be hilarious.” I think to myself. As I’m about to put my iPod earbuds into my ears in an attempt to blast away the cackling I look across the subway car and I realize why the women were laughing. Slouching across a few seats is a college aged man in a rugby shirt drooling all over himself with his eyes closed. At first I think that this kid is a heavy sleeper, as the ride is very bumpy and the noise of the laughing ladies is enough to make you want to scream. As the ride goes on and the car beeps with every passing stop I realize that the kid is not asleep at all. He appears to be passing in and out of consciousness as if he’s sleepwalking in public. Every so often he opens his eyes, gazes absently around the environment and then slumps immediately back to the seats or sometimes the floor. I think “Uh oh, this guy is clearly suffering the effects of some serious drugs, I wonder if someone slipped him something as a practical joke.” I look angrily over at the obnoxious women who continue to jeer and draw negative attention to the kid. I quickly move across the car and sit next to the guy and allow him to prop himself up on my shoulder. I ask if he’s alright, where he’s going, and what his name is but get back no semblance of a response. I begin to worry that the kid doesn’t know where he’s going and that worse, he might be in serious medical trouble. I look at what he’s got with him. He’s wearing a nametag that says “Hello my name is: Jon. Welcome to Boston College!” I decide that he’s not the type that would do this to himself when I notice that he’s got a nasty bruise just inside his hairline. I pull out my cell and dial 911 and run through to the front of the train and relay the information to the conductor who stops the T. I go back to Jon and realize that he doesn’t have a wallet which means it was probably stolen. Someone had mugged him in broad daylight and pushed him on to the first train they possibly could. He had been riding in that condition for who knows how long and nobody had paused to see if he was alright, instead they just assumed that he was another drunk college student.