I read this yesterday, and it reminded me of an incident which occurred on a busy BART train, many years ago now. I can’t believe I’d forgotten this story, because it’s actually rather excellent, and it illustrates how people can totally defy your stereotypes, filling me with hope for humanity.

At any rate, when I was briefly living in Oakland, I used to take BART into Berkeley every day. I lived pretty close to Coliseum station, so I would drive down, BART in, do my thing, drive back, rinse, lather, repeat. At any rate, sometimes my commute got a little exciting when there was a game on, because a lot of people would go to the game on BART, rather than driving, which is something I generally applaud, although it did make my train trips chaotic sometimes. But everyone was usually pretty nice, and I remember once a group of exuberant young men insisted on walking me to my car because it was dark and they were worried about me, which was very sweet.

So I hopped onto the train one day and it was incredibly crowded, even though BART had added extra cars. I quickly saw that I wasn’t going to be able to sit, so I grabbed a pole and made the best of it. Most of the train was in a state of high energy, obviously excited about the upcoming game, except for a handful of outliers, including a businessman sitting in the handicapped seat, reading the Wall Street Journal and jabbering loudly on his cell phone with his brief case sprawled out next to him. For some reason, no one had made him yield the other seat, let along get up for one of the older people on the train, which kind of surprised me. He was very obviously not handicapped, and yes, I know that people have disabilities which are not readily visible, but trust me on this one: he was just a self righteous yuppie, and he in no way, shape, or form needed to sit down.

So we reached MacArthur station, and a very pregnant woman got on board, along with a bunch of other people, and the train fell into a state of expectant silence, with everyone looking at the businessman, who continued blaring into his phone, obviously totally oblivious. The pregnant woman didn’t kick up a fuss at all, she just grabbed a pole and stood, getting ready for the train to leave.

At this point, a thuggish young hoodlum tapped the businessman on the shoulder. And I mean thuggish. Not wannabe ghetto, seriously thuggish ghetto, as in probably packing a gun that he knew how to use. The kind of person that you would cross to the other side of the street to avoid.

The businessman looked up irritably after about thirty seconds of tapping, and said “what” in a snarling, hostile kind of way which actually kind of impressed me, given who was tapping him on the shoulder. Now the train fell into complete silence, so silent that you could almost feel the tumbleweeds blowing down the center aisle.

“Yo, dog,” the thug said. “You gonna move for that pregnant lady?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” the businessman said, which amazed me even further.

“Yo, dog, can you read? This sign says “disabled” on it. You disabled? ’cause you don’t look like it, man.”

The businessman held his ground, silently, as an even larger thug slid up behind thug number one.

“The man asked you to move,” he said, very softly. “You should stand so that nice pregnant lady can sit down.”

The pregnant lady was mortified at this point over the fuss, while the train’s passengers were waiting with bated breath and dropped jaws.

“You best git out o’ dat seat,” he said, a little more loudly. The businessman ruffled his paper defiantly…

…and thug number two literally lifted him by the collar and deposited him in the aisle as the train exploded in laughter and the businessman’s cellphone went skittering to the other end of the train. He started indignantly boiling over while another standing passenger helpfully handed him his briefcase and the two thugs escorted the pregnant lady to her seat. Eventually the cellphone made its way back to the businessman, who stopped sputtering and sat in humiliated silence on the floor while everyone congratulated the thugs and starting high fiving each other from sheer exuberance.

When the businessman finally got off (12th Street), thug two looked him in the eye and said:

“Next time I see you takin’ that handicapped seat on this train while someone who needs it is standing up, I’ll shoot you, dog. Then you’ll really be a cripple.”

And the doors slid closed while the train continued on its way.

This, my friends, is why I love Oakland.

Waterboard Jenna, says Stephen King.

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The University of Texas may stop offering cancer care to illegal immigrants at its Galveston facility. Not to preach to the choir or anything here, but if we had universal health care like almost every other first world country on Earth, maybe we wouldn’t have to deny medical services to people who need them.