Once Upon a Commuter Train

Being on the first San Francisco BART subway train on any given morning can sometimes be interesting. Most regular commuters are half awake, drinking hot coffee out of carefully concealed paper cups, reading newspapers, or sleeping.

However…

At that period in time some of the local hobos and other un-washed derelicts would sneak onto the last train of the previous night, ride it all the way to the end of the line in Pittsburg and set up camp in the last car.

Sort of an impromptu sleeper car thing. They had learned that the BART people did not always check the last car of the train at the end of the days scheduled service before turning off all the power.

These overnight squatters would then spread out to sleep on the chairs while tossing their junk and smelly food on the cushions. Occasionally they would urinate in the car’s corners when they couldn’t get the doors open because the power was off.

Otherwise, they made a very unsanitary and smelly mess of the car. I had to get to my early police dayshift lineup at the airport, so I was riding the early train myself, but absolutely NOT in that particular car.

I wore my full duty uniform while doing this to save the locker room changing time at the airport, but more importantly, to get on the train free because uniformed cops got a courtesy pass. One morning I was sitting in my normal seat, my back to the wall with an open view of the entire car, reading that mornings, San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.

There was an attractive heavy-set black gal who was wearing a pressed and tailored business office outfit with a micro skirt and thigh-high fish net stockings a few rows away from me who got up from her seat and left the area to get off at her stop.

Suddenly, there was this incredibly skanky looking ratty hobo type who rushed over to where she had been sitting and then proceeded to run his face and nose ALLL over where the gal had been sitting.

I think he was actually licking the seat.

He was inhaling and sniffing deeply with loud snuffing guttural hungry-pig-like sounds as a soundtrack accompaniment. Then he sat in her seat and rubbed his dirty blue jeaned backside and lower body all over her former location with a look of obscene ecstasy on his face

Now standing up, he groaned loudly and shoved a grimy dirt-stained hand down into the front of his pants, deep into his crotch area. With a drooling mouth open and eyes closed, he swayed a bit side to side with an occasional hip thrusting forward type gyration.

Oh wonderful…

The people in that entire end of the BART car who had been watching this whole display with stark visible horror on their faces hurriedly got up as a group and RAN (not walked) to the other end of the car where I was sitting.

One guy said to me:

^l‘ What are you going to do about that”?

He muttered frantically, pointing with both hands at the gyrating hobo.

Casually looking over the top of my paper, I told him that there wasn’t anything I could do because technically the guy wasn’t doing anything illegal.

Yet, with an obviously frustrated look on his face he whispered again to me.

“What can be done ??”

Out of cynical curiosity as to how this mini drama might play out, I handed him my full departmentally issued green plastic bottle of hand sanitizer. He grabbed it, sprinted to the back to that area, and began pouring it all over the offending seat.

The hobo who was now leaning against the trains wall watching this must have said something like could he share some of that cleaner??

Our hero looked at the hobo dead in the eyes for a long second.

Then, without any further hesitation, he wildly sprayed the happily satiated derelict eyebrow to ankle with the remaining fluid in the bottle while screaming.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAA”  at the top of his lungs

I could see that the hobo was now working up a spontaneously violent response to this conduct, so I stood up and loudly yelled in their general direction:

“Knock it off, sit down, and behave yourselves. I’m trying to read my newspaper here.”

Not by accident, my left hand came to rest on the end of my very large and battered wooden night stick that was hooked to my gun belt, while I put my most menacing beat cop look on my face. The hobo sat down, cursing in some unknown language, while the Disinfectant Vigilante went quietly back to his seat as well.

Thankfully, that was the end of that.

At least until I was about to leave the train at the next stop.

As I walked by the hobo, I stopped, looked down at him where he was sitting in his seat and said to him without any remaining humor or tolerance in my voice:

“You’re getting off now.”

 He looked up at me and I could see he was about to try to argue or ignore me.

I continued:

“We both know you didn’t pay to get on this train and unless you can provide me with a receipt or commute card to prove otherwise right now , I’m going to arrest you for fair evasion and book you because you will have no acceptable ID and are probably the focus of several active outstanding arrest warrants pending. ^I‘

‘Oh, and breakfast at County Jail #1 is terrible. You won’t like it at all.”

“Let’s go”

With my uniform hat on and wearing full body armor under my large Tuffy coat, I looked more like Lou Ferrigno than I really do in my normal jeans and a golf shirt ensemble. He still looked like he didn’t want to go along with my program, so I leaned a tad closer and pointed to the double handcuff cuff case on the front of my very well-worn duty belt.

In a lower voice now I told him:

^uIt’s your choice: you either go away voluntarily, or I drag you out of here by your feet, face down on the metal floor.”

He eye-balled the five rows of gold service stripes on my uniforms left arm sleeve (five years for each stripe), and the equally shiny metal bars on each of my uniforms collars . He smartly decided he did not want to play this game with me anymore.

I followed him as he shambled to the exit door. I tried not to smile too broadly when I received spontaneous, but heartfelt applause and loud who—ha’s from the passengers in the car.

What I’d give for the security camera video footage of this incident.

Even though I never finished reading the sports section of the paper that day, I found that commuting can be so much fun with the correct incentive.

10-7

Source: www.lawofficer.com