This being the season of all-star teams and the like, I think we found the starting pitcher on the All-Jerk team on the 5:46 out of Grand Central yesterday.
He sat on the aisle in a five-seater and had his feet up on the seat across from him (Jerk!). He had a Bud tall boy, and poured half of it into a plastic cup, which sat untethered under his seat (Jerk!!). He yapped on his cellphone, quite loudly, for much of the trip. (Jerk!!!)
The man was about 45, sported business casual, and looked a bit like a grown-up Erkel. He had a late-model cellphone and made a point of calling several people and speaking at an inappropriate volume. The people he spoke to seemed to make short work of him; the man abruptly coughed up a quick good-bye a few times, then stared at his phone directory to see who he might call next. He’d logged four conversations and two more voicemail checks by the time we hit the Bronx, easily bagging a HAT&T Trick.
He had nothing to read and clearly wanted it that way. He kept staring at his phone the way a simple child would stare at something shiny. He kept wondering who to call, hoping a name would jump out at him, and bearer of that name would accept his call. Alas, none remained by Morris Heights.
The man kept sipping his beer, then returning the cup to the floor beneath his seat. Several sets of eyes studied the beer and contemplated their emergency plans if…nay, when…the beer spilled.
It spilled around Wakefield, sending a stream of the amber nectar flowing to the rear of the car. The man mumbled something to the guy seated cattycorner to him in the five-seater and made no effort to clean it up, even throw an old Business section of the Times on it. The half-empty tallboy can glided along the spillage like a skim-boarder.
Finally, around Scarsdale, the man actually got a call on the cell. Folks, it was Christmas in July for our simple-minded friend. He bolted to the vestibule to speak with his pal.
The man was, mercifully, out of mind for a few moments, and his river of spilled beer had thankfully stopped a row in front of me.
Then the train hurtled into White Plains, and the man sprinted from the vestibule to his seat, beloved phone in one hand and Bud tallboy in the other. He was a flurry of elbows and knees as he attempted to gather his belongings and exit. The remains of his Bud tallboy went flying across his seat and the seat next to it (both empty). Leaving the beer exactly where he spilled it, the man exited at White Plains.
Eyes shot around the car, all saying the same thing:
A-hole.
(sigh) That’s my stop.
I really wish the conductors would call those people out far more often than they do.