~/ Public Transport Man /~

So yesterday morning, I got to be a bit of a hero while in public transport. The train was very crowded, and I was standing all the way in the back, reading a book and listening to some music when all of a sudden, the ticket collector is pushing his way past all the people until he reaches the end of the train. He’s about fifty years old and not an imposing sight at all, and he’s got a woman following him. She was young, probably twenty years old, about as tall as I, and probably about fifteen kilos heavier than I, and she’s yelling at him. I don’t realise what’s going on at first until she’s got him cornered and pressed up against the back of the train. I take my earphones out and I observe, like the ten or fifteen others in attendance. Apparently, the girl didn’t have a ticket and the ticket collector had taken her identification so that she wouldn’t run when the police would come to adjudicate at the next stop. (Normally, they just write you a ticket unless they have reason to believe you’re not going to pay, can’t identify yourself or if you’re being a pain in the ass.) This girl went wild, demanding her identification back. She had backed the guy up in a corner and was very aggressive in the way she spoke and postured. I let it go on for a moment before the girl got physical, then I jumped in between the two of them. She had lunged for the identification and was roughly pushing him into the corner. I wormed myself in between them and shoved the girl back while trying to sound like I had some sort of authority, telling her to “stand back.” She was obviously panicking and I had to push her up against the wall, cross-facing her with my forearm. Behind me the ticket collector collapsed, his legs giving out, probably due to the adrenaline dump. When I finally managed to catch the girl’s attention, I told her that in order for her not to get arrested she needed to calm down, which, surprisingly, she did. The ticket collector regained his composure and gave her the identification back (!?) and they returned to her seat. I’m not sure what happened after that, but later the ticket collector came back to thank me for helping.

What was sad is that I got all these “well done” looks from people around me afterwards. While it was happening they were just trying to become one with the surroundings, not wanting anything to do with it.