Overheard conversations

When I got on the green line late Wednesday afternoon for the commute home, I found a comfortable spot to stand, holding onto a railing at the end of a row of four seats. As soon as the train moved, the woman sitting in the seat next to where I was standing started shaking her finger at a very nicely dressed older teenager close to the door and said, very loudly, “God knows you have to take care of yourself first!”

  

Now that got not only my attention, but also that of everyone who had gotten on at Ashland. We had obviously joined an ongoing conversation. I glanced around and saw that the commuters at our end of the car were all doing the ‘I-don’t-want-to-get-involved-in-what’s-going-on-around-me-but-isn’t-it-fascinating?’ behavior. We were all looking either straight ahead or down at electronic devices. One man put his sunglasses back on. I lost track of the book I was listening to because the story I had entered was much more interesting.

The young man, who was wearing several pieces of religious jewelry, began to respond to her self-centered tenet with, “Well, now, ma’am,” at which point she interrupted him with, “What do you mean by calling me ‘ma’am? I’m not your mother!”

“I’m just trying to show respect, ma’am,” he said, underscoring that he had, in fact, taken his training to heart. “And I was going to say that I think God wants us to think of our neighbors...” But by then we were at California and as the doors opened the conversation stopped. People exited and some entered the dialogue which resumed with a new declaration from her of, “God is your pimp!”

OK, that one was a conversation stopper. The teen took a step back and somehow, in a train car that was already fairly quiet, things got quieter. I held my breath. “Well, not in the sense you’re thinking about,” she said, but we were now at Kedzie and the doors opened. Several riders escaped and several joined us, ignorant of the stage they were now on.

The doors closed, the train pulled away from the platform, and “God is your pimp” was shouted again. “Yes,” she continued, “He’s out there promoting you, helping you to take care of yourself!”

A woman one seat away from the philosopher, protested, saying “I don’t like hearing God being called a pimp,” but our preacher retained her focus on the young man and asked if he went to church. When he responded in the affirmative, she wanted to know which one. With his answer he turned the question back on her and was quite surprised at her answer, for she named a large popular tabernacle. Again, the young man took a step back. “Really?” he said, “I know several people who are members, and I think they would not agree with what you have said.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she cried, “I know what I know to be true,” she pronounced as the doors opened at Conservatory. The woman who had protested got up to leave and as she passed the young man, she patted his shoulder.

Our ride resumed with an ‘I-know- what-I’m-talking-about-and-you-need-to-pay-attention-to-me’ monologue until the young man departed with a, “now you have a nice day, ma’am” at Cicero. She got off at Pulaski and there was an audible sigh of relief.

Now, many people might say it’s because of such a scenario they avoid the el. Sure, it was tense, but it wasn’t scary. Well, the theology being spewed was certainly bizarre, but nothing was threatening. And it was much more intriguing than the one-sided cellphone conversations one hears while walking down the street or waiting in line at Jewel.  It’s all part of being in a community, diverse in all ways, and, sometimes, going in the same direction.

Marilyn