Every morning, I sit in the quiet car. For those not in the know, the quiet car is the westernmost car on any peak train. The idea is that you keep your voice down, you don't talk on your phone, you don't blast your music and you generally don't be a loud piece of shit. But when have pesky LIRR rules ever stopped anyone before? Name one time you've seen a conductor enforce a rule other than booting someone from a train for not paying. Yeah, me neither.
There are a group of regulars that sit near me, and generally they keep it quiet, but every so often when a lot of them are together, it gets rowdy. There's one guy in particular who is the alpha asshole. While I know most of their real names (because regulars love talking about their personal lives in great detail as loud as humanly possible), I've never caught his. Let's just call him Asshole. Not creative, but fitting.
Asshole is your typical Long Island redneck. Loud, not very bright, drives a pickup (and never shuts the fuck up about it), loves guns, bashes Democrats any chance he gets, cranes his neck to look at any woman who walks by. This is a guy who talked about his marriage falling apart as if it were a wet newspaper. 'Oh well, guess I have to get rid of this now.' Classy dude, you can tell. As I type this, he and another guy are talking about ways to circumvent gun laws to get firearms with higher ammo capacity. Real comforting a week after two mass shootings.
One morning, the regulars are being loud (Asshole in particular) when a voice shouts from across the car, "Will you shut the fuck up already? This is the quiet car!"
Asshole is perplexed. How DARE anyone speak to him like that! The regulars start murmuring. "Woah, woah!"
"Fuuuuuck yoooou!" Asshole bellows. "How 'bout you mind your fuckin' business?"
"If you don't shut up I will gladly get the conductor and he'll get you to shut up," the man replies.
Asshole continues, "How 'bout you shut your fuckin' mouth before I come over there and shut it for you."
"You want to escalate this pal? No problem," the man says. "I will gladly come over there. Let's escalate this."
One of the regulars, a squirrelly little fella no taller than 5' 4", sees this as an opportunity to jump in, which he never would have done had Asshole not done so first. "Hey! Watch your tone!" Good job lil' guy!
Asshole, being the coward he is deep down inside does not invite the man over to fight, but instead mocks him with a lisp (the man had no lisp), most likely to imply that the man was gay. "Oh no! Heavens, not that! Goodness me! Anything but that! Oh my goodness, no!"
The lil' guy continues his "me too" approach, "If you care so much about the quiet car, then why are you shouting? You need to watch your tone." Yup, he said it twice.
The whole while, Asshole is continuing his trite "gay" voice. After a good bit of it, the man replies from the other side of the car, "Nothing? That's what I thought you fucking pussy."
"Fuck you," Asshole replies, trying not to sound too emasculated.
There is a moment when everyone goes silent before the squirrelly guy shouts back in the most authoritative, lame dad voice he can muster, "Respect the quiet car!"
That was a phrase that was actually said. Out loud. After this whole situation.
The rest of the ride continued silently and without incident, with great respect for the quiet car.
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