A classic subway run-in.

On Saturday night I was punched in the right breast by an old homeless woman on the subway.

My friend Fernando and I were heading uptown from Penn Station at two in the morning when the incident occurred. We had just played in a string trio at Alice's cousin's wedding out on Long Island, which was the Korean side of the family. Alice is the product of a Korean mother and Jewish father, so needless to say she had an interesting childhood. As a child in school, while her friends were eating sandwiches with things like turkey or cheese or ham, Alice's mom packed her sandwiches with peanut butter and kimchi. You can see the impact this has had on her to this day.

Initially the bride's parents had been opposed to the marriage, so instead of that stupidly romantic feeling that one gets sitting in the audience during a wedding ceremony, there was an indescribable and rather uncomfortable tension amongst all of us. At the center of it all was the "marrying" couple, obviously feeling all too warm in the glow that the bride's parents practically radiated in disapproval. I noticed the groom had grown much thinner and looked anxious during and directly after the ceremony. The reception, thankfully, went much better. The food was great (guests were offered a choice of Korean or American cuisine), and despite getting carded by the bartender for wine (bullshit), I managed to have a good time. They played some great music, and Fernando and Alice busted a few moves for me on the dance floor. I couldn't believe how crazy these straight-laced middle-aged to elderly relatives directly from Korea could get while dancing, especially when Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" came on.

So after a great night of playing music, eating, drinking, and dancing (not to mention getting some
money out of it as well), Fernando and I headed back to Manhattan. Alice was staying on Long Island
at her parents' house.  We both have a pretty good buzz from the wine and dancing and all that, so we're standing in the middle of a crowded subway train just laughing and talking. Suddenly the train stops, the doors open, and I see this gray-haired homeless woman dragging two pieces of luggage and wearing all the clothes she owned, which made her look like an overstuffed armchair. What drew my attention to her was at first the overwhelming stench of cat piss that encircled her person, and then when I was able to examine her in detail, the bushy white and gray moustache that had sprouted above her thin upper lip. She had very large, wild brown eyes which looked horrified at the crowd the subway doors presented to her, and a small square jaw that flapped while she babbled inaudibly while trying to push her way onto the train. Truthfully there was enough room for her to move on, but for some reason she was having trouble. I was standing in the center of the car, a good five feet or so away from the door. I certainly wasn't in her way.

Well, something snapped in her, and suddenly her fist was flying in the air and landed with all its force on my right breast. Honestly it didn't hurt at all, but I was stunned into silence. Everyone in the vicinity was. A large woman who was boarding the train at the same time saw this and, outraged, began yelling at the old homeless woman. She yelled (literally), "DON'T YOU PUNCH PEOPLE. IF YOU PUNCH HER AGAIN YOU'RE GOING TO GET ONE FROM ME." She was going on like this, extremely angered by the situation, and I was even more stunned. I gave the large woman a pat on the shoulder in appreciation, but I'm not sure she noticed because she was so engaged in shouting at the homeless woman. Meanwhile everybody around me---the students from NYU with the thick-rimmed black glasses, the tourists from Bumblefuck, Minnesota, the gay Asian male escort in
the black leather pants, everybody---stared at the whole situation in disbelief; their focus would shift between the cat piss woman and the good (yelling) Samaritan to my reddened face. Thankfully I had to transfer at the next stop, so I did that quickly and quietly. I didn't know how to take the event. Should I have been shocked by the behavior of the homeless woman or by the large woman who
decided to defend a complete stranger on the subway at two in the morning?