Words on the Escalator

I was just in time to catch the 3:45 pm showing of Dark Knight in Chelsea today. I scrambled for the escalator to the second floor, hurrying behind a couple that was bickering a bit on their way to the movie. "Why'd you hafta say 'Don't Lisa' like that?" The girl kept asking. "I didn't say it like that," her boyfriend kept insisting as they ascended the stairs. They were slightly older than me, a young black couple in their late twenties. They took the escalator, I followed, and right on my heels was a large white man with a big belly and a long, scraggly, gray ponytail, a relic of what used to be a full head of hair.

"No arguing guys c'mon," the man behind me said, I thought, good-naturedly. "Thank you," the girl said in response, looking at her boyfriend. 

But this guy didn't stop, and the three of us misunderstood him. He wasn't playfully commenting. 

"I'm so sick of people ruining my show, talking nonstop," he continued, his voice rising. "You're not going to do that shit! I'm not puttin' up with it!" He was yelling at this point.

"Sir-"

"No!"

"Sir-" the boyfriend kept trying to interject.

"No! Shut up! You are not getting the last word, asshole! You are not gettin' the last word!!" 

Remember I was one step behind the couple and this maniac was one step behind me. I was literally stuck right in the middle of this. The only thing keeping them apart was the step I was standing on. The young guy kept saying 'sir' simply, rationally, not pleading but asking. But this man wouldn't let him talk. He was going absolutely ape and I'm sure the girlfriend and I, both stunned at what was unfolding, thought it was gonna go to blows on the moving stairs. No one was around to witness this but us.

"You wanna go outside! Let's take this outside!! You're not getting the last word asshole!" he raged as we neared the top.

"Sir-" the boyfriend kept asking.

"No! You're not getting the last word asshole. Let's take this outside! You wanna go! C'mon asshole let's take this outside!!"

That was it. I mean of course it would be, for anyone. The young guy was done taking it and it was clear this middle-aged m f*er wasn't gonna stop harassing him.

At the top of the escalator I hurried off and stood there, not to watch but because there were people up there and I stayed to see if I could help somehow, you know witness for the couple or something. The young guy climbed on the descending escalator.

"Okay. Let's go. Let's go outside right now!" 

The older guy watched him for a minute, deciding what to do now that the other guy was calling his bluff.

"We'll go to the police!" Ponytail called, losing volume and nerve. "We'll go to the police!" But he didn't make a move to descend with his opponent. 

"That's what I thought!" the young guy called back, and so I headed for the theater because I knew, just like the couple knew, that this guy wasn't going to do anything. He was all talk. And he embarrassed himself because he thought the young man would be too shocked and intimidated by the sudden, forceful verbal assault to retaliate. But after trying to handle it as civilly as he could he agreed to work it out on the street, and his antagonizer quickly retreated. 

Inside the theater I took a seat and watched the couple take seats too. The middle-aged man paced a bit at the end of one aisle, on the phone before taking his seat. And I waited to see if maybe he had called security or something because I was ready to intervene and defend the couple to any staff that might come in to handle the problem. But nothing happened. Instead we all watched a movie that deeply explored the idea of right and wrong.