Book Excerpt

"No Eating On BART", from Reformed Serial Killer Seeking Roommates

by Paul Freedman

As I ate shelled almonds from a reused newspaper bag on a nearly-empty Lake Merritt BART platform, a nervous man in his thirties walked up to me.He wore a stonewashed jeans jacket that sat up on his waist and baggy army green pants with side pockets.Curly earphones wrapped around his ears from behind but made no sound I could hear.

“There’s no eating on BART,” he said, barely making eye contact as he turned away.

“Oh thanks,” I said, finishing my handful of almonds.

Was this guy autistic or something?What was playing in those earphones?I put the long bag in my jacket pocket to pacify him but its open end hung out.He studied a nearby BART map and glanced in my direction.The station’s computerized voice marked the time: “San Francisco, Daly City train in 10 minutes.”I was still hungry.I stuck my hand in the bag.

As I popped a small handful of almonds in my mouth, I looked up to see what could have been his twin approaching, taller and with a darker jacket, but with the same earphones!

“Is there a San Francisco train coming?” he asked.

A sign reading “San Francisco Trains” hung over my head like a thought bubble.

“I don’t know, but if it is, I’m on it.” I answered.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“I’m on it.”My lingo was too cool for this earphones-wearing chump.

“What?”

“I’m on it.”Munch.

“Huh?”

“The train.I’m on it.I’m on the train.”

He nodded slowly and walked away.

Then the two of them shuffled around each other like they were holding little paper numbers at a travel agency.And after a couple minutes -- Bing! – earphones number one approached me again:

“All right, I warned you about eating.Let’s see some ID.”He yanked down the flap of his right breast pocket to reveal, in big white-on-black letters, “POLICE”.

Busted.

He pinched his left pocket and leaned over to speak into it:

“We got a 4-7-1 here on the platform of Lake Merritt. Six-foot white male, brown, brown.”This guy was all business.

I thought of giving him the wrong address, the wrong name, but the questions came too quick.While he wrote out the ticket, earphones two played good cop:

“So, moved out here from Boston, didya?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you go to school out there?”

“Yeah.”

And so on.

Five minutes into the bust, as earphones one scribbled and checked on my ticket, my train rolled into the station with its cheerful double beep.

The doors opened.“Guys, this is my train.Can you ride with me?”I asked.

They conferred for a moment.“Sure, we’ll ride with you” they said.

Earphones two helped me position my bicycle on the train so it wouldn’t roll around.

“You know,” hesaid , “the BART spends an inordinate amount of money cleaning up food from the subway.”I signed the ticket.They looked at the far exit of the car, and then the close one, and then they walked right past a girl blowing Bubbilicious into the next car, their “POLICE” tags still hanging out of their pockets.

I took a seat, took out the bag, and grabbed some nuts.I had just been nailed by undercover cops for eating nuts on a BART platform.I had a right to feel a little rebellious.

I had a right to feel stupid, too.How much more obvious could they have been?Sure they were green, but the 30 year veterans on the force had probably moved up from food busts by now.

Two weeks later I received a ticket for $162 in the mail.

I felt bad for looking down on them – but not $162 bad.I vowed to fight the ticket.

The next time I went to Oakland, I noticed construction on the escalator that hid the NO EATING signs.I would get the ticket thrown out.

When I finally remembered my point-and-shoot, I headed to the 16^th Street station.This was to be the control for my experiment; signs were everywhere!They were posted by the entrance, snap, the turnstiles, snap, and on the platform, snap, snap, snap.People looked at me like I was autistic or something.

I boarded my train and headed to Oakland, but to my horror the construction on the entrance was gone; only a few old sheets of plywood and some cones cluttered a corner.A new, oversized sign shone at the bottom of the escalator, with pictures of stick men eating, smoking, and drinking all crossed out by bold red circles and lines.I took pictures of the plywood.I took pictures of a section of wall with no signs.But it was useless.Maybe my judge would be blind, like the one in Alice’s Restaurant.  

I waited until the last possible day to show up in court.As I waited in line for day court at 7:30 AM, I prepared for the worst.I practiced my explanation, flipped through my pathetic pictures, and regretted my choice of brown socks on black shoes.I swapped stories with a guy who’d been busted for driving alone in the Bay Bridge carpool lane.

Then, in the ten O’clock session, the judge reducedticket after ticket, even for those who weren’t particularly cooperative.

“Do you plan to get car insurance?” she asked one 20-year-old with baggy pants.

“No.”

“Well, you’re probably going to be driving for quite a few years to come.Make sure you get that license and insurance.I’ll reduce the fine to a hundred dollars.”

The clerk called my name.I walked slowly to the defendant’s stand. The judge studied the crime report in front of her.Her black braids hung down over her robes.

“Good morning your honor,” I said.

A slow smile spread from her pursed lips to her razored sideburns.“Mr. Freedman, I don’t think I need to hear anything from you.I’m going to dismiss this in the interest of justice.”

The words warmed my body like a sweater out of the dryer.She was standing up for the people, teaching a lesson to the executive branch!Go Judge!

“So, I’m free to go?” I asked.

“Well you’ve got to wait for the clerk to process the papers.” She paused.“What were you eating?”

“Almonds,” I said.The courtroom laughed.

“Shelled or unshelled?” She asked.

“Shelled,” I said.