Nutter

Last week, when I was down in Melbourne, I had a very unsettling experience. I'd come in from the airport and had a few things with me (staying for week, so needed more than my usual little gym bag of stuff) and I was on my way to pick up a car from a friend's house. I was catching a train - yes, my life is that glamorous - on a Sunday night at about 8pm.

A few of us got on the train at Southern Cross station, and I noticed a guy already in the carriage, but I was sitting behind him and didn't register anything unusual until I'd already sat down, so I couldn't be bothered moving. He was in his early 20s, stocky, and he had been asleep. As people entered the carriage he woke up and greeted us all with a "f*Ck youse all", which I thought was a little charmless. He was clearly recovering from a very day of drinking and/or self-medication.

He went back to sleep momentarily, then when the train slowed down to stop at the next station he woke up abruptly again and managed to get to his feet. He lurched his way to the door (right past me, and I was worried he was going to fall on me) then, when he got the door, fell over. I didn't see him fall over as he was behind me but I heard it. I was in no mood to help (especially not after the "f*ck youse all" that greeted me as I got on) but I could hear him cursing and getting up. Unfortunately by the time he'd gotten up he'd missed the station, so he came back to his seat.

I don't know what it is about me, but I seem to attract this sort of thing. As he staggered past me he looked at me - I was looking at him, mostly because I wanted to keep an eye on him. He said "what's so f*cking funny, mate?". I hadn't been laughing, all I had wanted was for him to get out of the train and leave me alone. I help his gaze, all the time wondering "what can I do here that's least likely to provoke a disagreeable response?" and just said "nothing". Of course since then my head's been spinning with other things I should have said, but it wasn't a bad one.

He wasn't at all happy with that, and sat down again. A couple of times he looked back at me and called me a faggot. Which I wasn't tremendously pleased about. I should have moved away, but I had too much stuff, and I was in a bad mood already (flights had been mucked up) and I also thought that if I did that he'd probably want to make an issue of that as well so I sat there and played a game on my phone.

Then he started saying "what day is it? can any of you c*nts tell me what day it is?" and of course, "f*ck youse all". The other half-dozen people in the carriage were doing their level best to ignore him. Finally he asked a middle-aged (and terrified) couple near him where he had to get off the train to go to Bourke Street. The man explained to him that he'd gone too far, he'd have to get off at Richmond and go back. And he did in fact get off at Richmond but not before giving me one last blast (this time, I was a "c*cks*cking faggot").

Nothing very bad happened to me - there was no physical violence, and I guess that even if he had tried something I may have been able to do something about it. I've only been in a fight once, and that was with a cousin when I was about 7, but at least I could stand up and I knew what day it was, so I had a head-start on him. (He, however, had the advantage of being deranged and presumably had had quite a bit of experience with fights). And I've been called names before, but not, now that I think about it, since the 1970s (!!??!!).