Three weeks ago, I was traveling to Gilroy on CalTrain.
I missed my first train because holiday traffic was so heavy so would have to wait another half hour for the next (non-express) train.
I sat down on a bench inside the terminal, a glass and I-beam affair that was more aviary than pomo playhouse. At some point, someone had sprayed some warm liquid on my left arm. I looked around to see who had done so and, I think, I exclaimed What the fuck?. No one among the nearly thirty people nearby acted as if they noticed, which I suppose if you were in the pomo aviary and some random black-Korean guy jumped up and yelled What the fuck? would you visibly react? The young senior man to my left and the pretty young woman to my right didn’t even look over.
I looked up to the I-beam above and saw a pigeon—accompanied by a dozen of its fellows in various stages of sitting, jostling, and landing—fold its wings and waddle back into place.
The train was delayed by more than half an hour and departed on a different track.