It was about 10:30 on Saturday night. He, a white male, in his 50’s entered the subway car carrying a gym bag. He looked like any other passenger, although he carried energy because he was already loudly talking. One becomes enured to the loud mouth attempting to gain attention for their shspeal, for money, food, something, from each person in the car. But he wanted attention, and was loud enough to get it. He was ranting about his Bronx education, the ‘state of the union’ and all of it so loud and obnoxious I really wanted to look him in the eye and say, “Enough already, just shut the fact up”. But he was carrying a gym bag, a bag big enough to contain anything, including a weapon. So instead, out of my rather large tapestry tote bag, I fished out my sunglasses, put them on so he couldn’t catch my eye, and decided to bear it, no grin. I was annoyed at the fact that he could come and command all of our space without our consent. He raved and ranted for two stops. At the third stop, a number of passengers left, and I wondered if they had just moved on to another car, as that is what one does when the present car is presenting an unacceptable environment. Then the 4th stop came, and when the doors opened, and a band of New York’s Finest boarded. Both doors gave them entrance and they met all variations on the theme: male, female, black white, asian. To my utter astonishment, The Mouth shut up and sat down. Through my sunglasses I stared at him. He wasn’t ‘out-of-control” at all. He was, in my estimation, just another bully. He was bullying the entire car, because he could. Because he had tried it before and no one stopped him. Stop number 6 he stands, and as he goes to exit, he has to clear the cop crowd. He turns to the nearest uniformed man and begins a 30 second tribute to how fine they are, and that they have a hard job and protect us, and how thankful we all are. By now my eyes are wider than my lenses. He exits, the officers mumble a unified ‘thank you’ and the door closes. I take off my glasses, return them to my bag and look up a the handsome male cop standing next to my seat. “I don’t believe that,” I say. I tell him the entire story, about the R&R and then their arrival with the ensuing silence and then the exit tribute. They smile at me and say “Yeah, we see a lot of that.” I continue on talking about my amazement when I look down and see that on my left arm, is the tangled yellow paper bracelet, that I had been given to wear at the Country Club event I attended with friends in Westchester County. Earlier on the way home, I had tried to remove it, but could not, so it was twisted and half hidden under the bangles I was wearing. Suddenly I wondered, if seen through other eyes, had I perhaps just wandered away from some ‘facility’. My stop was next. Had NY’s finest wondered if there had been two ‘live ones’ on that ride?