Yesterday, I left work in a hurry, power-walking through the rush-hour crowd. I was late for dinner. At my apartment. By myself. Look, I was very hungry. So hungry, that in a desperate effort to alleviate my suffering, I stuffed two pieces of Winterfresh gum into my mouth. It was a momentary fix.

I reached the Downtown NRQW just as the R was leaving. In my failed effort to get on that subway, I found myself quite out of breath…and then I felt that itch in my throat, irritated by my labored inhales and quickened exhales.

Like the majority of New Yorkers I know, I’ve been suffering from a cold for the past couple of weeks. Now, though my sinuses are clearing up, this dry spell has led to a persistent tickle in the throat, often resulting in disturbing, heaving coughs. Such fits, occurring at least once an hour, made me sound like a dying seal. The rest of the time, I sounded like a man.

As I stood on the platform, I could feel a fit coming on. While at the office, I always had water or tea to quell such outbursts, but here, I found myself unarmed.

Just then, a crowded W train entered the station. For some reason, rush hour seemed even busier than usual.

I boarded, along with a good number of other people, and stood, sandwiched in between a woman with shoulder length blonde hair–I was facing the back of her head, so that’s all I saw–and a 30-something guy in an overcoat. He was obviously checking out said woman with blonde hair, as I noticed him give her a quick up and down and then just stare at her ass before I muscled my way in between them.

To my right, three people were seated, one reading a book, one reading the Times and listening to music, and one on his iPhone.

As we were ordered to “Please stand clear of the closing doors,” my cough–a wild animal not meant to be caged–burst fourth with a torturous roar. Without any sort of liquid at hand, I could not tame the beast. The situation was painful, both physically and mentally. I kept my hand over my mouth and tried, for the sake of those around me, to keep it down.

That’s when the wad of Winterfresh, which was being tossed around my mouth like a rowboat in a squall, suddenly became lodged in my throat.

Panic.

My hand fell away from my mouth and gave my chest a hard pound as I let out another deep cough.

Relief! I felt the gum fly from the back of my throat.

And then I watched it land…in Blonde Woman’s hair.

Panic.

Still coughing, though now with my hand even more firmly clamped over my mouth, I looked around at the guy standing behind me. He looked back at me, shocked, appalled. Then I saw his eyes wander back to the gum, then to something else–I turned around to follow his line of vision.

To the right of the woman, an MTA ad demanded, “If you see something, say something.”

I looked back at the guy. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had spoken, and it demanded justice. Or at least that’s what was written on this guy’s face as he met my eyes once more. My cough stopped. Time stood still. Was I in The Matrix?

I was about to be exposed. At that moment, as we pulled into the 28th Street station, I knew the situation was no longer in my control. This guy with his wandering eyes and warped sense of civic responsibility was taking matters into his own hands, literally–I watched in horror as he reached over me to put his hand on the shoulder of Blonde Woman.

Without time to think, I too reached forward. She jerked around, obviously disturbed as two different hands had landed on her left arm.

“I’m so sorry!” I blurted in her face.

Then I turned and dodged around a couple of people before running off the subway car and onto the 28th Street platform. I jogged down the platform as the doors closed and the subway pulled away from the station.

Still two stops away from where I needed to be, I waited for the next train. I felt guilty and relieved and guilty for being relieved. Inevitably, just when I thought life in New York was starting to calm down and come together, this mini-disaster occurred. As I stood on the platform, I was overcome by the feeling that I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

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