It's Harvey Pekar's world, we're all just living in it

We leave Tower City on the Shaker Rapid, and there's two guys sitting between us and the front of the train (where the driver sits). One of the guys is an RTA employee, a middle aged black guy, apparently with some degree of authority. He's carrying a radio, but doesn't really have anything to do with the operation of this particular train. The other guy is a passenger, a middle aged white guy, wearing a wool stocking cap and a ... well, I would call it a spring weight coat, but I know what Cleveland is like in the spring ... Regular blue collar looking guy, not an unusual type of person to see in Cleveland.

As soon as we leave Tower City, the passenger immediately starts an argument with the RTA guy over whether we had or had not left the station 7 minutes later than scheduled (the trains run every 15 minutes on Saturdays). The RTA guy claimed that the guy was looking at the wrong schedule and that the train was right on time. He seemed to take it personally; it's possible that it actually was his responsibility to make sure the train got off on time.

So, they went back and forth on this for a couple of minutes. Not really any shouting, and no threats of violence or anything, but definite arguing, and the RTA guy was never in the least apologetic or conciliatory. And then there was kind of a lull (maybe the passenger dude was just tired of arguing), and then got the RTA guy got his final lick in. He looked at the other guy and said, "Most of the time, when somebody complains about something, they actually have facts to back them up." No response to that. 

¶ 6/08/2008 09:49:00 PM