Whistler

The whistling was pleasant at first.

Loud enough to cut through the noise of the trolley, it was a simple melody consisting of about eight notes, followed by another eight notes.  If the first eight had been an innocent question, the second eight a perfectly satisfying answer.

Standing in the center of the rear half of the Green Line train, I turned about to see where the music was coming from.  The car was about half full, and it was not obvious who was responsible.

The whistling continued without a break.  The same eight notes followed by the same eight notes.  Followed again immediately by the exact sequence.

The pleasantness quickly evaporated.  Now it was simply curious.  Who was whistling?  My stereophonic powers finally got a fix on the source: a man riding in the very rear right corner.  He faced the window, his chin resting on his hand, motionlessly staring outside.  Yes, it was him, for though he sat still, the movement of his lips could be seen in the reflection of the glass.

Now the whistling was becoming irritating.  It was incessant.  Incessantly annoying.  Naturally the thought of either me or someone else saying something to him entered my head.  It was so loud, so piercing, so persistent.

Three people sat opposite him at the far left corner.  A nice group of coffee cup toting people, the guy had complimented my bicycle as we all boarded together in Santee.  They were happily engaged in some conversation which I could not make out.

Suddenly, the Whistler, who had been looking away from them, wheeled around and spoke sharply to them.  It was loud enough for me to make out his words very clearly:

"Will you folks PLEASE keep it down?  I'm SICK of being stalked by you people from the freighter."

He then turned back to looking out the window and resumed his incessant whistling as if nothing had just happened.

The three people were struck silent.  From the other end of the car I could hear the two fare-checking officers, a man and a woman, approaching.

"Tickets and passes!  Tickets and passes!"

One of them, the man, walked quickly past me to start his run from the very end where the music maker sat.  Whistler immediately stood up to retrieve his Compass Card from a pocket, and spent a moment explaining something to the fare checker.  As he gestured with great earnest, he had the trolley officer's rapt attention.  Though I could not hear the conversation over the ambient noise of the train, it seemed a full 30 seconds before the officer seemed to cut him short, acknowledging his pass.  The Whistler sat down and immediately resumed his repetitive two-part concerto.

As the two fare checkers met up in the center near where I stood, I saw the man speaking to his partner and subtly motioning his head back to indicate the Whistler.  They shared a smile that seemed to confirm my suspicions that they too agreed that this guy was cuh-RAY-zee.

Gradually the three riders who had been "told off" by Whistler resumed their quiet conversation.

The whistling continued unabated for the duration of my long ride.  Every now and then I'd glance over to watch him, frozen in the same position save the movement of his lips.  A couple of times, though, I saw him quickly reach for a pen, and furiously write something on his own left hand.

On his right wrist he wore several rubber bands.  Rubber bands as bracelets can mean different things.  One may just like to use them as adornment.  Or perhaps just as storage, for ready use in case of need.  Or, perhaps more likely in this case, they are prescribed by psychiatrists as "thought control devices".  When you have a bad thought, you just reach down and "snap" yourself.  Sort of like using a rolled-up newspaper on a misbehaving dog, only you do it to yourself.

I imagine what the doctor may have told his patient the Whistler:  "Now, when you're riding on the trolley, and you get that old 'kill everyone on the trolley' feeling, just give yourself a good 'snap' with the rubber band!"

Perhaps it's not very politically correct for me to refer to the Whistler as "crazy".  We all have various mental aberrations, I'm quite sure.  Take for instance, the man sitting between me and the three in the corner.  (You can see him in the second picture, he's wearing a grey tee-shirt over a navy blue hoodie.)  Because of the layout of the newer trolley cars, all the seats at either end face away from the center.  So he had his back to me the entire time and I never saw his face.  However, I did see his eye, because for much of the time he held up a small square mirror with blue tape across one corner to serve as a grip.  No one was going to sneak up on this guy!  Whenever I saw his eye right in the center of the mirror I knew I was being watched.  Mostly, though, he just kept an eye on what was happening in the rest of the car behind him.  (It was during one of the few times he lowered the mirror that I felt emboldened to lift my camera).