When they walked onto the train, one of them had just begun a tale about an ex-roommate who had been having sexual relations with a married man. This woman became more drawn into the affair's sordid complexities than she wanted to be, and either threw the roommate out or judgmentally implied that she soon would. The roommate didn’t like this - so she smacked the woman and they got into a rolling-on-the-floor fist fight. This fact pattern is straight out of an episode of Basketball Wives (Mob Wives too)! People really do this?
I usually resent being trapped within a loud and lengthy public conversation, especially when I’m reading. But this person was a better storyteller than the author of my book.
I never would have figured her for a savage. Before she hissed out the word “smack,” I figured her for a mid-level employee at a Condé Nast-owned magazine who habitually unwinds at trendy wine bars that don’t offer happy hour specials - which made it that much more startling to hear her make statements like: “I just kept punching and punching her, that’s all I wanted to do.”
She said the neighbors must have called the cops, because that’s who came knocking on their door “5 to 10 minutes into the fight.” Is 5 to 10 minutes a normal time frame for a fist fight? It seems epic. I’d expect someone to get knocked out of commission within the first 3 to 5 minutes. Sounds like a couple of lightweights. How’d the cops get there so fast?
The friend-to-be interrupted with a bit of practical advice about how to better defend herself the next time she’s in a one-on-one brawl, but I couldn’t hear most of it. It gets so noisy in those subway cars – speak up, dammit! I could use a tutorial on how to be boss if a lunatic ever comes at me, and was crushed when I had to get off at my stop while class was still well in session.