Living in NYC, as we all know, is hard work. It’s noisy, dirty, overcrowded and as of the last two years under attack.  I have actually grown used to watching my back on the subway platform when an oncoming train approaches.   I’ve drooled like a mad woman when approached by would be attackers, which have sent them, fleeing in disgust.  I’ve sternly confronted line jumpers at Starbucks and I don’t hesitate to tell a taxi driver to get off his cell phone when he is driving me across town.  “My life is in your hands!” I reprimand.   

These are the kind of things I do to survive in this city, and after many years, I wear my, twitchy, suspicious, defensive paranoia as a badge of honor.  I have learned to become crazier than the craziest and nastier than the nastiest.  I am a New Yorker.  

Nothing though, could prepare me for my greatest challenge yet to come. 

It all started when my friend Adam called me up on a Saturday morning to see if wanted to accompany him to an afternoon of free dance lessons at Fred Astaire’s School of Dance. Adam and I were neighbors and worked at the same restaurant together for a number of years. It was an incredibly stressful, dehumanizing, place to work and it left us permanently bonded. So, it wasn't at all surprising when he called me up out of the blue to join him. He always had little urban adventures like this up his sleeve. Whether it was free dance lessons, Jewish singles night, or glow-in-the-dark bowling, Adam took many risks in his own single-man-living-in-the-city kind of way, and I admired him for it. 

“We'll be learning a little bit of all the classics”, he explained, “Samba, Mambo, Cha-Cha even Swing!”  He was pretty excited about Swing.  Swing was very in that year. 

Feeling crampy and bloated and not very social I had been looking forward to a day or two of ordering in, not showering and watching lots of bad TV, but the hopeful pleading tone in Adam’s voice accompanied with the fact that the lessons were free, which was a sweet word to my very broke ears, suddenly put me in a better mood.  With a manic burst of energy, that could only be hormonally induced, I decided to go. 

The school was on 43rd and Second Avenue so we planned to catch the 4/5/6 train to 42nd Street and walk a couple of blocks to Fred Astaire's.  

As we descended down to the Union Square entrance, I barely noticed a young woman sitting on the ground smoking cigarettes. She was leaning against the right hand wall and I hardly noticed her because, well for one thing, Adam was on her side as we walked by, and secondly, like most New Yorkers, I have become immune to the sight of people sitting in inappropriate places all over this city. 

I never noticed when Adam gave a quiet 'sorry' and a quick shrug to the young woman on the ground when she held out her defiant hand for money. I certainly never noticed when she flicked her cigarette at us in disgust and gave us the finger when we passed. And I definitely never noticed her checking out my body proportions with any kind of discernment as I walked by, oblivious, towards the turnstile. I never noticed any of these things.  

That's why, when I started fishing around in my purse for my Metro card, it took me by a complete surprise when I heard a hostile bellow coming from the subway entrance. I was even more surprised when I realized it was being directed at me. 

"Why don't you take that money you're not giving me and use it for liposuction, bitch!" 

Now there were people behind me and in front of me, in fact there were plenty of people all around, but I knew she was talking me. A woman knows when she's being called fat. 

I froze, not quite sure what I should do. I looked down at what I was wearing. a frumpy pair of Old Navy sweats, a non-descript oversized, gray cotton shirt and a tattered pair of sneakers.  I was saving to buy a new pair of $125.00 Bright red Puma’s with Orange stripes on the side, and until then these would have to do. 

The look certainly wasn’t flattering, but I didn’t think it made me look obese. 

I looked at Adam. He seemed to be focusing on something in the distance, completely stone faced. He wasn't a good liar. I knew he heard. 

I felt an intense combination of humiliation and paranoia. Had anyone else heard? Was everyone else in the subway checking my ass out right now? “I'm just very puffy and retaining water,” I wanted to explain.  

What kind of person would shout that kind of thing? I didn't want to know. If I kept moving, no one would know she was talking to me. 

 I quickly found my Metro card and was about to slide it through when my nemesis spoke again.

“You heard me you fat bitch!” 

I stopped dead in my tracks. Now she was going too far. What was fear and humiliation was now turning into anger. One insult, I could let it go, pretend I hadn't heard, but a second one? No, my own character was at stake now. I pushed away from the turnstile and turned around. I could see her in the distance. She was still sitting by the main stairway entrance, lighting another cigarette. 

I'll just walk over to her, she'll be taken by surprise at my brazenness, and see at once that I am not at all fat, just very bloated. She'll apologize, and we'll all laugh and carry on with our day, her begging and shouting out viscous untruths and me to my free dance lesson.  

I took a deep breath and began my approach. 

The closer I got the more I could make out her features. She was young, about 19 or 20. Her wavy, blonde hair was shoulder length and she was wearing some sort of fatigues outfit. To my utter dismay she was model thin. 

I stopped in front of her and looked down. Her face was plain. Not ugly, not pretty just not much of anything. Her most distinguishing features were her eyebrows.  They were so thin you could tell they were an accident. She probably had to keep plucking to even out the over-plucking and finally just fucked them up completely. 

For some reason her ravaged eyebrows gave me a completely different perspective of her. Maybe she really is poor and hungry and addicted to drugs and prostituting herself, I reasoned. That, of course, would explain her distorted perception of my body. 

I tried to maintain my focus on her awful eyebrows. It gave me courage. I have to admit, I take a lot of pride in my own eyebrows. They have a nice, natural shapely line to them, without looking overly manicured. They are very nice eyebrows. Hell, they're fabulous eyebrows. As I looked down at her, I was trying to make my eyebrows look very prominent. She was flipping through a magazine. I noticed she had a chunky ring on every finger. That was so out.  

Taking a deep drag of her cigarette, she slowly looked up. I did think I noticed an envious glance in the eyebrow direction as she let out a long stream of smoke towards my face. Then she said, almost as a yawn, “Yes, fat bitch?” 

Again a wave of humiliation ran over me and I immediately lost my brief moment of self-assuredness. I'm just bloated! I wanted to scream.  

She stared up at me, defiantly. I stared down at her ridiculously. I had no idea how to respond.   Finally I said what I always say when I don't know what to say. “What did you say?”  I said. 

 It sounded weak and idiotic, which is exactly how I felt.  

That's when she stood up. I noticed her fatigues pants were hanging fashionably off her slender hips, and her dark blue halter top, I had actually picked off the rack myself to try on while shopping at H&M.    

I thought I would try guilt. “You know, there actually are people in this city who really do have to beg for money and you're just taking it away from them.”  I had seen so many kids in the East Village begging just for the fun of it, making a game out of it. I hated those kids. I waited, concentrating on her awful brows. 

“I am one of the poor, you stupid bitch!" 

That's when Adam finally stepped in to defend my honor. He had been standing by the turnstile where I left him this entire time hoping this would end very soon. Adam was not a confrontational kind of guy. 

To me he said, “Let's go Melissa, we're going to be late.” Then he turned towards the young woman and said, “You know, just because someone doesn't give you money when you ask for it, doesn't mean you start harassing them.” 

I was grateful, but Adam's voice was whiney and a little shrill. I definitely wanted him to stay out of it. He was cramping my style.  

She looked over at him as if she were swatting a fly. “Shut up, greasy!” 

I almost laughed. Greasy? Adam? Adam was the most clean-cut guy I knew! Greasy? I guess she did have a blurred perception of people. If she called Adam “greasy," well then it's understandable she would call me “fat."  She was insane!  

All at once I had my confidence back. I was almost gleeful. Adam was greasy and I was fat! I was happy to have the focus off me for a moment. I guess she could sense my inner joy because that's when she attacked. Now, the last actual physical fight I had been in was when I was in the third grade. An 8-year-old girl thug named Camille cornered me after school challenging me to a fight. I lived with my 82 year old, great grandma Sadie, and had no idea what a fight was. When Camille first approached, I thought she was perhaps being friendly and inviting me over after school for some matzo with peanut butter. No such luck. With all her might she gave me a shove that was intended to knock me off my feet. But she was short and snappy like a Miniature Pinter and I was tall and awkward like a Labrador pup. I barely moved. Not knowing what else to do and with all the other kids staring, I shoved her back with all of my might. Not only did she go flying, she skidded a couple of inches when she hit the ground. I stood there, guilty and strong. I hoped I hadn't hurt her. Camille got up, angry and defeated and probably in pain, and said something like “Stupid!” and stormed off. I guess I was the winner, but I still felt bad that she disliked me so much. To this day I have that problem. 

I looked at the young angry woman in fatigues. I knew I could take her physically, but I didn't know if I had it in me emotionally. Suddenly she got right in my face and very Camille-like shoved me as hard as she could. This time I did get thrown back, but I kept my footing.  

The fight had begun.  

I stood there shaken and not sure what to do. What had I gotten myself into? Was I really going fight her? I was the one who went storming over to her. Now she was calling my bluff. No, this was definitely not the day I had planned. I could be home right now eating some Thai food and watching an X-Files rerun. I decided to do just that and was about to turn around when something caught my eye.  

Because she was wearing all that drab green, I was immediately drawn to the most colorful thing on her body. There, right on her narrow, skinny feet, was a pair of bright red sneakers with a fetching orange stripe down the sides.   

She was wearing my Pumas. 

This evil bitch, attacking me, my body, my soul, had on a brand new pair of sneakers that I myself was too broke to buy! It was all too much. I had had enough. Fat comments be damned, I was going to kill her. I ran at her like the number 5 express that I should have been on at that very moment. She hit the wall behind her with such a force, that I noticed two rings fly off her bony fingers. 

The next couple of minutes were a blur. She came at me with a slap to my right cheek. It stung, but I brushed it off and immediately grabbed a chunk of her hair as hard as I could. She then tried to bite my hand and I pulled away and gave her an elbow in the face. And so it continued like this. 

At some point I can remember a sweet Jamaican man with a soothing voice grabbing my arm saying, “Melissa, don't listen to her, she is lost." He must have heard Adam saying my name. 

His compassion took me off guard, but I broke free of him. I was too far-gone, under some sort of spell, and I have to admit, to finally unleash felt superb.  I couldn't stop if I wanted to. I needed to kick some ass! I felt like I had the strength of 10 premenstrual women. Finally out of nowhere, it seemed, a group of people were pulling us apart, one of them was my Jamaican friend.

“She is bad,” he whispered tenderly in my ear, “do not waste your time with her, she is the devil." 

He understood. I loved him. 

Adam immediately grabbed my arm and was dragging me back towards the turnstile. I wouldn't turn my back on her. I just let him drag me as I stumbled backwards, glaring at her. She stood glaring back. Her face was all red, and her hair was as crazy and misshapen as her eyebrows. I got in a few good licks. I kept expecting her to say something but she just kept staring, no emotion at all. 

When we reached the turnstile Adam handed me my Metro Card, which I must have dropped during all the fuss. Together we walked on through. 

All of a sudden, I started to feel a little weak-kneed. I guess it was hitting me what had just happened. I lifted my arm up in front of me and it was visibly shaking. Adam said, "Do you still want to go?" He meant to the dance lessons.

I didn't hesitate. "Yes!" I said a little too loudly. I wanted to show him I was fine. I just got into a knockdown, drag-out with another woman. A complete stranger, but hey, I was fine and dandy! 

We made a left toward the 4/5/6 subway stairs and were almost there when the young woman approached from the other side of the turnstile gate. She had a big grin on her face as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a huge wad of bills. She fluttered them at me through the gate and said in a taunting voice, “Suckerrrrr!” 

I watched her not really believing. It was like the end of a horror movie when you think the monster is dead, but at the last minute he jumps back up and makes a final attempt at  stabbing/choking/pummeling his intended victim. 

This monster was going to die. The money she was waving, obviously conned by people less jaded and hormonal than I only justified what I was about to do. I calmly walked up to her and got as close as I thought was safe. Then in my best, female Clint Eastwood impression I said, “You know, you can pluck your eyebrows as thin as you want, but you are always going to be...UGLY!” 

I noticed her flinch, ever so slightly, which only egged me on. Before she could reply I jumped in again. “You… are… so...UGLEEE!” 

Adam grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the stairs. I kept ranting.  I couldn't stop. I wanted to completely overpower her with my words. “UGLY! UGLY! UGLY!” I screamed like a complete lunatic. People walking by who hadn't seen what had happened earlier looked at me as if I were just that. I couldn't care less. “You will always be UGLEEEEE!” I continued. “And your eyebrows, they're REEEAALLLY UGLY!”  

 I was screaming "ugly" all the way down the stairs and into a waiting subway train, never giving her a chance to speak.  

I don't even remember the dance lesson. I avoided that subway entrance for almost a year. And for about that long whenever I saw teenage vagrants on the street asking for handouts, my heart would skip a beat.  But that's all faded now. The experience has become a part of me. It's only added another layer to my coat of survival. I didn't rise above, I got down and dirty, and I'm fine with that. I did what I had to do. I'm a New Yorker.   

But I’d like to think, not an ugly one.

Melissa Glassman is an actress, writer, and sometimes stand-up comedienne. She was born and mostly raised in NYC and knows the glory that is riding the subway system very well. She can be reached at melglassman@yahoo.com.