So I’m standing on the R platform at Atlantic Ave and there’s a group of awkward pre-teen boys running in circles, chasing one another, shoving, tackling, and wrestling and just generally being stupid and irresponsible (not to say annoying) and, basically, I’m standing there devising plans for how I’m going to live with myself when one of these kids falls down onto the tracks and gets run over when the slightly older, completely unamused lady standing next to me walks over and gives them a talking to. Where do you grow the balls to do something like that? To yell at some kids you’ve never met when they’ll probably just laugh at you and ignore you and make faces behind your back?
They didn’t laugh at her—though they seemed terribly pleased with their own raffishness—and they did knock it off—though there was some backsliding as the interminable wait for the train wore on. Could I do that? Could I bend obnoxious children to my will?
