After a long day of drinking at a friend’s place, I embarked on the gruelling 50 minute Lakeshore/Queen streetcar ride home. I sat near the back in front of a group of 7 boisterous girls who must have just turned 19 or 20. Two were good looking. Three were fat and ugly. The other two had fat and ugly looming just up around the bend. They drank bottles of Vex, loudly discussed who they dated in Gr. 8, and one even debated whether she could get away with peeing in a cup. It seemed she could.

A kind-looking woman sat between me and the girls, and for some reason, really wanted to make friendly conversation with them, perhaps recalling the nightclub outings of her own youth.

“You girls look nice tonight, where are you going?”

“Vexation.” One intoned snottily. This presumably, was the name of some club, which they still perceived to be of great significance to the world at large. (editor’s note: I made up the name of this club, but the real one sounded equally terrible)

The woman shared her own plans of going to a Jungle event where she hoped to make inroads with a handsome DJ. This led to much scoffing among the girls.

“You know you girls are lucky, in 1997 there used to be 150 clubs downtown. Now there are only 40. So you guys have it good. They really cater to you.”

“I was…like 7…then,” one of the snottiest young women said.

“You are making me feel old,” said the lady.

“Um…ya,” said one of the girls, that was the point.

They engaged the woman periodically, always with a low-toned snipe by someone in the background, never directly.

“Do my lips look nice?” asked the woman, who, though kind-hearted, perhaps was afflicted with some mental illness. That was my impression since she seemed to use no protective faculties in the face of these hateful teens.

“They look big,” said one of the shits.

She did have big lips. “I know they’re big, but is my lip-gloss okay?”

“Oh my god, it smells. I haven’t smelled that since like, Gr. 7.”

“And why are you wearing that hat forwards. A girl shouldn’t wear a hat like that.”

“What’s wrong with your skirt, do you want me to cut it for you. Why is it so long?”

They went on, and the woman seemed to filter out all the hatred and only focus on whatever shreds of decency the girls inadvertently gave off.

Then as the manifestation of some evil, the girls started encouraging the woman to dance like she would at the jungle party, and she did, making wild ostentatious movements all over the streetcar while the girls cackled with mean-spirited glee.

The woman got off the streetcar, perhaps hurt deep-down, perhaps blissfully unaware. The day’s whiskey had mostly been processed through my system by then, leaving me with a cold, grey rage.

I said in a low, friendly tone to the collective shrews-in-training, “So where are you girls going, to your shift at a strip club?”

Blank stares.

“It just smells like a strip club with all that cheap perfume is all.”

A group of weary hipsters, who’d been listening to the whole scene, burst into a great cacophony of welcome laughter. I looked at them for support and found it in spades.

The girls realized the tables had turned. The haters had become the hated-upon. “What the fuck are you talking to us for? We weren’t talking to you.”

“You were being mean to that girl. You were acting like a bunch of world-class cunts,” I said.

“No we weren’t that was the best time of her life.”

With the galling kindness of an assured moralist, I looked into the eyes of the prettiest girl. She knew. I knew. She knew I knew. I knew she knew I knew.

They tried to insult me: “Your sandals are ugly. You have an ugly hat. You are ugly. You have to buy girls at a strip club. You mentioned a strip club. You could never get girls as pretty as us.” I didn’t want to get bogged down in name-calling, so I strolled jauntily off the street-car, leaving them to wonder how right I really was.