On the Red Line last night after my shift, I find a seat pop out Queer by Burroughs when I look up and see this fidgety 29 year old guy in a black kevlar vest, several mags of ammunition on his chest and a holstered pistol he keeps fingering. He has a nondescript security guard patch on his left shoulder and he’s eyeing the car suspiciously.

I wondered why I was the only one in the car who was at all taken aback by this guy and then it occurs to me that a third of the car is off their meds and rambling incoherently, a third is nodding off from the H they just ingested to cut across the Meth and a third just don’t seem to care this guy is eyeing them and stroking the grip of his weapon. However, due to the events of the past few weeks I start looking for a way off the car before he starts shooting.

The train pulls into the Vermont /Wilshire station and I run to another car where I alert two off duty MTA employees that there is a man in body armor, dressed totally in black with his hand on a pistol he is carrying openly. They glared at me until I sat in the back of the car as far away from what I was sure to be some form of stupidity coming at any moment.

I jump off the train, note the time 9:34, run up the stairs and call 911. Total time on hold waiting for an operator 2 minutes 10 seconds. She listens impassively for 30 seconds and says I’ll pass on the information. Click.

30 minutes later I get a call from the LAPD asking me for a description and where I think the man with gun is now.

“I don’t know,” I tell them. “Some place between the Vermont/Santa Monica and North Hollywood stations.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover. We’ll do our best looking for him,” the cop tells me and hangs up.

I don’t know about you but I feel safe.