You’ll find one on every subway, in every city in the world. Those people who feign having “no idea” that it’s bad form to stand against a pole so that no one can wrap their hand around any part of it—unless they’re willing to raise their arm up real high. The worst perpetrator of this offense, though, is the pole leaner who walks on the train, patently sees someone’s hand already gripping the pole and still freely chooses to lean on it. As though the person they just saw doesn’t exist, isn’t even a person. As though they can’t feel the lumpiness of a knuckle in their back that so obviously isn’t a part of the pole. But such “trivial details” are no matter to the pole leaner. What do they care about “petty concerns” like that? They have other, far more important things to worry about—like being a self-absorbed twathole.

And there were a lot of those, again, in every city, but nowhere as pronounced as in New York, where pole leaning was, for Desmond, even more irksome than showtime. And while, yes, he could certainly feel his stomach drop every time a barely adolescent child popped up on the train to announce, “Showtime!,” it was still preferable to the level of rage that would boil within him when he had firmly staked out his post on the train, only to have it essentially body-checked away from him by someone else’s inconsiderate back. An occurrence that seemed more regular than intermittent.

Then, one day, after Desmond had just been fired from his job, and was, therefore, heading back to his apartment early (mid-afternoon), someone dared to do it to him. Lean against his firmly placed hand as though it wasn’t there. As though he wasn’t there. To add insult to injury, the train wasn’t even crowded—this woman could have easily just sat down in one of the empty seats or found a pole that was actually available. That was all it took to set him off during such a moment of emotional vulnerability.

Julie, the sleekly-dressed woman who dared to disrupt his pole with the bulk of her body, had no idea who she was tangoing with when she leaned back (initially) without a care in the world. For no sooner had she done so than Desmond unleashed a torrent of expletives unlike any she had ever heard before. Cautiously removing herself from the pole to turn and face her detractor, Julie was met with immediate silence. Because what Desmond hadn’t counted on was being struck by Cupid’s arrow in this very instant. The instant of making eye contact with the person who, just seconds ago, he despised with the intensity of Iago for humanity.

Julie took note of his sudden softened expression and smiled wryly as she nudged, “You were saying?”

Desmond loosened his tie as he gulped, sheepishly replying, “Um, just that you’re a fucking bitch for being so inconsiderate?”

“I see.” She looked at him expectantly.

Giving in to her glare, Desmond added, “Look, I’m really sorry. It’s been a rough day and your pole leaning was the last straw.”

“My ‘pole leaning’?”

“Yeah. Why would you do that? You come in here, see me holding onto the pole and you place the weight of your back against my fingers. What the fuck is up with that?”

“Maybe I was trying to create a conversation starter.”

At that, he couldn’t help but smile. “Well, clearly, it worked.”

“I know, right? Maybe I’m not the stupid bitch you thought I was.”

Approximately thirty minutes later, the two were in Desmond’s apartment going at it like rabbits. When they were finished, Desmond rolled onto his back and quipped, “Now that’s what I call riding the F train.”

Julie rolled her eyes. “You’ve been waiting your whole life to say that.”

Desmond sighed with satisfaction. “Maybe.”

Julie leaned over the side of the bed to reach into the pocket of the blazer that had been ripped off of her. She pulled out a lighter and a cigarette, igniting it to take her first post-coital drag.

Desmond looked on in disbelief, commenting, “Wow, smoking in my bed. Very presumptuous of you. The type of uncouth behavior I should have expected from a pole leaner.”

She held out the cigarette to him, “You want?”

“Of course I fucking want,” he confirmed, snatching it away from her eagerly.

She watched him take a serene drag, then two, then three, before taking it back and chastising, “Okay, okay. I wasn’t saying you could have it.”

He laughed. “Witty and a smoker. Julie, you just might be the girl of my dreams.”

“Until I inevitably become the girl of your nightmares.”

Desmond arched his brow. “Speaking from experience?”

She exhaled a plume of smoke in his face. “Experience, observation, knowing what men are.”

“Ah. So you’ve been burned.”

“More like love bombed then predictably abandoned.”

Desmond took her hand and squeezed it. “That’s not my style.”

“Sure it isn’t. Not today.” She removed her hand from his.

“I mean it. You literally saved my life. I was on the verge of just coming home and killing myself.”

“As opposed to just coming?”

He scoffed. “Oh Julie. Be serious for one minute.”

“A whole minute? I don’t think I’m capable.”

“Well try to be. Because I want to tell you that this isn’t a one-off as far as I’m concerned.”

“Even though I’m a disrespectful cunt a.k.a. pole leaner?”

“Yes! Which is a very big deal for me, as you must know. Up until today, I loathed your kind. Couldn’t possibly understand them. But now, I get it. They were all trying to flirt with me in the most annoying way possible.”

Julie punched his shoulder. “Idiot.”

He laughed. “Okay, but really. Can you please explain to me the psychology behind why people do this? I have to know.”

“And you think I’ve got some great insight because I did it?”

“Obviously.”

“I don’t. I just did it.”

“Oh. So now it wasn’t even about wanting to flirt with me?”

“Desmond, baby, that was just something I said as part of our banter. It simply came to me.”

“Wow. You’re good. A regular Katharine Hepburn.”

“What can I say? I’ve seen a lot of classic movies. And by that, I don’t mean 2000s rom-coms.”

Desmond was glowering. “And here I thought you could finally provide me with the answer to a mystery that’s been plaguing me for years. Because I genuinely want to know the why that drives such selfish behavior.”

Julie shrugged. “I guess that’s the thing about being selfish, isn’t it? You’re not really thinking about others at all. You’re sort of just in your own little bubble, right?”

“I really wouldn’t know, but it sounds like you do.”

She stroked his arm condescendingly, continuing to drag on her cigarette. “Then maybe I have given you the answer, after all.”

He yanked his arm away from her. “If that’s really the long and short of it, I think I’m going to need to ask you to leave.”

Julie stopped mid-inhalation, glancing over at him with genuine incredulity. “Are you fucking with me?”

“No more than you were when you told me you leaned against that pole so that I would talk to you.”

Livid, Julie stubbed out her cigarette on Desmond’s nightstand, pressing it in for a prolonged enough period to leave a potent burn mark in its wake.

Desmond scowled at the tarnishment of an item he definitely wouldn’t have disposable income to fix or replace anytime soon. “I can’t believe how right I was about you from the start.”

“Really? Same here—love bomber. Which, by the way, is so much worse than a ‘pole leaner.’ Wish I had the last few minutes on video to play your lies back to you. Then you could see how fucking pathetic you are.”

He sneered. “I am once again asking you to get the fuck out of my apartment, pole monopolizer!”

Julie flung the sheet off of herself, revealing the entirety of her naked body, a vision that almost made Desmond regret everything he had said. But the second he let that thought cross his mind, Julie spit right in his face as she got up from the bed in a huff. “Hope you get a fucking pole rammed up your ass, you self-righteous prick.”

With that, she picked up her clothes, putting them on as she practically ran out of the apartment. When she slammed the door, the framed picture hanging on the wall at the opposite side of the room, just above his desk, landed on the wood with enough force to crack the glass. The picture was of him and his now deceased father riding one of the aboveground trains when Desmond was a child. Leave it to a pole leaner like Julie to decimate any and all possible positive associations with the subway.

Desmond got up from the bed to assess the damage, deciding he would go out to the nearest (ergo, not the cheapest) frame shop to fix it. Just as soon as he took a shower. The thought that he had stuck his own “pole” inside a breed of human he had been staunchly against for so long was enough to make him want to incorporate some bleach into the regimen as well.