PHOTO: The last second of life

To your question. ... When you ride the subway, you get used to panhandlers who are aggressive, and mentally ill people that need to be getting help and aren't. So it isn't really a question of what kind of person pushes a man onto a subway track. There are some messed up people who make their home down there. If you got a sense of some of the homeless people straphangers see on the subway every day--many of them obviously mentally unstable--you'd understand.

The worst interaction I had was a year or two ago. I am not a suit and tie guy, but I was spending a lot of time at an office where the uniform was really button down, so I was riding the subway home during rush hour in a conservative-looking suit. It was a really crowded subway car, everyone minding their own business, and for no reason a loudmouth guy who looked raggedy, and may have been mentally ill (and was definitely on something) decided to just start shit--ranting aggressively. I can't remember most of what he was going on about. But then he just turned his attention to me--for no reason; honest. Him black and looking ragged. Me white and in a suit. So I turned into the target for whatever he was angry about. I was trying to not even make eye contact with him. I had about a 15 to 20 minute ride, and the car was packed with people standing, so I couldn't just walk away from him without getting off the subway before my stop. When he turned his attention to me, I was just trying not to make eye contact with him, but all of a sudden I had this guy a few feet away from me yelling at me and cursing up a storm and insulting me. Over and over again. And it just wouldn't end. It seemed like an eternity and I was really uncomfortable, but just trying to stay quiet, not make eye contact and get to my stop. He was going on and on and everyone was just trying not to look. That really uncomfortable, "Looking down at their phone or newspaper" thing. I can't remember exactly what he was saying, but I was definitely a problem for him, and when he pointed at me, presumably because I was wearing a suit, and said something about how "there are two Americas," I did the stupidest thing. Rather than just staying quiet, I had had enough and I said, "Yeah, two Americas. One with with assholes like you and one with with the rest of us." That just ratcheted him up.

When it was time for me to get off the subway, I had this sixth sense that something bad was going to happen. I was extra alert. It was a crowd of people getting off, but within a few seconds of stepping onto the platform, I had this feeling he was behind me. I turned, and there he was winding up to throw a punch. Except it was like in slow motion. He was drunk or on something and I saw it coming from a mile away and just ducked under it. And then instinct took over and I came back with an uppercut into his gut. I don't know how to fight, and if you asked me to duplicate the whole thing, I couldn't. So in that regard, afterward I felt about as manly as I ever have. I got him square in that part of the gut that knocks the wind out of you, and he went right down.

My heart was beating really fast, and I was just standing there kind of shocked about the whole thing. Luckily a woman (black woman, by the way) who had been near me on the subway car and watching the whole thing, grabbed me by the arm, and just told me to walk with her and pushed me away and walked me out of there. She kept saying, "Just walk away," over and over again.

I know that is a long way from an angry -- probably mentally ill -- guy throwing you on the tracks, but you just never know who you are dealing with on the subway. 99.9 percent of the time it is a perfectly safe experience. But you do need to keep your sensors up, and if I could do things over again, I would have just gotten off the subway at the next stop and waited for the next train.