"Please Don't Throw Up on Me . . ."

After another summer evening spent drinking with friends after work, I boarded the Denentoshi Line bound for the nether reaches of suburban Yokohama and found it empty. An empty train in Tokyo is a rare occurrence, happening only early on weekend mornings, and during the magical hour between the salaryman's mass post-drinking exodus to the suburbs around 10:00 p.m. and the jammed-packed last train around midnight. I sat down on the plush seat (yes, subway seats in Japan have cushions made of velour!), relishing the rare opportunity to sit on the train.

A salaryman boarded behind me. He was probably in his late-40s or early 50s, carried a briefcase in one hand and had the look of a man mired in middle management until retirement. Despite having an entire subway car minus one seat of possible places to arrange himself for his long ride home, he made a beeline for me, grabbed the strap hanging above my seat with his free hand, bent over, and began studying me from inches away.

The guy was puh-lastered, and clearly all his inhibitions had long since abandoned him. Maybe he was not as quite as drunk as the salaryman I had recently seen planted face-down in a Shibuya gutter with only one shoe on, but he was about as drunk as I had ever seen anyone who was still vertical. As the train departed the station its motion caused him to weave and wobble above me as he tried to stay upright holding onto the strap one-handed. When the train bent into a curve, he lost his balance and literally pirouetted on one leg, spinning completely around, while still hanging onto the strap. There was no point moving seats, because it was clear he was determined to follow me, so I decided to wait until we reached the next station, where I could switch cars.

As I watched the man twisting and spinning above me, the plastic strap creaking each time his weight shifted in response to the train's motion, I could think only one thing: Please don't throw up on me.

Believe me, when a very drunken and overly curious man hangs inches above your head by a flimsy subway strap, a few seconds is a very long time. The ride to the next station felt interminable. When the train finally pulled in, I quickly got up, leaving my bemused admirer slurring something to me that I could not understand, and went two cars down so he could not follow.

And that was how I avoided a second vomit-related incident on the Tokyo subway.