Tales from a Metra-sexual

Written by Bob Rehak
Edited by: Sharon Estill
Joboja Staff Writers

I once sat next to a man on the train and watched him eat the Tribune.

That’s right, EAT the Tribune, not read the Tribune. Although to be fair, I do think he read what was on the page before putting it in his mouth. And no, it wasn’t the Food section. This wasn’t a case of a really sharp digital photo of a watermelon altering this man’s reality. I believe he was eating the Tempo section.

While it was disgusting to think about what newspaper print would taste like as I watched him (I’m guessing a blend of dried oatmeal and stale licorice), I simply could not turn away. The method he employed as he enjoyed his Trib dinner was more sleight-of-hand than hand-to-mouth. He would grab a corner of the paper and tear it slowly into a vertical two-inch strip. Kind of like string cheese, without the nutritional value.
Normally this tearing action wouldn’t get my attention. As a seasoned Metra rider, I have become immune to the everyday background noises on the train; the Metra-nome, if you will. I have come to accept the sounds that occupy my 52-minute commute as white noise, no matter the ethnicity of their origins.
There’s the random folding of newspapers coming from all sides, like some Sunday Gospel reading gone awry, when none of the congregation can find the right page in their hymnals. There’s the clumsy, subtle banging of the train’s wheels as they struggle to grab the rails, punctuating every worn-out section of their steel-on-steel marriage. (By the way, how do they keep the tracks perfectly spaced to match the span of the wheels? I mean, they’re parallel bars of steel bolted to imperfect wooden railroad ties. It blows my mind, especially when the rails are curved).
The soundtrack of the Metra also includes a chorus of coughs, sneezes, and the constant chipmunk chatter of the cell-phone crowd, all announcing the same message to the loved ones back home: “I’M ON THE 5:04 TRAIN. I’LL BE AT THE STATION AT 5:34. THAT PUTS ME IN THE DRIVEWAY AT 5:58!” Thanks for the newsflash, Tom Brokaw. I look forward to your next public newscast on the 5:04 tomorrow, too.

What brought my attention to the paper-eater was the slow tearing of the paper every 35 seconds or so. I’ve heard tearing of paper on the train before, but it’s usually the Sudoku junkies racing to finish their puzzles before their stops. No – this was a slow, extended tearing, due to the size of the Tribune. A Sun-Times paper eater would have had a shorter tearing hang-time and may not have been as noticeable. Perhaps this guy started out with the Sun-Times in his teenage years and then elevated his appetite to the Tribune.

At first I thought he was just tearing out columns of interest, but after the third or fourth prolonged tear I paid closer attention. After the paper strip had been peeled from the page, he would ball it up in his hand, effortlessly, like a magician’s hand swallowing a scarf. He would then wipe his hand across his mouth, and as his hand came back to rest at his side, the paper ball would disappear. My original thought was that he was dropping the paper kibble at his side, creating a stockpile of oversized spitballs.
Slowly I came to realize that the paper strips had indeed disappeared as they passed his mouth. With a mixture of horror and fascination I came to realize that his jaws were moving, almost imperceptibly, like a churchgoer finishing a Communion host. This guy was, most certainly, eating the paper.
It has been two years since I saw the contents of the Tempo section of the Trib consumed in a manner for which they were never intended. I often wonder if the paper-eater got sick and ended up in the hospital. I imagine the surprise on the surgeon’s face as he unwinds the classifieds from the colon.
Perhaps the paper-eater stopped eating the paper altogether, having realized that it is both socially unacceptable and bad for your teeth (ink will stain your molars, I’m sure).

Perhaps he has moved on to another Metra line. Or on to Time magazine.