Leaving Pleasantville with Woody Harrelson

Leaving Pleasantville with Woody Harrelson

So, im on the Metro North train earlier this afternoon, going from Chappaqua to Union Station, when Woody Harrelson walks on with a young kid. Yeah, Woody Harrelson from Cheers and later of stud movie fame (which i always found weird).

It's 2 in the afternoon on Wednesday, the last day of summer. As one person to a row goes, the train is pretty full. Everyone's reading their New Yorker mags and newspapers, taking up their line of seats, and keeping to themselves as we pull away from the Pleasantville, NY station (this is really the town's name).

Some glance at the pair as they walk by. Only one passenger gives a double-take. Nobody says anything.

Woody sits down in the first row of the car, the one closest to the lavoratory. Kid tumbles in behind him. The train glides on, passing trees and ambling fences and patient glossy black Jaguars at the crosstracks. Just another day riding the rails with Woody Harrelson.

i think the ride to the city would have been kinda grossly self-ingratiating and cosmopolitan-feeling if, after a few minutes, we didn't have our attention called out of our own space by Woody Harrelson, himself, who had left his chair to pound on the bathroom door.

BAM BAM BAM!! "What are you doing in there!" he bellows, in that way that you would imagine Woody Harrelson bellowing, all puffed chest and coke-eyed and heady whine.

He waits a second, then returns to his seat, giving three more quick raps to the door before sitting down.

After a moment, a growling voice from behind the bathroom wall calls out "Who's knockin?" This taunt from beyond noticibly startles the car -- i see the shoulders raise and brow furl on the man across the row from me, as he pulls his Wall Street Journal closer.

To this, a young woman seated across from the facilities responds "Me," as Woody jumps up and moves back toward the door. "I'm knocking!" he sing-songingly swagers in return, again with the whiney bellow. "There's people waiting out here. You've been in there for like an hour. What the hell are you doing in there?"

"Changing," the male responds, his voice a bit more quiet and much less growly now than when he first addressed the car.

"Changing?" Woody repeats, and pauses, shrugging his shoulders and looking around with a look of sheer alacrity. "You're changing?" No answer comes. "Well, that's great, now. You're changing," he shoots back at the door, tugging at the collar of his baby blue t-shirt and swaggering side to side, squaring off his stance. He is the only one in the car standing. The only one speaking. i feel the train car shrink around him as he continues. It's a morphing akin to what cameras do to gun fighters before "draw!" is called in the showdown scene-- zooming in quickly down the negligible ghost town street until only the fighter fills the screen. Woody Harrelson is larger than life at the moment. And he's ready for a fight.

He continues. "That is just rude. You can tie your tie out here. This woman has been waiting patiently out here forever while you're in there changing?" As he speaks, the pitch of his voice raises in clear anger.

Woody is now yelling at the door, and has moved in so close that his forehead nearly touches it.

"You know what? You're rude." "You're a rude asshole!" he calls as he turns and sits back down in his chair and returns to the beeping electronic game he's been playing with the kid. "Rude asshole," he calls.

This is, now, undeniably a full-blown "scene." A full-blown "scene" featuring Woody Harrelson.

"A rude asshole is in the bathroom right now!" he announces loudly for the last time as he adjusts his position and leans back, twittering video game sounds adding an other-worldly, off-beat punctuation to his final proclamation.

It is at this point that i scan the train looking for a film crew. This seems just too, too weird to be happening on its own volition.

i mean, i know everyone has a right to act or act out within the public sphere, famous or not. And it's absolutely lovely to see someone stand up in defense of somebody else. This needs to happen more. But this is just over the top. Well beyond the scope of how normal interpersonal rapport goes, especially in over-crowded New York where things that piss you off are always there, but are usually ignored. It's so confrontational, it seems like it must be fake.

Yeah, by this time, i am pretty sure all this is staged for some "how i embarassed my famous friend with the help of gratuitous Hollywood access to public spaces and utilities" punk'd-like show. It's also possible that it's all for an even more contrived plot- or character-development driven scene in a flick about an ex-steroided athlete/on-the-surface angry guy who, underneath it all, is really a very human teddy bear of a softie just waiting for Drew Barrimore's character's lovin.

If that's not happening, though, i am sure that at any moment someone is going to burst out of the bathroom with a machete and hack each of us into little pieces. This is still New York.

i am unable to locate any obvious camera people or Drew Barrymores around me in the train, so i slowly repack my reading material, gather up my bag, and ease my feet back into my heels, readying myself to flee whatever craziness is sure to follow in the wake of this molitov cocktail-styled diplomacy.

i need to note that, besides the train motions and this increasingly dangerous-feeling exchange, the car is absolutely still. No heads turn or pop up to look over other chairs toward the commotion or, at any time, at Woody. No voices join in. Nobody stirs. And, though this is the case, while most of the seats in this section face away from the lavatory, i know that everyone around me is aware of the action goin down.

It's all in this very urban-feeling mode: while it is obvious everyone is listening, they continue reading, looking ahead, and keeping firmly within their own space. The whole car is staying out of it, not moving in any way that would signify that they are slightly interested in taking part.

It is almost like they are willing themselves to fade into the backdrop, to an innocent, clearly uninvolved part of the setting.

"I'm not here. I'm not here."

These personal negotiations swapping public space for isolation show in the silence, which is nervous and laden with effort. It settles heavily over the car, rendering everything lifeless in its feigned mass disassociation.

Its contribution to the feeling of fear in the car is nearly palatable to me, who, unlike the others, is not nearly so very city slick, and who, by now, is perched up on folded legs with neck craned to watch the carwreck unfolding over my headrest.

After a very short while, a young tall guy slides open a crack in the bathroom door and immediately darts through it, heading in the other direction. I only catch a quick glimpse of his left shoulder as he jets around the corner. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Woody yells after him as tall guy hurries down the aisle away from us. The heavy metal door to the next car moans as it is pulled open, then almost immediately slams shut with a solid click. "Asshole," Woody breathes. Beeep, zip, beeeep beeep, zup.

Nobody looks up.


Maybe they're just used to it.