I can’t NOT take the Metro Blue Line to Staples Center, can I?

One of its Long Beach stations is about 150 yards from where I live. It has a stop on Pico, maybe 200 yards from the southeast corner of Staples.

The train runs late, so even if I’m writing until 11:30, I can easily make the 11:47 p.m. train headed south. And 53 minutes later, I’m back off the train.

And it costs $1.25 each way. That’s $2.50 roundtrip. When gas is $4 a gallon and parking anywhere near Staples is $20. I HAVE to take that train.

It’s muy convenient. Close, and cheap, no motor vehicle involved. At all.

But it has one major down side …

My fellow passengers on the ride home, at midnight.

I’ll guess and say there were 20 people in the two-car span of train that I walked on to, at 11:47 last night.

Of those, one was a woman, about 35, who appeared to be grading math papers, as we lurched along. She by far seemed most out of place in that she was female, alone and (apparently) vulnerable.

Of the others …

One appeared to be a security guard headed home. Another had an LAX name tag; I took him for a TSA guy. An older man appeared to be doing a crossword puzzle. And they encompass the folks I would designate as “normal.” I might even toss a few more gangsta-styled young guys as normal. Dangerous, potentially, but wearing rags limited to the “do” variety.

Everyone else?

Bums. Drunks. Crazy people acting out.

Basically, I decided, they were homeless people who wanted a semi-safe, semi-well-lit place to catch a few Zs before committing the rest of the night to a sewer grate somewhere. Or the porch of an abandoned house.

Long Beach has more than its share of homeless people. So does Los Angeles. And the Blue Line apparently gives them mobility to move back and forth. For free, since officials of the line check rarely, if ever, to see if passengers have a ticket. (Like, what are you going to do to a homeless guy without a ticket? Arrest him?)

Two drunks to my right were sound asleep. They snored with the ferocity of band saws even as their heads lolled with the rocking of the train.

Across from me was a big guy, 30-ish, who was talking to himself. Gesturing for emphasis. He was agitated, perhaps by his argumentative alter ego.

A few rows behind the snoring drunks was a kid with a bike who seemed to be high on something far more stimulating than life as we sober people know it. He shouted, from time to time. He rolled his bike through the compartment, parking and re-parking it. He engaged the off-duty security guard in some form of gibberish that prompted the security guy to turn around, look at him, roll his eyes and go back to staring into space.

Further back, I could hear the shouting and remonstrations of other people not quite in their right frame of mind. Nuts? Chemically impaired? Both? Couldn’t tell, and I wasn’t prepared to go check.

It was a mobile Bedlam.

A few stops along, not long after midnight, one of those nervous crazy guys got on. He stood at the front of the train and commenced pacing. He was wearing a sort of poncho and had a backpack that appeared to have the makings of a tent in it. He looked 40, mostly because he appeared toothless, but I’d guess “living rough” had aged him before his time. Maybe 25, real life?

He was the one guy I was worried about. Even the tough-looking woman who had gotten on a stop or so earlier seemed wary of Mr. Toothless. She crossed her arms in a classic defensive body posture. She was the person closest to Mr. Toothless, whose perambulations often took him within inches of her.

I considered what I would do if Nervous Crazy Guy started trouble. I had a heavy backpack and a laptop. I wasn’t going to give those up, but they would encumber me. I could hit the guy with the laptop, if necessary.

Thing about rampaging crazy people? You don’t really want to get in a scrap with them because you don’t want to have a lunatic bleed on you. I mean, really, you don’t.

So, anyway, there I sat, looking interested in the Lakers stat package … counting down the stops till I could escape the train. Thinking that I wouldn’t advise any child or woman to be on this train, alone, at midnight. Nor would I want a male senior citizen on there. Basically, no one not prepared to defend himself. Not from gang members (though they probably are more dangerous), but from people off their meds who might do anything.

Did I mention the Blue Line also drives right down some of the saddest/roughest neighborhoods in all of Greater L.A.? From the struggling immigrant neighborhoods of South L.A. into Watts, down Willowbrook, right past Compton City Hall and then into the sketchier parts of Long Beach.

But it’s $1.25! And it runs until, like 1 a.m.!

Yes. I DO have to go. If I cover the Jazz-Lakers in Game 7 on Monday, I will ride it again. At midnight. And get another hour of Skid Row on Wheels.

Someday, “normal” people may ride commuter trains late at night. As they do in many big cities all over the world.

The Blue Line hasn’t reached that point yet. So caveat emptor, commuters.