I was riding the Metrorail one evening when I noticed something that gave my spirit the feeling that something wasn’t right. I am a regular patron of Metro and I’d never had that feeling before.
The car I was in had perhaps 10 passengers sitting in their choice of the 60 available seats, as a young woman seemingly in her early 20s got on with an older man who looked to be in his early or mid-30s. As I was sitting there, I noticed that she didn’t seem happy. She bore the look of someone who was disturbed about something. It then dawned on me that the man was towering over her when he could have sat down beside her. As the train went through three or four stops, he stood there right in front of her for the entire trip. My spirit was telling me something was wrong.
My stop was coming up and as I walked by them, I asked the woman, “Are you alright?”
This provoked an immediate response from the man: “Don’t say anything to her!” or “Why are you talking to her?” I don’t recall his exact words.
I believe my response to him was, “She doesn’t seem like she’s OK. In fact, it seems like something is wrong!”
An argument ensued between me and him for about a minute as we approached my subway stop. Then out of the window I could see the Metro Transit Police. As I saw them, I said “Well, there they are!”
The door opened. I walked toward the police. The man ran ahead of me to speak to them first.
He must have made some sort of complaint about me, which gave them the impression that I’d done something wrong. Of the three officers that were there, two of them knew me from previous encounters. The officer in charge has known me for 6-8 years with no true problems. I felt confident that he, knowing our history and my integrity, would not fall for whatever story this man was telling him.
He interviewed the man, who claimed to be her father. Then he interviewed me and made the decision not to allow us to catch the same Metrorail train, seeing that we were going in the same direction. I had to wait for them to leave before I could board the next train behind them, causing a delay in arrival to my intended destination.
As I was leaving the area, a woman asked me what was going on. When I explained, she said, “Don’t get involved. It’s none of your business.”
Everything happened so fast in the moment that I didn’t have time to digest what I had seen. Yet, over these past months, the incident has brought many thoughts to my head. As I have considered what happened, several questions come to mind:
- Why did my spirit give me the gall to say something?
- Why didn’t he sit down beside her, but instead stand between her and the closest exit door of the car?
- Why did he take offense when I asked her if she was alright, and become aggressive with me?
- Why did he run ahead of me to get his story to the police before I could say anything – putting me in a defensive position as though I had done something wrong?
- Were they simply using the Metrorail because their car broke down?
- Was the man really her father, or someone involved in some sort of trafficking?
- Was there something that the young lady had to fear if she had spoken up?
- Was the bystander right when she told me that I shouldn’t get involved?
What bothers me to this day is, I don’t know! But I do know that, if confronted with a similar situation again, I would respond in exactly the same manner. We need to look out for each other.
