I planned to write about my day in NYC, the delicious chaos of crosstalk, an unstoppable four-year-old, and concern for my ailing sister.
But an incident on the train ride home is haunting me.
We are stopped longer than usual at Croton station. What could be keeping us? I look out the window.
A rather pudgy policeman with huge MTA POLICE on his back is having a calm “chat” with a 20ish, tall Black man. Another MTA POLICE arrives, and then another and another until there are 8 or 9 of them. All surrounding this one rather unthreatening-looking young man, who by his hand gestures seems to be explaining something, the explanation goes on for some time. A few other MTA POLICE arrive, like deer to a watering hole, gathering. They are all so young!!
I think of all the tragedies where young Black men have been murdered by police. My hand is on my phone in case we need a record. The scene appears calm, but the potential violence given the ingredients looms in the air.
A middle-aged Black man with dreadlocks and a colorful dashiki across the aisle from me is straining to see.
“There is something going on out there.” I offer. “Sometimes people get on the train without a ticket and they remove them” he responds.
This seems more than a simple removal.
A thin white man walks down the aisle past me: “Riff Raff” he mutters, sending a flitter of alert through me.
For all I know he has committed murder, or is carrying drugs. Or maybe he is a college student in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the wrong color.
An older, hefty MTA POLICE man steps forward, leaning into the young man’s face with an air of authority. The young man turns around as his hands are cuffed behind his back. He is directly facing me now, his face is tense and his eyes vacant. It is almost like we are eye to eye, but I am obscured behind the window, just an anonymous passenger waiting to get home to my cozy bed, not having to worry about suspicious police or thin white men calling me riff raff.
The whole entourage, moving as one being, heads out of the station.
“Did they arrest him?” My neighbor across the aisle inquires. Yup. “Did they handcuff him?” Yup. We shake our heads in unison. We may or may not be understanding each other, but I like to think we do.
Thoughtful piece so clearly written we are totally there with the writer and this very disturbing event, wanting to know just as the writer wants to know what has happened....knowing what the possibilities could be.Sharing with a stranger who would be even more personally concerned. Haunting indeed!!
ReplyDeleteAn elegantly written piece, so clear, every detail included ~ the vacant stare of the captured man, the way the cops and the man moved like "one being" (I stopped and saw that in my mind's eye), the connection with the other observer on the train, the narrator's state of mind.
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