The theft that could have happened doesn't

after I left the office yesterday a man pulled a knife on the T.
He was enormous, a looming presence, wearing a hood pulled up over his head under a long trench coat, with dark leather gloves on (it wasnt that cold) and big dark sunglasses (on the t, at night) and he was carrying an empty red milk crate, of all things.
if you could have patched together the cliche of a suspicious looking person, he would have been the result. and when he got on the T behind me i felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. but if i got off the T every time someone slightly deranged got on id never get anywhere.
its boston.
but this was different. and i knew it. i just tried to trust that things are almost always ok.
there was no question he was ominous. but not menacing, he seemed focused, quiet, deliberate as he began moving away from me down the length of the car to the m iddle doors. and then he got off. and i watched him walk back up the platform towards me and got back on again right next to me, same door hed originally used. and then again, using the crate to shove the packed people out of his way, he moved away from me down the length of the car as we moved betwen stops and when the doors opened he got off and walked back to the front, and boarded. this happened three times and on the third time we were shoulder to... shoulder, though he was significantly taller than me, and he began to move again, past the same people who by now were noticing this strange man's strange behavior, and he bumped the man standing next to me to get him to move, a young professional type with his girlfriend holding his arm, who goes, 'hey man, I can't move, there's a door right there' and without saying a word the man pulled a switch blade out of his trench coat pocket and snapped it open.
It was right next to my face. aimed at the young guy, but the blade itself was no less than a foot from me. And for a moment no one moved and I wasn't able to speak so I reached around and started frantically tapping the driver and the driver goes 'WHAT?' which then made the guy with the knife turn towards me, saw me tapping the driver, gave me a look through his sunglasses that i dreamt about on repeat all night, and then shoved his way out the door and ran off the platform.
at which point the guy who had the knife pulled on him started screaming 'he has a knife' and his girlfriend became hysterical and then there was mass melee.
i was so grateful to sleep in strong arms last night, so desperately grateful. but i woke up exhausted from dreams of running. and only todays poem from the writers almanac-one more reason to believe that garrison keillor is in my brain- has given me back my breath. applicable not just to having knives pulled on you in the safest part of boston, but to life in general.

Trust

It's like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—
all show up at their intended destinations.

The theft that could have happened doesn't.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.

And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can't read the address.


By Thomas R. Smith
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