Missed Connections by J.D. Strunk

On that day, as on most days, the 8:22 was right on time. Book in hand, I boarded a nearly empty car and secured a seat facing west, so as to avoid the blistering fire of a Colorado sunrise. The city burned amber and rose as the doors dinged closed and the train lurched forward. I gazed out the window as we glided out of downtown, past campus, and under 6th Avenue. At Broadway we met I-25, which we would parallel for the remainder of the journey south.

When you take public transit for a considerable length of time, you begin to see the same faces over and over. Every morning is like returning to a favorite novel and finding all the characters waiting exactly where you left them: there was the teenage boy who could sleep through bedlam yet miraculously roused himself seconds before his stop; the woman who held her iPhone mere inches from her face for the duration of the ride; the old man who coughed so frequently and with such conviction that I feared for the fidelity of his lungs. I knew none of them personally—only as scenery. And yet, their immutable presence was comforting.

Midway through the 28-minute trip, we slowed for Louisiana Station. The doors opened, and a lone man got on the train. While many who boarded our car were familiar to me, this man was not. He was tall, middle-aged, and in most every way forgettable. He gave a cursory scan of the car, but never sat down. He proceeded to get off at the next stop. I would have never thought of him again except that he re-boarded our car two stops later. After a fresh look around, he took to staring out a window.

Something about the man didn’t sit right with me. True, he had done nothing more than appear curious, and if that was a crime, we’d be sharing a cell. And yet, my instincts told me to keep an eye on him. That is not to say I conflate instinct and virtue—indeed, I’d go so far as to call the former a detriment. It is instinct that leads sinners to vice and countries to war.

But instinct remains powerful—as does the suspicion it breeds. When I was young, probably no more than ten, I saw a televangelist preaching on TV. I have never taken such men seriously—not at ten, and certainly not now—but for whatever reason, on that day, I kept watching. The pastor’s sermon was on evil, and how it can be difficult to recognize. Evil is not presaged by the blaring of trumpets, the pastor said. Evil is banal. It is our neighbors, our teachers, our postmen. To a child with a rabid imagination, the message resonated. If intuition was a skill, I would hone it. I would become a Sherlock, a Poirot, or, at the very least, a Philip Marlowe. And while my skills of observation surely never approached the realms of those literary titans, I have always taken pride in my ability to read a room.

It was with evil on my mind that I kept the man in my periphery for the next few minutes. But if I was expecting a display of deviance, I was to be disappointed; he did nothing more than continue to stare out the window until he got off at Southmoor. Soon thereafter, the train reached Lincoln—my stop.

 * * *

The next morning, I was eager to see whether my foil would reappear. Sure enough, he got on the train again—same time, same stop. As he had the previous day, the man cast a furtive glance around the car, before exiting at the very next stop. And—just as he had done yesterday—he re-boarded our car again two stops later. At this point I was confident in what was happening: The man was searching all the cars. For what, I had no idea.

When he got onto our car for the second time that morning, we locked eyes. Usually I would not have been so reckless, but his behavior fascinated me. By the time I looked away he was already headed in my direction.

I was looking out my window when he arrived beside me; I felt his towering presence loom over me from the aisle. I was wearing headphones, and so was unsure of what to do next. Was it better to acknowledge his presence and drop any pretense of minding my own business? Or should I have played dumb and ignored him? In the end I split the difference, giving the man a double-take, which he used to get my attention with a wave. I removed my headphones, permitting him to say his piece, whatever it may be.

“Do you ride this train often?” the man asked, his voice a bit ragged, but not unkind.

“Pretty frequently,” I said.

“Do you know, by any chance… uh, I’m looking for a woman, mid-forties, maybe. Green glasses, olive skin, medium build?”

I knew exactly to whom he referred. She had been a regular passenger for years. But I had not seen her on this day, nor was I expecting to, for reasons I was about to reveal.

“Yeah,” I said, “I think I know who you mean. But she only rides the train on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

The man nodded, clearly disappointed.

“Do you know her?” I asked.

“Not really,” said the man. His face gave away nothing, and he turned suddenly recalcitrant. I asked him another question, but he was already making his way to the doors and didn’t seem to hear. He got off at the next stop.

What had just happened? My mind went into overdrive, inventing dozens of stories as for why this man wanted to connect with someone who was, by his own admission, a stranger. Was he going to ask her out on a date? Or maybe he was lying about not knowing her? Maybe he was a jilted ex-lover? Jilted ex-husband? And why was he trying to intercept her on a train, of all places? Wouldn’t it be better to meet literally anywhere else? Somewhere stationary?

Then the televangelist from my childhood flitted through my mind, and my thoughts turned suddenly dark. As was my habit, I had been so excited at the prospect of being useful that all discretion had been momentarily abandoned. In a moment of folly I had told the man exactly how to find the woman he sought, and now regret flooded over me.

As I ambled into work, I felt traitorous—all but convinced my idiocy would lead a stranger to her doom.

* * *

Wednesday morning, I woke early. I had slept poorly, but hardly cared. It was of utmost importance that I caught the 8:22—someone’s life depended on it.

In my enthusiasm, I arrived downtown far too early. The trains run every fifteen minutes, and so I watched the 8:07 come and go with nervous complacency before, fourteen minutes later, I saw the 8:22 turn the corner onto 18th Street. My heart began to beat faster as it slowed for the station.

I jumped up the three steps the moment the doors opened. A quick scan revealed my patience to have paid off—my charge was already on board, not halfway down the car. Too nervous to approach the woman, I took a seat directly across from hers. As the train moved forward, I watched her in my periphery, just as I had spent two mornings watching the man who hunted her. Though it was late March and barely chilly, she wore gloves; well, one glove—her right hand was glove-less, and in it she held a battered phone, at which she would frequently glance. On occasion she would receive or send a text. I knew they were texts because of the sound-effects: a whoosh for a sent message, a ding for one received. When the woman wasn’t texting, she was biting the nails of her exposed hand. They were red and inflamed, and the sight of them invoked in me an involuntary shiver.

I watched the woman for a couple of minutes, biding my time, building my courage. It was not in my pedigree to approach a stranger—especially to tell them they were being stalked. But soon one minute had turned into three, and three quickly became five. Minute by minute, Louisiana Station grew ever closer. I couldn’t stall any longer.

I stood up.

“Ma’am?”

No response.

I pointed to the woman’s earbuds in the universal appeal for attention. She removed the headphones and looked at me expectantly.

“A man asked about you yesterday,” I said.

“Asked about me?” the woman repeated, appropriately confused.

“Yeah. A man on this train asked about you. The past two days he has gotten on at Louisiana. I just wanted you to know, before we got to Louisiana. Just in case it was someone you didn’t want to see.”

The woman continued to look at me, but she did not say anything more. I could feel her mind working, unsure of what to make of the man—or me.

“What does he look like?” she asked eventually.

I described him best I could. “Does he sound familiar?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Do you have time to spare this morning?”

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you mean?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, slightly panicked and speaking quickly, “if you get off at Broadway, you can wait through a couple train cycles. He’ll get on at Louisiana, look around, and give up. I doubt he looks for you past nine.”

In my head, the words had sounded paranoid. Spoken out loud, they sounded insane. And yet, what if?

The woman considered all I’d said. She checked her phone for the current time, then looked back at me. “Are you riding on Friday?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Could you tell me Friday morning if he shows up today and tomorrow?”

I nodded again.

She sighed, stood up, and made her way to the doors. Without so much as a glance back, she got off at the next stop.

With the woman safely away, my heart began to slow. At least momentarily—I could feel it revving up again as we approached Louisiana Station. It was with some sadistic satisfaction that I noticed the man’s hulking profile through the window, towering amongst those waiting to board. The man boarded our railcar, just as he had twice before. Once again we locked eyes, this time for longer than yesterday. Almost immediately he made his way in my direction.

“Hey, have you seen that woman?” he asked me, his voice hopeful.

“I haven’t,” I lied.

“Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed. “I thought she rode on Wednesdays?”

“She usually does,” I said. “But I haven’t seen her today.”

“Oh,” he said again. He sighed. “Well, I can’t keep doing this. If by chance you see her again, will you give her this?”

He extended his hand, and for the first time I noticed he was holding something: a blue cotton glove. There was nothing special about the glove, other than that I had already seen its twin that morning.

The man was gone before my mind had processed the encounter. Just as well, I figured, as I could feel my skin reddening, the result of bubbling shame.

 * * *

That night I couldn’t sleep, but for different reasons than the night before.

* * *

On Friday morning, I saw the woman before she saw me. I approached her as the train started moving.

“Did you see the man again?” she asked curiously.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do you know what he wanted?”

“Yeah.” I held out the blue glove.

She received the gift with a bemused expression. “Oh,” she said. I could feel her thinking. “Huh,” she finished.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry about… all that.”

She smiled. “Better safe than sorry, eh?”

“I suppose so,” I said, already backing away, eager to be alone. While she had handled the entire episode with grace, something told me that, next time I saw her, we would be strangers once again.

* * *

That evening I slept better than I had the previous few nights, but that’s not to say I slept well. My mind was awash in the events of the past few days. With eyes closed, I saw the woman from the train, and then I saw the man, searching for her. I imagined the simple delight he would have felt had he found her; a delight I had forever robbed him of.

Their images then blurred into a third—the televangelist from my childhood. That pastor was right: It can be a challenge to recognize evil. It can be a challenge to recognize goodness, too.

Strunk, J.D.

Image: Interior of a communter train showing passenger legs and feet from Pixabay.com