The Good Samaritan

Baltimore’s light-rail system is designed to be a fast, affordable connector between Baltimore-Washington International Airport and the downtown area. Instead of renting a car or taking a taxi, travelers can simply make the long walk to the end of the terminal, find the station, and wait for the train to arrive and carry them to their destination. All you really need is $1.60 for the ticket and the ability to read a train schedule.

I flew out of Manchester and into BWI late last summer, several hours ahead of some family members who had departed from Boston on a later flight. For my first time really traveling alone, it didn’t go badly: made it through security without creating an international incident, figured out how to board the plane correctly, had a nice conversation with the man in the seat next to me, found my way off the plane and out of the terminal, and found the train station. Full of confidence, I hitched up my backpack and strode across the platform to the schedule…

Where I quickly realized, of course, that I had no clue how to get where I was going.

It was quite an interesting revelation, really. I’ve read train schedules before, in a math class where I once worked as a paraprofessional, and it was never a problem then, figuring out how to get Johnny from Point A to Point B on the Downeaster Express. But that was a classroom, on paper; this was real life, and while I could find my location and destination, the idea of connecting the dots was mystifying.

There might be something wrong with my brain.

As I stood there, just sort of staring at the schedule, thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to sit around and wait a couple hours for my aunts and uncles to arrive, a loud voice boomed from across the platform.

“Train’s comin’!”

I looked up. The voice belonged to a tall black man I had walked past when I first arrived. He was wearing paint-splattered jeans, a beat-up t-shirt, and a black baseball cap with the words “Marine Recon” on the front. I looked over at him, then back at the train schedule, then back at him. Failing to receive any last minute divine intervention that would miraculously allow me to read the map, I gave the schedule one final glance and wandered in his direction.

“Where’re you heading?” he asked.

“Camden…Camden Yards,” I mumbled.

“Got a ticket?” he asked.

“A ticket?” I answered.

He looked at me carefully, almost as if fact-checking the sincerity of my ignorance. Convinced that I did not, in fact, know what I was doing, he started walking toward the airport door about twenty feet away, the same building I had exited fifteen minutes earlier.

“Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “Gotta get a ticket.”

I paused for a second, then followed meekly; I’m usually fairly good at figuring out when someone is on the up and up, and the vibe I got from this guy was that he just wanted to help me out. Besides, we were going into a well-lit, well-populated building, so it wasn’t like I was expecting a robbery. And if he did want to take what little money I had? Well, I’d have a story to tell, now, wouldn’t I? As I started after him, he looked back.

“Got small bills? Don’t want big bills, you get all sorts of change. You need small bills.”

We entered the building, turned left, and came face to face with the ticket machine.

“Don’t wanna mess with big bills,” he repeated. “You got a dollar-sixty?”

I actually had very little cash – two twenties of my own, and a few bills my wife had given me before we left for the airport, of which two were hopefully ones – and no change at all. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my money clip (it was easier to carry my license, debit card, and cash this way instead of lugging my big huge wallet around; that thing is annoyingly large no matter how poor I am). Flipping through the bills, Murphy’s Law surged into action: those two twenties, a five, and a single one.

My new friend was watching me. He saw the twenties and repeated his mantra against big bills – “Got anything smaller?” – so I pointed to the five.

“How about a five? Will that work?”

“No, no, you don’t wanna mess with those big bills. You get all kinds of change, it’s a mess. Let me check my piggy bank.” He put the bag he was carrying down on the ground and produced a small Ziploc bag of change from which he pulled out several silver coins. “Here, give me that dollar.” He fed it into the machine, then the coins. One of them didn’t take – he looked at the machine like he wanted to give it a good whack, then thought better of it and found another coin more to its liking. When he had put the full $1.60 in, he pushed a few buttons and a ticket emerged. He handed it to me.

I thought that was the end of it. Not so; my new friend started toward the door, waving his hand at me.

“Come on,” he said. “Gotta get movin’, gotta hustle.”

I hustled, walking side by side with him onto the platform where the train waited.

“Thanks, I really appreciate you helping me out.”

He dismissed the words with a wave of his hand, still striding toward the train.

“You’re going to Camden Yards? Alright, you’re gonna get off a couple stops after me, but I’m gonna get you on board, get you set up, get you on point.” We climbed the steps. “See, you need a ticket. Don’t have a ticket, they take you right off, throw you in handcuffs.” We walked to the front of the car. He showed me the map on the wall, the same sort of map I imagine you see on just about any public transit system, a straight-line representation of the stops we would be making. Things make a lot more sense to me when they’re arranged in a linear manner – I quickly found BWI at the beginning and went down the line until I got to Camden Yards – but he still explained things to me.

“See, I’m getting off here,” he said, pointing to his stop, “and you’re getting off here. When you’re ready to get off, push the green button to open the door. It’s easy,” he said, sitting down. I sat on the opposite side of the car, a few feet away.

We exchanged small talk with a man in an adjacent seat, then settled in for the ride. My new friend busied himself with the small actions of a man who has become used to the routine: picked up a newspaper, checked a two-liter bottle of water he had in his bag, changed the blade on a utility knife he was carrying. When an officer came by to check our tickets, he caught my eye with a knowing smile.

“You don’t have a ticket,” he boomed, “they take you away in cuffs, man. Gotta have a ticket.”

As the train rolled on, I alternated between looking out the window and making mental notes about this guy so I could write about him later. He wasn’t old, but he wasn’t young either – his hair was turning white at the temples. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say he was in his late-forties, maybe early fifties, but still going strong, like he still woke up every morning and went about his business because that’s the way the world works. Don’t bitch, don’t complain, don’t slack off. Just go to work, do your eight to ten hours, come home, grab a beer, eat some dinner, watch some TV, go to bed. And if, in the middle of that, you happen to stumble upon a random dude at the train station, someone who needs a helping hand, go ahead and take a couple minutes out of your day to make sure he gets on the right path.

He kinda reminded of my dad, in a way.

Every so often he would catch my eye, point to the map on the wall, and repeat our schedule – he’d get off, then two stops later I’d get off, just push the green button to open the door – and I’d nod my understanding. The train started to fill up as we got closer to the ballpark, but he still was making sure that I was “on point.”

As his stop approached, he began to gather his things, make sure all his stuff had found its way back into his bag, that he hadn’t accidentally dropped anything. I had been thinking for at least twenty minutes, maybe longer, that I had to thank this guy, find out his name, shake his hand, so when he was ready to leave, I leaned forward in my seat and extended my hand.

“Thanks a lot, I really appreciate all your help. What’s your name?”

He said something that sounded like Diesel, then something else after it that I couldn’t understand over the noise of the train. I didn’t ask him to repeat himself; I wish I had, I’d like to know his real name. He stood and took a few steps toward the front of the car, where he gave me my final instructions he waited for the train to pull into the station.

“Remember, two more stops, then you get off. Just push the green button to open the doors.”

And with that, the train stopped, and he was gone.