encounters at the end of her world

as a single woman, riding the subway alone at night is sometimes a little scary. the later the hour, the more likely you are to encounter someone weird. or creepy. or drunk. or frightening. or all of the above. i am, and always have been, a magnet for that kind of after-dark commuter. somehow, i must give off some kind of “hey, come chat me up!” pheromone no matter how inconspicuous i try to be, or what kind of angry, subway face i put on.

as such, i tend to be hyper-alert when i’m heading home late(r) at night. there’s no daydreaming or resting of the eyes – i’m always aware of who’s around me and who might be sketchy, and i always listen to that little voice inside that says stuff like, “maybe you should get off at the next stop and move to the next car...” or “just wait for the next subway and let the freakshow get on this one without you.” i’d much rather be mildly inconvenienced than hugely uncomfortable, uneasy or afraid. or worse.

last night, though, i had a very different subway encounter.

i was heading home from m-dub’s around 10:30pm. not very late at all, but she lives far enough away from my place that it would still be at least a good 45-minute trip. when the subway pulled into the station, i was positioned to get on one particular car, but noticed (as the train was slowing to a stop) a rather tweaked-out-looking woman inside it, right near the doors, so i opted to head for the next car in the hopes of avoiding her.

the tweaked-out woman got off her car and darted after me into mine.

dammit.

the car was almost empty. i think there were two, maybe three, other people on it. i found a seat and saw in my peripheral vision that the tweaked-out woman was very clearly following me. she sat down one seat away and, though i didn’t look at her (“don’t engage the scary person!” my brain was saying), i could feel her staring right at me.

my pulse quickened. i started having serious hell house flashbacks, and knew from my experiences there that someone tweaking as she was might be a problem. i started wondering if i should get off at the next stop and move to another car, but then worried that she’d just follow me again. getting off altogether and waiting for the next subway might not be the best idea, either, since i wasn’t interested in standing on a platform alone with her (for who knows how long) until the next train arrived.

i decided to just avoid all eye contact. i stared down at my lap and willed her to get up and move elsewhere. there was a young woman sitting nearby, earbuds in and ipod on, so i didn’t feel completely alone... but i also didn’t imagine she’d leap to my defense if the tweaked-out woman lunged for my bag or something. the young woman actually looked like she was silently hoping the tweaked-out woman would stick with me as a target.

as i sat there on high alert, eyes locked on my hands and mentally planning what i would do if the tweaked-out woman suddenly started freaking out or lashing out, i heard a voice say, “my name’s karen*.” i knew the tweaked-out woman was talking to me. the young woman nearby looked ready to flee. (*name changed for the purposes of this story.)

what should i do?, i thought. if i ignore her, she’s liable to get angry. but if i face her and respond, it’s possible i’d be welcoming a whole mess of trouble.

i decided to look up.

karen, the tweaked-out woman, was leaning forward, looking back at me with kind of herky-jerky movements, and smiling. i gave her a rapid-fire once-over – though she was disheveled and her sweater was tied very awkwardly around her neck like a bib, her clothes were clean. she looked like she might be about my age. her long, blonde hair was all askew and crammed underneath a baseball cap, but when she smiled her teeth were immaculate. i realized that whatever she was on had not consumed her to a point where she wasn’t taking care of herself... but it had definitely taken over her for the night.

nonetheless, her blue eyes – reddish and puffy, with eyeliner smudged – peeked out at me from under the chaos. with some kind of... hope?

so i engaged her.

i said hi and half-smiled in a way that screamed, “you’re acting strangely so i’m just going to be polite,” and she kind of sighed.

“it’s cold out,” she said too loudly, speech slurred. “and i had a REALLY, really crappy day.”

at this point, i felt myself relax a tiny bit. maybe she really did have a crappy day and was on her way from someplace where she’d been trying to escape that crappiness. still, i kept my guard up.

“those can happen,” i said sympathetically, not really sure how to respond. i didn’t want to upset her, but i also didn’t want to pretend i hadn’t heard her by just remaining silent.

“oh, you have NO idea,” she went on emphatically. “you have NO IDEA.”

without prompting, she then started telling me how she used to work with troubled children. “little kids can have problems,” she explained. i nodded. she told me about how some of them were violent, and how some of them threw blocks, but how she tried to be a good teacher to them. i told her that was a very admirable thing.

“i know,” she said flatly, in the same tone that someone might say, “oh well.” she said that over and over again at various points throughout what follows.

karen told me about her mother, who had also been a teacher (“she was SO AMAZING, you have no IDEA!”). she said she thinks her mom is the best mother ever, in fact. “i should just go and give her the biggest hug EVER,” she slurred, almost yelling. “i don’t know why i don’t. i don’t know why i don’t!”

by now, i was no longer feeling threatened by karen. she was still shouting and acting erratically, but something had changed in our dynamic as soon as she went from being a tweaked-out stranger who might hit me, to a real person with problems who was just looking for someone – obviously, anyone – to listen. i wondered how long she’d been riding the subway before we met, and whether she’d tried to talk to anyone else. i decided my best course of action was simply to have a conversation with her, so i started asking questions.

did she become a teacher because of her mom?

“oh YEAH, for sure,” she said. she talked about a paper she’d written in university, and how she got her teaching job because the person doing the hiring thought it was so well-done. karen told me about her family – her boyfriend, her sister, her parents, her nephews – it all came pouring out of her in a wave of release. who loved whom, what each of the interpersonal relationships was like, how much she wanted to DO something for each one of them. i found out all about her parents’ marriage, and the rivalry with her younger sister, and karen’s own unwillingness to have children because, she said, “it would be a REALLY really really bad idea for me.” with every story about each person, she said to me, “i don’t know what to do for him!” or “i don’t know why i don’t tell her that!” or the like.

a lot of what she was saying was also punctuated by random ramblings and rantings that made sense only to her. i tried to follow but, frequently, just nodded in agreement or understanding and that seemed to be enough for her.

while she was on a semi-incoherent tangent about trying to find her purpose in life and how we all need to find our reason for being here, out of nowhere, she paused, looked me in the eye and said, “i dunno. maybe I'M here for YOU. maybe i’m here for you.”

and, in that second, something strange happened.

it was like... i dunno, i can’t even explain it properly... but it was like a filter lifted or a picture came into focus or a light went on and i immediately saw her. not the tweaked-out woman fidgeting in the seat, but karen. karen the former teacher who probably wasn’t teaching anymore. karen, the sad and lonely and very troubled soul, who was desperately searching for... something. karen, the daughter and sister and girlfriend being slowly swallowed by some kind of internal struggle between the person she wanted to be, the person others want her to be, and the person she is.

karen, who – under different circumstances – could be me.

from that point on, we just talked. i listened as she told me her problems (and her family’s problems, and her boyfriend’s problems), and just let her purge whatever she needed to force out through her jittery, wobbly haze and stream-of-consciousness monologue. it was fascinating, and heartbreaking at the same time.

just before i had to get off, she reached her hand out to shake mine and said, “it was nice to meet you.”

i shook hers back and, despite my initial fears and uneasiness, i felt the same. what began under a big, ominous cloud of negative energy was ending in a very curiously positive light somehow. maybe she really was put there on that subway for me. maybe i was put there for her. who knows.

when we pulled into my stop, i got up and started for the door. she’d been in mid-story about how she feels responsible for telling one of her nephews how great he is because “he doesn’t always have to RIDE THE BIKE, you know?! he doesn’t have to do it! people expect him to, but he’s SUCH A GREAT KID!”, and was saying that she felt all she could really do to help him was to keep telling him how great he is. and to just love him.

“you should. that’s all you can do, and i think that’s great,” i said, and i meant it. “good luck.”

as the doors opened in front of me, she said thanks. then, just after i got off the train and the doors were closing, i heard her yell out, “bye!”

as the subway pulled out of the station and i carried on to my connecting train, i felt oddly moved by the whole thing, and really grateful for the experience. i also found myself worrying about karen.

did she have any idea where she was going? was she going to pass out? would she get off at the right stop? might she wind up hurt? would anybody keep an eye on her?

and, in the back of my mind, would someone somewhere ever tell her that she’s great... and just love her?

because, ultimately, that’s what counts. i know it.

and, even amid her demons, so does karen.