Before I had even exited the subway car at the chinatown metro station I could hear her. She sounded broken and scared. As I walked towards the escalator she continued to grow louder and louder. Her heart was breaking. She was being killed. Why did no one else even seem to notice. As I grew closer to her the sound of her wails made my ears ring and my heart beat fast. What could possibly be wrong? And why did no one care? Was someone helping her? Was someone hurting her? I wanted to run towards the sound and save her. I rounded the corner and there she was. By her dress and appearance if you told me that she was a schoolteacher I would have believed you; but also if you told me that she was unhoused and in need of help I would have believed you as well. She was just so nondescript. Her clothes were all brown in color. They did not appear dirty. They did not appear tidy. But at this point I could see her face and I stopped looking at her clothes. At the top of her lungs this small middle-aged woman was scream-crying. Tears ran down her face. She was pulling a small wheeled suitcase behind her. She was looking up towards the high arching ceilings then down again at the ground beneath her feet. The wails continuing. No rest. It had been at least five minutes since I arrived, how long had she been doing this? I started to walk towards her and stopped. Everyone was simply walking around her and looking down at their phones. This was one of the most crowded metro stations in Washington DC and it was mid-day and mid-week. It was busy. And no one looked at her. And she looked at no one. I saw one person reach up and plug their ear as they walked by staring at their phone. But otherwise not a single person seemed to even notice her. And she did not seem interested in anyone passing by her. Her eyes were vacant. She looked through people. She continued to wail and she did not stop, not for one second. I was the only one who was stopped. I was the only one looking at her. I was the only one who even appeared remotely confused or concerned. Perhaps it was because I could feel her pain, because I had felt her pain. I have cried like that before, loud and uncontrollable. Grief stricken and collapsed on the kitchen floor. Yes, I had felt whatever it was that she was feeling and her sounds, her moaning - wailing - shrieking - gasping - crying, were taking me back to my own pain. And making me feel her pain. The only thing that I could think was that her son had died. Why her son? I do not know. But looking at her I thought that poor woman she has lost her only child, her son. And now she is alone in the metro station and...
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I realized where I was and smiled that I could recognize a building in downtown DC. That I could know where I was going without pulling out my phone and using my maps app. Continue forward, cross the street, take the sidewalk on the left through the park and I would be walking past the back side of the White House. Pretty cool that today's trek just happened to take me by the President's house. I wasn't far from the place where I would be able to see the White House through the fence when I began to hear him. Someone was screaming ALLAH into a megaphone. I knew that the day after tomorrow they would be having the Cease Fire March for Palestine right here, so my first thought was that someone was already protesting. People protest outside the White House every day. And I wasn't wrong, it was someone protesting. But the man that I saw did not have a megaphone, he was projecting his voice. He was yelling in arabic and he was making sure that if there was anyone inside the White House that they would be able to hear him. Their were other people there, some people openly watching him and others snapping quick selfies and leaving. This man was angry. This man was crying out to Allah. He was wearing a torn and dirty white t-shirt that had messages in arabic written all over it in sharpie. It was 40 degrees outside, at most. And he was not wearing a coat, just a thin t-shirt and jeans and he was dripping sweat. And he was not pausing. Screaming and yelling words that I could not understand but with an anger and passion so intense that I knew exactly what he was saying. He would throw his hands behind his back like he was being handcuffed and point them at the White House then he would shout and spit at the street. He made eye contact with me and I felt frightened. I moved past him a few steps to the other side. I wanted to watch him and hear him. But I did not want to stare and be obvious. I did not want to draw his gaze again. His anger and his eyes frightened me. This was a few days after the wailing woman in the metro station and I immediately wondered if this man had lost a son in Gaza. Why a son and a not a daughter, I do not know. But this man was not wailing and he was not crying and he did not look sad at all. But he was so loud. He was so angry. He was so full of hate and despair. He looked like he wanted to kill somebody. And he yelled. The only word that I understood was Allah, and he shook his hands at the sky. He put his hands behind his back again. And he spit again. There was a man standing next to me in a business suit and I could tell that he wasn't really looking at the White House either, he too was watching this man. Secret service? There were a lot of secret service officers in the area, obviously. Some were wearing uniforms, but most just had ear pieces in and were surveilling. They had that thing that makes them look like cops and not tourists. I continued to watch the man screaming and listening to his words and feeling his pain and feeling his anger. And just like with the woman in the metro I started to feel like my heart would burst if I kept listening to him. And then he made eye contact with me again, and he spit. So I left. I could hear him yelling for blocks and it still sounded to me more like a megaphone than just a human voice. I walked to the front of the White House and yes I could still hear him and I wondered if the President could hear him as well.
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I boarded the metro in downtown DC. I was taking the red line to Rockville. It was a Thursday at 5:30pm. The metro was crowded. Usually I like to find a seat that faces into the car so that no one is behind me. So that I can keep an eye on things. After riding the metro alone for the first time I had purchased mace to carry with me. I had been alone on the train with three twenty-something year old males and they were dirty and high. They were on something that had brought them up, way up! They were bouncing around and yelling, talking at one another, every other word being FUCK. The biggest guy, who was wearing a tank top in winter, had huge biceps and was covered in tats. Every few minutes he would do 10 push-ups then stand up raise his arms over his head and do a tough man growl. I did not like being alone in the car with them. They didn't even look at me, but it did not feel safe. So I had gotten the mace. Not that it would be of any real help in a situation where everyone was strung out, but it still felt like a good idea to have it.
On this particular day, Thursday, there was only one bench available and it was right in the middle. So the seat behind it was facing in the opposite direction. My head was only a few inches away from the man sitting in the seat behind me who was facing the opposite direction as me. A few people had chosen to stand. The man behind me had his head looking down so I assumed he was looking at his phone, like everyone else. We'd been moving for less than two minutes when the guy behind me yelled, "Get off me, You dumb Mother Fucker!!" Of course I jumped and immediately assumed that he was talking to me since I was the person sitting closest to him. I thought maybe my head had brushed his head or maybe it was the hood of my coat. I turned around and he looked exactly as before, head looking down into his lap. I looked around at everyone else, some had glanced up but then quickly started looking at their phones again. Two minutes passed and again he yelled angrily, "I said Get off me, you dumb Mother Fucker!!" I turned around quickly and the man was looking at the empty seat next to him, "Oh Shut the fuck up!" he yelled at the empty seat and then looked back at his lap. I turned so that my back was now leaned up against the window and I could see the man out of the corner of my eye as now he was to my left. And for the next 30 minutes, at approximately two minute intervals, he would yell angrily at the seat next to him sometimes swinging at his imaginary irritant. A few people would look up when he did it, but most everyone on the train just kept looking at their phones. There had to have been at least 40 of us in the car and maybe only five people would bother to look up. Only one person, a man my age, looked concerned. Other than me of course, I know that I looked concerned. I had my kindle out and had been planning on reading my book but I turned it off and put it away and patted the mace in my pocket. The man did nothing but yell and I got off at my stop which was before his. In retrospect I really do not know what was more bizarre, the man with mental illness yelling angrily and violently at the empty seat next to him. Or the train full of "normal" people who acted like they couldn't even hear him.
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This guy made me want to giggle. And this encounter happened later on in my journey, I'd had time to see things and adjust to daily bouts of oddity. He was wearing a gold shiny poofy jacket and poofy pants. I thought that he looked like he should be in a rap video. He was in his 20's with long dreads and he was laying in the seat in front of me. Stretched out and actually managing to look super comfy despite the fact that he had to have been at least 6'3 on this tiny metro bench. The seat I was in was facing into the train and no one was behind me, I'd gotten my "keep an eye on things" spot. At first I thought that he was going to sleep and that I was going to read. He looked like he wanted to sleep but then he started laughing. And he continued to laugh harder and louder until his laughs filled the train. Oddly, his laughter made people look at him. The other man's anger had not even seemed to register with the other passengers but this man's laughter seemed to really annoy everyone. I could see his laughing face perfectly and I could also see that his gaze was focused directly in front of his face. He was seeing something that no one else could. And I don't know why but unlike the angry man, whom I had assumed had schizophrenia, my assumption with this man was that he was on drugs. Most likely mushrooms. Something that would make him see visions and from somewhere deep inside this man's brain he was seeing something overwhelmingly beautiful. His laugh did not sound like someone who had heard a joke, it sounded like someone who had witnessed a miracle. Who had had their life saved and was now just reveling in being alive. He was so joyous. So happy. So loud. Why was the city and it's inhabitants so loud? I live in a small town in the mountains and no one yells. Even when people are angry they don't yell, they grumble. And when they laugh it is small and diluted. And when they want to get your attention they wave but they do not shout. I heard someone shout in DC every day, at least once a day, and usually more. And this man's laughter was so loud that it was bouncing off the walls of the train and for me I found it to be infectious. I could not stop smiling. Or watching him. And I felt like I could really watch him, because he was in his own space and completely unaware of me. And I was wasn't watching him out of meanness; I was watching him out of awe. And I was watching all the people glaring at him. When was they last time they had laughed? When was the last time I had really laughed? Laughed to the point of tears and ecstasy.
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