Watching Me Watching You

As I approached the Amtrak ticket window at Newark Penn Station this morning I smiled at a woman already in the queue. She carried a handbag and rested her other hand on a neat black leather backpack atop her suitcase. She returned my smile. In some strange recognition between strangers, we acknowledged each other as equals, “Hello” answering “Hello.” “In a pinch, you can turn to me.”

The exact same encounter happened to me at the Amtrak counter in Boston's Back Bay station four days ago. Women recognize their peers in age, class, and circumstances almost instantly. It's part of a survival instinct when traveling alone. Just like instinctively noticing where the exits and restrooms are, women will identify the peer who will be a potential ally if danger approaches. Later that same day, as the train approached my station, a woman entered the train and seemed quite anxious. She asked if the seat next to me was free and we chatted until I got off ten minutes later. She was apprehensive about this train ride, her very first. “People in Texas don’t have this opportunity,” she said. I reassured her and she seemed relieved as much by my presence as by my words.

On both ticket-purchasing experiences in recent days, I observed a woman in difficulty at the counter. For the ticket agents, these may have been just samples of many long narratives that unfold during the day. In Boston, the protagonist was an international woman with minimal English trying to buy a complex ticket that might have been impossible. She was short, dark-skinned, and elderly—three strikes against her in addition to the language barrier and limited resources. She was holding a zippered coin purse at the counter and I wondered if she would pay for her ticket with small bills or possibly even with coins. The agent must have expressed doubt about the feasibility of her desired route, because the customer responded in broken English, “I go this way many time.” The agent tried again and then wrote a number on a slip of paper, handed it to the woman, and asked her to wait while she sold tickets to the few of us with immanent departures. I saw the price of $148.20 on the piece of paper and then my narrative boarded a train and diverged from hers.

At Newark Penn Station this morning, the woman facing her trial at the ticket window was young, white, and blonde. She had five or six bags at her feet. Not suitcases, but canvas and plastic bags with their handles tied together. She was in an extended conversation with the agent. She told him she had just been released from rehab in a mental hospital and she needed to get home today. Her voice was urgent and highly distressed, almost panicked. She rested her cheek against the palm of her hand and pleaded with him. He asked for her name and typed it into the computer. Perhaps she had a reservation but no identification? He couldn't give her the ticket without ID. When he asked for a phone number, she quickly gave him a number and told him that her ex-husband was at that number and he could give any information needed. The agent ultimately directed her to the police, “Go around the corner and turn left.” She hooked all the bag handles with her fingers and walked off. When I left the ticket counter, I was relieved to see her in conversation with a policeman. I felt some tug to get involved, but I didn't.

Meanwhile, off to my left was a row of men who may or may not have had tickets, but who were sitting along the outside wall of the waiting room on a bench marked (as they all are) “Seating for ticketed passengers.” They were watching, too. They were not watching the big board for their track number to appear. They were not watching the lines at the ticket windows to pick the fastest one. They were watching out for one another as they stepped outside and then returned to the warm station and the benches. They were also watching the passengers sitting on the other benches. I wondered if they were watching to see if someone dropped something that they could pick up and use or sell, but when a package of cigarettes fell out of the pocket of a passenger opposite me, one of the watchers got up and gestured to the man until he saw his cigarettes and retrieved them.

Another of the watchers called out, “Blossom! Blossom!” and I looked to see who might respond. I was not quick enough to catch sight of Blossom passing by.

Leaning against the information booth in the center of the waiting area and looking out over all the benches and all the people was a uniformed policeman. He scanned the room attentively. What would happen if he were not watching? And the three young soldiers in buff camouflage uniforms that I saw as I came down the escalator at the Port Authority bus station on Tuesday morning? In the universe of humans watching other humans, we may have turned the page from watching to surveillance.