the lost boy

“This way, Metro Center?” he asked with a thick, broken accent. Maybe French. I’m sure he had been practicing how to say it in his mind, but all the accents were on the wrong syllables once it was vocalized. It came out of his mouth with such strained effort. My reply was not in kind - I barely lift my head to nod yes, my aloofness having no affect on his nervous body language. I had seen him a few minutes before - he was up above on the mezzanine, just beyond the turnstiles, completely confused on which escalator would take him to the correct platform, which platform to the correct train, which train to Metro Center. He was pacing then and he is pacing now, looking in back and forth along the tracks in both directions. He doesnt know the train will come from the left. He has two duffel bags set on wheels, a backpack, a white knit cap, and a half empty bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red from which he gulps long and hard ends with a sucking slurp. He is large nosed, dark, he smells funny. In my mind I call him Jacques but that name comes only after I consider calling him Django because I think he could pass for a gypsy. You can call him whatever you like.

In a moment, the train will come and Django Jacques will sling his bags aboard in a hustle and go about looking for a place to sit. I reach out toward him and let go a half-assed, “wai–” but its too late. He is already halfway down the aisle, his bags bumping against commuters and finally piling up in a jumbled mess in the middle of the car. He has no idea that all of that effort was completely unnecesarry, for Metro Center is only one stop away. No sooner than he is seated and ready for the ride, the conductor calls “Next station, Metro Center” over the loudspeaker, and he looks quizically over at a fellow passenger, and in the same broken accent he asks, “Metro Center?” He receives the same sort of aloof nod as the one I gave him a few moments earlier. As the train comes to a hault and he begins to put his bags together I am faced with a decision. Django Jaques needs help. And as someone who is supposed to act like Jesus and be selfless and reach out to those in need I should follow him out of the train and show him the way to his next train or up to the exit because I know he’ll be as lost upon his arrival to his destination as he was in getting there. I should even help him carry a bag. But, the train gives a tone signaling the doors to open and Django Jacques steps out and I don’t follow. In a moment, the doors will close and the train will pull away, leaving him on the platform, looking back and forth along the tracks and not knowing where to go.

I am a selfish, selfish bastard.