The Wrong Place to Be a Hero

You are sitting on a New York City subway train, headed downtown toward 23rd Street, with a midterm accounting exam waiting for you at Baruch College.

It is a Thursday afternoon, and you have already been riding for nearly an hour. Your textbook and notes are in your bag, your mind is supposed to be on debits and credits, and you are mentally reviewing the material you hope will be on the exam.

But instead, you are thinking about something else.

You have always heard the stories.

Someone is attacked on the subway. Someone is threatened. Someone is robbed or beaten while a train full of passengers watches. Later, people talk about it. They say they were shocked. They say they didn't know what to do. They say they wish they had helped.

You've always believed you won't truly know how you'd react until you're in that situation.

Still, you have also said that if you ever saw an opportunity to intervene, to say something that might calm a situation before it became much worse, you would try.

Not because you think you are a hero.

Because you believe sometimes one person saying the right thing at the right moment might prevent a disaster.

You are about to discover just how different that belief feels when the disaster is suddenly standing three feet away from you.

The subway doors open at the next station.

A young man in a white hoodie rushes into the train.

The hood is pulled so far over his head that it covers most of his face.

He isn't alone.

A second young man is running behind him.

And then you see it.

A knife.

For a moment, your brain refuses to process what your eyes are telling you.

The man with the knife is chasing the other passenger through the subway car, shouting that he is going to kill him.

The train’s entire atmosphere changes instantly.

Conversations stop.

People gasp.

Bodies press backward toward the seats and walls.

Nobody knows where to look.

Nobody wants to move.

You can feel the fear spreading through the car like electricity.

The intended victim is trapped.

The man with the knife is closing the distance.

You can almost see what is about to happen.

A stabbing.

Blood.

Screaming.

A life could soon end or be changed forever in front of everyone.

And then something inside you moves before your brain can stop it.

You speak.

"Look, think about this. You don't want to destroy your future by killing a guy and possibly going to jail for a long time."

For one brief second, you believe your words might work.

Maybe you have given him something to think about.

Maybe you have interrupted the anger long enough for him to think twice.

Maybe this is exactly the moment you always imagined when you said you would intervene.

Then he turns toward you.

His eyes meet yours.

And he says:

"In that case, I'll kill you instead."

Everything stops.

Not the subway.

Not the people.

Not the world.

Just your perception of it.

Time seems to slow down.

You suddenly realize that the person you have just tried to save is no longer the only person in danger.

You are now part of the confrontation.

You can feel your heartbeat.

You can feel your body tighten.

You can feel every instinct screaming at you to survive.

And then you say something you never imagined you would say.

"In that case, just go ahead and kill him."

The words sound strange even as they leave your mouth.

But they are not really words anymore.

They are survival.

Your mind has made a calculation faster than you ever could on an accounting exam.

You have just realized that courage and recklessness are not the same thing.

You don't want to die.

And suddenly, neither does the man who was being chased.

Your intervention, strange as it was, has created a few precious seconds of confusion.

The intended victim sees his opportunity.

He runs.

The subway doors remain open, and the victim disappears through them!

The man with the knife looks around.

The person he was chasing is gone.

He looks confused.

And somehow, you are no longer his target.

The confrontation dissolves as quickly as it began.

You don't wait around to find out what happens next.

At the next stop, 23rd Street, you get off the train.

You walk toward Baruch College.

But you are no longer the same person who boarded the subway nearly an hour earlier.

Your hands are shaking.

Your mind keeps replaying those few seconds.

The knife.

The white hoodie.

The eyes.

The words.

I'll kill you instead.

You arrive at your classroom and tell your professor what happened.

He looks at you and offers you the chance to take the midterm another day.