Although I was ten or eleven I looked older; I was pretty much full grown and probably appeared to be in my mid or late teens. I was sometimes a target of the attention of one of these crazies. I remember in particular one day when the train was stopped between stations, as it often did, for an indeterminate time. It was early evening, perhaps seven or eight PM, and there were probably only ten or so people in my car. An agitated black man who was sitting somewhat across from me begin yelling that the train had stopped in order to punish us – in order for him to punish us – which he was going to proceed to do. I don’t remember the details of his rather lengthy speech, except that he was threatening our deaths although he didn’t do anything except yell loudly and look antsy and tense.

I remember doing what I usually did, which was to look away and at the floor and somehow hope I was utterly invisible. I recall that a few people got up and went into the next car, but that drew his attention and he threatened them as they went. Was it safer to stay or leave? What was he actually going to do? The train stayed in that tunnel for what seemed like a long long time, and then it finally moved again.

Did I get off at the next stop and wait for the next train, which on that line wouldn’t have come all that quickly? Which was the riskier move, staying or leaving? This was the sort of calculation everyone riding the subways had to make, even back in those relatively safe-seeming days.

[Communities won’t live like this forever. Either the civic institutions have to act to impose order and the rule of law, or eventually people will organize to fill that vacuum. — Ed]