Tuesday, October 9, 2001

How suspicious should we be?

I was wondering that last week - even before Sunday's attack on Afghanistan, and Osama's taunting videotaped message, in which he vowed: ``America will not live in peace.''

It was a beautiful summery Wednesday. I'd snagged one of three outdoor tables at my local Starbucks, I had a new New Yorker, my baby was asleep in his stroller. . . the next half an hour was mine!

Then, the man next to me asked if I'd ``watch his stuff for a minute.''

I looked at his table. A few books, a legal pad, a canvas briefcase.

``Sure,'' I said. And a second later, I panicked.

The man didn't walk away, he sauntered. Where was he going? And why wasn't he in a hurry to return? I didn't see him putting money in a meter, or turning into a store to buy a pen. In fact, after a moment, I lost sight of him.

Hating myself, I ran a quick profile. He didn't look like one of Osama's guys, but even so. Maybe they've recruited some ``American'' looking people, I thought. That's what I would do if I were a terrorist. Hire a person who looks like a soccer dad or mom.

The man at the third table looked at the abandoned table to see what I had gotten us into. Our eyes met, but we didn't speak. Was he wondering what I was:

How much explosives could fit in that briefcase? Are the books somehow going to detonate? Would a terrorist toy with you by asking you to ``watch his stuff,'' or would he just stroll away without saying anything?

I thought about the news report I'd just heard, about how the MBTA is planning to buy 250 $1,500 bomb-proof garbage cans for T stations.

That's a good start, but we're not just vulnerable in the T. How long until the real heart of America - Starbucks - is targeted? Before the bomb squad is called in to blow up an unattended Mocha Frappuccino?

Even before Sept. 11, being deputized to watch someone's luggage or knapsack or bike was tricky. What if you wanted to leave before the person returned? What exactly were your obligations?

A few years ago, my mother was at the Amtrak station in Philadelphia, when another woman asked her to watch her bag.

Twenty minutes elapsed, my mother's train arrived, and the woman was nowhere around. ``What could I do?'' my mother said the other day, still bothered. ``I couldn't miss the train. I had to leave her bag there.''

But after Sept. 11, and the heightened state of alert under which we're living, concern over the extent of one's moral obligation seems (sadly) secondary.

So there I was, unable to read my magazine or enjoy my iced coffee, but did I get up? I am ashamed - and happy - to report that I did not.

I did a risk-benefit analysis, and sick as this sounds, even though I believed my life was in jeopardy, the downside apparently paled in comparison to the upside: 1) got a table at Starbucks, and 2) baby sleeping happily.

I guess that's the attitude that develops when a person is lucky enough to live - have lived - in a country where a terrorist threat was something that could be joked about. Where Newsweek could run a cover story that said - without offending anyone except the single gals - that a woman over 40 stood a greater chance of being killed by a terrorist than marrying.

But that was then. This, as they say, is now. I sat outside Starbucks for seven long minutes, when, well, well, well, who should return, looking all calm, but the ``terrorist.''

``Thanks for watching my things,'' he said, smiling.

``No problem,'' I replied.

If only that were true.