The Day I Met A Mass Shooter
Lessons learned from a strange encounter on a Seattle city bus
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Earlier today I boarded a Sound Transit’s bus, route 554 , which originates in the city of Issaquah (about 25 miles east of Seattle), from Mercer Island to downtown Seattle. I stood in the middle aisle for most of the ride across I-90, the bridge that floats on the top of Lake Washington and connects commuters traveling from the Eastside to Seattle or reverse.
Around the time the bus arrived in the downtown Seattle corridor, a man in his 20’s wearing a City of Bellevue Parks and Recreation t-shirt approached me to strike up a conversation. His first words to me: “Have you ever been arrested?”
I was a bit taken back, as were the other passengers around me. “No,” I responded, casually, “have you?”
“No,” he said, “but I like to think about rebellious things you can do. Like I think about running up to people in the street and giving them wedgies. What’s the most rebellious thing you can think of to do?”
Clearly this wasn’t going to be an everyday sports and weather conversation you would normally have with a stranger in your city.
He started biting his nails, frantically awaiting my response. I noticed he was missing at least one fingernail and he had a possessed a very tense, nervous energy.
I told him that what I was doing now was rebellious — on a whim, ditching my office to head downtown and hang out a co-working facility. “Sometimes when you make a plan, and decide not to stick to it, that’s rebellious,” I said, hoping to water down the tone of the conversation a bit.
He didn’t bite.
“I mean, you can go to the shooting range and stuff, but that’s not really rebellious,” he said. “I think these days you can only meet people by being social and trying to talk to them,” he continued.
OK —deviant with a personality disorder and some perverse form of social anxiety. This should be fun, I think to myself.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“Job interview. But I probably shouldn’t be going ’cause its so f — ing far.”
“What kind of job?”
“Painting. I kind of need it because I only have like f — -ing fifty bucks.”
I stayed calm. I didn’t worry that he’d pull out a knife and start stabbing me, because I was taking the time to talk to him. I didn’t blow him off, or act weird, or disgusted — I treated him the way I would have treated anyone I meet- like a human being.
We made some more small talk, I gave him some job interviewing advice (remember to ask them for the job and if they say that they need to think about it, ask if they have any concerns you can address.) Not sure he’ll take the advice, but that’s okay.
As we got closer to his stop, he asked me for my phone number or my contact info on Reddit. I said I’d given him everything he’d ever need from me so there was no reason to stay in touch. He seemed okay with that — we weren’t going to be friends, but at least I treated him with respect.
I’m not gonna lie — this dude was creepy. The kind of guy that probably thinks about doing something really bad. He may even be planning a mass shooting, or may think about planning one some day.
Remember “Falling Down”, the movie where Michael Douglas (as an unemployed defense engineer) literally goes postal?
That was this guy. He’s on the brink. He’s about to crack at any moment.
But perhaps now he won’t. Perhaps my conversation with him reminded him that he can talk to people, he can get a stranger’s attention, he does matter in some small way.
I certainly hope so.
And perhaps that is the answer to so many of the problems we face in American society these days. Perhaps if we learn how to become more aware of each other, to smile at each other, to take a genuine interest in others, to ask questions and listen, we can make a real difference in the world.
Perhaps we can even prevent the next mass shooting.
