Ali Abdullatif - The Patriots' Game

 

All right. So, it's February 1st, 2015, and I'm on the green line on the T in Boston, heading home after a Sunday brunch. And I was doing what anyone else on the T would do, which is just daydream and try not to make eye contact. [audience chuckles] I was just off in my own little world, and then suddenly I notice a screw that pops loose and falls on the seat in front of me. I decide to be a good Samaritan, I pick it up and put it back in just with my fingers, and go back to contemplating my own existence.

 

And then, my concentration is broken a second time, but this time by a man yelling from behind me. It takes me a second to realize that he's yelling at me. So, I get up and I look him in the face. And he goes, "I saw what you did there. I saw." I don't know what he's talking about. I wonder if he's drunk or crazy or maybe a little both. And then, he says, "I saw you plant a bomb on the T." [audience chuckles] 

 

Yeah, my heart immediately drops. I've never heard these words before, and no one's ever said them specifically to me. So, I don't know how to respond. While I'm trying to formulate a thought, he's already off to the front of the train. We come to a stop, two stops away from my apartment, and a bunch of people hear the word bomb and yelling, and they decide to leave.

 

And the man comes back around with a conductor. He tells the conductor what he thought he saw, and then the conductor takes a look at the situation. A couple of guys get up, and they tell him that I didn't do that. He realizes that there's no way for me to physically plant a bomb just on the seat. [audience chuckles] So, he decides to tell the men to take a seat, tells me to come to the front of the train, sit behind him, and when we get to my stop, I can get off. I thank him. I feel better. I try to relax, and I just process it as I move to the front of the train. 

 

I turn back, though, and I look at the man that just accused me, and apparently, he wasn't satisfied with what just happened. So, he picks up the phone and calls 911. And apparently, calling 911 activates some sort of MBTA protocol, because I'm not allowed to take a seat anymore. I have to stand as the conductor puts one arm on me and controls the T with one arm, and takes us down one more stop, one stop away from my apartment. This is when the train is pulled off of service. Everyone's asked to step off and step back onto the next train, with the exception of me, the man that accused me, and a female officer that was waiting at the station.

 

We waited outside in one of those outdoor platforms in the coldest winter Boston's seen in over a decade, just waiting for the police to show up. I start to panic. I don't know what this means at all, I don't know if I'd have to go down to the station, if I'd get detained for a day or two, if they have to search my apartment. I'm here on a student visa, and I don't know if this means I get deported or if I have to leave immediately. So, I panic, and I take my jacket off, I throw it to the ground, and I walk up to the female officer. I tell her to frisk me, to check, like, “I don't have tools or anything.” And she's like, "Calm down. Put your jacket back on. Just wait.”

 

30 minutes of being out in the cold, the man starts to realize that he might have made a mistake. He turns to me and he says, "I'm sorry." But then, he pulls back a bit. He decides no, and he goes, "I saw you do what you did, though. Yeah, you did it." And I immediately am filled with rage. I just want to yell at him, call him an idiot, and tell him he's wrong. But I realize that's counterproductive. So, I just relax and I tell him, "I understand why you did what you did. You just got the wrong guy." That's when he reacted negatively. He took a step towards me and immediately the officer separated us. She put him back on the T, and told him to go home, and the police would call him later. And me and the officer waited another 30 minutes out in the cold.

 

30 minutes in, the officer gets another phone call. Apparently, the police had showed up to the wrong Harvard Ave station, and it would be another few hours before they were able to get to this one. So, she decides to take down my number, my address, and tells me I can go home as long as when they call me, I head down to the station to talk it out with them. So, I agree. She asks me if I want to get back on the train, I don't feel comfortable just yet, so I tell her I'll just walk home. And I do.

 

And during my walk, my mind begins to spin. See, I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but I didn't always feel like I belonged back there. It's a very conservative country, and I was a very liberal minded kid. Most people want to talk about religious ideologies or traditional family values, and I just wanted to talk about who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman. [audience laughter] So, when it came time to decide where to go for college, I wanted to find my people, so I knew I wanted to come to the States. And I did. 

 

It took me a while and eventually I did find my people. And it was the Dungeons and Dragons players, the Halo video gamers, the Saga comic book readers. [chuckles] It was amazing. It turns out the people I was looking for all my life is what you people would call nerds. [audience laughter] So, I immediately felt like I belonged. And it was amazing.

 

And then, the spring of 2015 came, and I realized my new status quo was about to change again. I was a senior and so were all my friends. And that meant that when we graduated, everyone would go home. I'd have to go home, too, unless I was able to find a job, which at the time I wasn't. And now, I was struggling with the larger question of race. I mean, I'm no stranger to the topic. I've been randomly selected more times than random would allow, and held at the airport for far too long. I've also heard my fair share of inappropriate racial slurs or comments, but I've never had to confront something so immediate, something so real like this was. 

 

I didn't know what it meant. And if I didn't feel like I belonged back there and-- If I don't belong here, then where do I go next? I got home that night, and I was reeling. I was not in an okay headspace. I didn't know if I'd have to leave as soon as the police called and if I'd just get deported immediately. So, I called my friend Jackie to calm me down. Jackie was one of my few friends that was thinking about staying in Boston post-graduation. So, I clung to her. And immediately, she answered the phone, reaffirmed my situation, told me that it was messed up and it was not okay what happened. She slowly calmed me down, and then reminded me that February 1st, 2015, was the day of the Super Bowl. I was invited to a party at her place, and our New England Patriots were set to play the Seattle Seahawks.

 

At first, I told her I wasn't interested in the game, but it was just me being afraid of the phone call. And she felt it, so she insisted, and eventually I gave in. I decided I'd go to her party. But as soon as I hung up, I put my phone ringer on the loudest setting. I put it in my pocket, put my coat on, and went out into the cold again. I decided that even though I could have taken the 15-minute T ride to her place, I didn't know if I was even allowed back on. I wasn't comfortable. So, I decided to walk 40 minutes in the cold. 

 

I walk to her place, just questioning everything, not knowing what comes next, and then I get to her apartment. I can hear just a sports party going on inside and everyone yelling. It takes me a second to prep myself to walk in. And then, I do. The party had a few of my friends, but it was mostly friends of friends or loose acquaintances. And immediately everyone fell silent. It turns out Jackie had told them all what just happened to me. [audience chuckles] 

 

I got an immediate rush of hugs from some of my close friends, and they all told me that they were sorry. But pretty soon, the party went back to normal, and were all just watching the game. Every once in a while, though, someone would sit next to me, someone I hardly knew, and they would tell me that they don't think I was capable of something like that, and that they're sorry this happened to me. And I mean, I know they were sincere, but I couldn't feel it at the moment, because I was just too distracted. I had my phone out most of the time. I kept checking for that phone call. 

 

And then, at some point, it rang. People were yelling. The game was a close game. So, I turn to Jackie, I make eye contact, and she gestures for me to head out into the hallway to take the phone call. So, I do. I answer the phone, and a deep voice on the other line introduces himself as Jim. Just Jim. And it turns out Jim had dialed the wrong number. [audience laughter] So, I let Jim know, [chuckles] and I hang up. It takes me a second to compose myself a second time, and I head back to enter the party. And this time, when I walk in, everyone was standing up, putting their coats back on. So, confused, I asked them what was going on, and they told me, "Oh, we're coming down to the station with you."

 

And apparently, in their minds, I was just going to head down to the police station with an army of nerds in Patriots jerseys [audience laughter] that would, one by one, proclaim my innocence until they let me free. [audience laughter] I thanked them all. I told them that it wasn't necessary. [chuckles] We went back to watching the game. The Patriots won that day, and it was amazing. We ran out into the cold again, but this time celebrating and yelling and cheering. It really felt amazing knowing that I had this group of people that were supportive and had my back. It took just one person to alienate me and make me feel completely alone. And it took 14 people to make me know that I belonged. 

 

Now, I didn't end up getting the phone call that night or any other night. Till today, I still haven't gotten it [audience laughter] For a while, anytime a strange number would call me, I'd get really nervous and I'd clamp up. Till today, I honestly don't know if it's on a record somewhere. Every time I'm at the airport, I feel a little nervous that it comes up on file or something. But I knew then that just having this group of people with me that night, that it was okay. They were my people, Boston's my city, I belong in this country, and I wasn't leaving anytime soon. Thank you.