And Then A Hero Comes Along

And now for today's completely random post...I'd like to talk about heroism. Inspired by this video I found online about first responders and people who intentionally put themselves in harm's way, I've decided to share a personal story of mine.

The year was 2002. I'd just been promoted to head slave at the movie theater and I hadn't had my new "supervisor" badge pinned to my chest more than fifteen minutes before destiny called. A woman walked up to the concession stand and asked one of my minions for the manager on duty. They radioed for me and I responded right away.

"How can I help you, ma'am?"
"I don't want to sound racist (why do people always lead with that?), but I just came out of my theater because four Muslim looking men just walked in."
I was thinking to myself, "You are doing a fantastic job of not sounding racist." I just gave her the "Okay?" look.
"I don't think they belong there."
Just as she said that, one of the guys walked out to go to the bathroom.
"Look, that's one of the Muslim guys right there!"
"Um, you do know that 'Muslim' isn't a race, right? I think the word you're looking for is Arab."
"Whatever! Don't you need to call someone? Do you have security here?"
"Ma'am, the man hasn't done anything. And he's not Arab, he's Black."
"How do you know that?"
I wanted to say, "Uh, all Black people have a database in their head. Kinda like ants recognizing other ants from the same colony." Instead, I just kinda looked down at my arms and hands as if to say, "Takes one to know one."

She didn't give up though. She told me that regardless of what race they were, I should still check them out. She went on to make some valid points: The theater she was in was showing Jonah, A VeggieTales Movie, which for those who don't know is a cartoon about anthropomorphic vegetables acting out the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale. I had to admit that it is kinda weird to see four grown Black men sitting on the front row of a movie like that sans children. Plus she told me that all four of them were wearing long black coats (it was about 80-85 degrees that day) and they had a big black duffel bag sitting on the floor in front of them. She said she was worried that they might have a gun or a bomb or something.

This was around the Fall of 2002, so the DC Sniper thing was going on, and it was a year after 9/11. I realized that even though her suspicions were based on racism, her concerns weren't unfounded. And that brings me back full circle to heroism.

I immediately called the manager of the theater:
"This is Ordale. Can you check out theater 6? A customer just came to the concession stand to report some suspicious guys in the front row with a large duffel bag that she says could be a bomb."
"Okay, well go check it out. Wait a minute. Why are you calling me on the phone? Is something wrong with your radio?"
"No, I think I'm out of range for the radio."
"Where are you?"
"I'm down the street inside the mall. I'm using the payphone next to the bathrooms. The lady said she thought there was a bomb, so I left. I'm just calling so you can go check it out."

I hung up the phone, walked to the car and drove off. I kept looking in the rear view mirror to see if there was any smoke rising in the distance. The next day, they wrote me up. And that's my tale of heroism. I knew that if there was actually a bomb in the building then I might be putting myself at risk by stopping at the payphone to warn the others, but I did it anyway. Of course I was about half a mile away when I did it, but it could've been a big bomb. You never know.

I wonder if they'll put my face on a stamp.