Wrong Place, Wrong Time

For a few seconds, the whole world went quiet. My assistant manager stopped mid-sentence and locked eyes with me. Then a young man staggered through the door and collapsed.

I was 21 and working the 11 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift at a Stop and Go convenience store and gas station—a job I knew would end up on my list of throwaway jobs. We called the place Stop and Robb. I had been there about six months, long enough to know its rhythms: the last-minute drinkers before we locked the coolers at 2 a.m., the shoplifters, and the arguments that spilled into the side lot near the pay phones. Because neighborhood crime had been rising, corporate allowed the assistant manager to work nights with me. One of us watched the counter while the other stocked beer and milk or mopped the floors.

That night, I heard shouting near the pay phones, followed by a sharp sound I couldn’t place. I ignored it. Noise from drunks, street people, and fighting couples was ordinary there. Then came the silence—as if the world were holding its breath.

The door opened, and a guy roughly my age staggered inside. His face was drained of color. He took one more step and dropped to the tile with a heavy thud. Blood spread across his chest and pooled beneath him. While the assistant manager knelt and pressed down, trying to staunch the flow, I called 911. The dispatcher kept asking questions, but all I could see was how pale he had become and how quickly the red pool was growing.

Butterworth Hospital was only a block away, but the ambulance seemed to take hours. In reality, it was there within minutes. Soon the little store was crowded with police, EMS workers, gawkers, and me. I stayed behind the counter—my safe space—trembling and wondering whether the customer who had come in just before the attack, a guy who bought a lighter, was the one who had done it.

The assistant manager looked as if she had worked a shift in a butcher shop; her cheap polyester uniform top had absorbed none of the blood. When the day shift arrived at seven, I left. As I passed the pay phones, one receiver dangled from its cord, rocking slightly in the morning air. I hurried home.

Afterward, I became hypervigilant. Every time the door opened, I looked up. A raised voice in the parking lot made my hands shake. Sleep came in scraps, and I grew tired of everyone asking about the murder as if it were a story instead of something I had watched happen. Then the district attorney’s office contacted me about testifying. My first thought was, What could I possibly add? My assistant manager had tried to save him. Me? I had only dialed 911.

The DA’s office said they would subpoena me because they wanted every piece of evidence they could gather. I wanted to help put the killer in prison, but I did not want to look at him. The murderer had become a faceless boogeyman in my mind, and I wanted him to stay that way.

Months later, the trial came. By then, I looked like hell from not sleeping. My car needed repairs, so I walked downtown to the courthouse, answered the questions, and started the long walk home. I was too broke for the bus or a taxi. The afternoon was cold and gray, and I kept going, one foot in front of the other.

Michigan Street had a hill steep enough to be a cardio workout. As I huffed my way up, someone came alongside me, shoulder to shoulder. A young man’s voice said, “This hill is rough.” His voice was quiet and oddly steady, almost lost beneath the passing traffic.

I glanced over without meeting his eyes. He looked about my age and wore a dark jacket, but nothing else about him registered. I was used to being a single woman approached by strangers and did not want an awkward conversation about my phone number. My silence did not stop him. “Well, this hill, like a lot of things, is hard to climb,” he said, “but you do it.”

I muttered something about wanting to be left alone and walked faster. He kept pace without seeming winded. Did no one else see that a stranger was following me?

“I appreciated that you came to court,” he said. “You walked almost an hour there and back. Not everyone does what’s right after the excitement stops and the days pass.”

I was cresting the hill; Butterworth Hospital’s circular drive was in sight. I sped up, telling myself he might be a reporter or someone from the courthouse. Then he said, “I appreciated that you prayed and even lit a candle for me. You did the hard thing, but it’s over.”

I stopped. What the hell? Who was this guy? I turned around, but there’s no one there. Cars passed. The city carried on as it had every day for years. I searched the parking-ramp entrance and the sidewalk, but the man in the dark jacket was gone.

I could not get the man on the hill out of my head. After a distracted week, a friend offered to take me to her auntie, who, she said, could get things sorted. Sorted how? Was she a shrink? I probably needed one. My friend drove me to Grandville, outside Grand Rapids, and stopped at a little blue house with a statue of the Virgin Mary on the lawn. Inside, candles flickered before an altar crowded with saints. The room smelled faintly of wax and incense. Because her aunt spoke no English, my friend offered to translate. The woman studied my hands, crossed herself, and opened a wooden box. Cards whispered across the tabletop as she dealt them. I stood up. I was not getting involved with fortune-telling BS. The aunt caught my hand and spoke in rapid-fire Spanish. My friend looked at me. “She wants you to sit. She says she needs to explain about the dead man.” I sat. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” my friend said. “I swear.”

The aunt dealt several more cards. Through my friend, she said I had survived a traumatic event that had linked me to the dead man. As long as I carried guilt and kept returning to that night, his soul remained tethered to me. The candle flames seemed to draw still. She told me to say goodbye because the boy was there. When I hesitated, she waved both hands in a fierce DO IT motion.

I felt ridiculous. Then, all at once, I sensed someone standing close—the same calm presence I had felt beside me on the hill. I spoke his name for the first time since the trial. “Patrick, you and I were the same age. The way you were killed, how fast your life was over—it stayed with me. I should have paid attention to what was happening in the side lot. I am so sorry.”

A voice no louder than breath said, “Wrong place, wrong time. Just make sure you quit that job today.”

Then the room felt empty again. The aunt clapped her hands, announced that Patrick had gone, and blessed me. She asked for no money. My friend drove me home in silence. I thanked her, went into my apartment, phoned in my resignation, and told the store to mail my check. Did quitting save me from a robbery or some other disaster? I do not know. I found a housekeeping job at the hospital and never returned to the Stop and Go. I still cannot say whether the stranger, the aunt, or the whisper was real. I only know that, for the first time since Patrick died, I slept through the night.