This was a few months ago, but I felt it was worth telling, and these photos were still in my cell phone. I had been up to Chicago on business, and was waiting at the gate in the airport to fly home. John, whom I work with, was with me. Seated next to us were two men of Middle Eastern heritage. This is a picture of their luggage:
While John and I are sitting there, shooting the shit, waiting, one of the men asks me the time. I look at my watch, tell him. He and his friend/associate/partner/relative exchange words, stand up, and walk off together. John and I don't pay too much attention to this, but I do notice them walk across to the pay phone on the other side of the terminal. A few minutes later, the airline attendant at the gate counter looks up, and asks whose bags are sitting there--unattended. We let her know they are not ours. She looks around. I look around for the two men--no longer at the payphone. She looks back down and goes about her business, not too worried.
Now John and I have a dilemma. Do we commit a racial profile, label these two men as potential terrorists and alert the airport security about the abandoned luggage? If we tell the airline attendant what we know, will their bag be confiscated, sniffed, and blown apart only to reveal their underwear? Or do we say nothing, sit tight, and hope that a bomb is not planted in the bag, waiting the proper time to detonate, and kill all of the oblivious people around us? John starts to freak out a bit.
"I got kids" he keeps saying, "I got kids." And suddenly he is up, grabs his bag and walks off away from our gate. I could follow, but then I'm guilty of knowing, should something happen. I go back and forth. Do I tell someone, cause alarm, run away, or hope for the best. What seems like several minutes pass with me wrestling with this dilemma. It was probably just one minute. I had about convinced myself to say something to the airline attendant, just to let her know what I knew, when I see the two men walking back up to the gate. John passes them, and then turns around, looking back at me. He waits a second, confirms that they are coming back to the gate, and then he too returns to the gate. Nothing happens. It was a non-event. But for a brief moment, it was full of consequences and moral dilemmas.
