Oluwatabi Akangbe, “I Had One Job”

I HAD ONE JOB

Oluwatobi Akangbe

During 2020, I decided to do in-person school because I was tired of staying home. Since I don’t know how to get there, my mom was gonna take me. She asked, “How many times should I take you to school until you can figure it out on your own?” “Three,” I said. I was feeling confident that it shouldn’t take me that long to get the route. To get there, I take the 3 train, and go to New Lots which is on the left side. Then I would get off on New Lots and take the 84 bus which would drop me off to school. As I’m walking to the train, I’m thinking about the steps and how to get there. Every step I take, I see myself getting closer to the train. Once I started to get lost, I lost hope because I realized I didn’t know where else to go. I started to get confused. Do I turn here? Do I cross the street now? I tried replaying the memories of my mother walking me to school to try to remember where to go next. I looked at my surroundings without trying to seem lost. I was walking to the 3 train, replaying memories of my mother’s demonstration, and then I got to the station. I went up the long, skinny staircase and went towards the Manhattan side of the tracks. There were a lot of people. A minute or two before the train came, I had a brief thought: What if I’m on the wrong side? I figured I should be fine. The 3 train came and I got on. I started seeing unfamiliar stops. Rockaway. Saratoga. Sutter Av-Rutland Road. That’s when I got off, knowing I went too far in the wrong direction. “Oh my god. Mommy, I’m lost,” I cried on the phone, “I went on the wrong side of the tracks!” “Tobi, it’s okay, it’s okay. Stop crying. You don’t want to seem vulnerable. Just get on the other side and take the train from

there.” I was disappointed in myself because I was lost AND I proved my sister’s point. She always tells me I don’t pay attention to my surroundings. I went down the stairs and as I was going down, I saw another set of stairs. Oh, that must be the other side, I thought. I looked around to make sure I was on the right platform, then I went up the stairs, feeling a little better, like I’m still gonna be able to get to school. I waited for the train, got on, and stayed on, like my mom told me to do. After a while, the train started to go underground. I tried calling my mom but she couldn’t hear me. The phone got all glitchy and it was too low to hear. “Why are you all the way down there?!” my mom screamed. “I don’t know! You told me to stay on the train.” “No, you had to get off.” All the stops were blue, dark blue. There were a lot of people on the train listening. There was an older white man listening to my whole conversation. “Where do you live?” “Gateway.” I said without thinking. “Oh, you’re lost? I’ll show you.” He started getting off the train to show me the way. I got off the train with him. And people on the platform ran to help me, hearing the commotion. An MTA worker walked me back into the train and showed me the map. “We’re here and you have to go all the way over here.” “How long is that going to take?” I asked. “An hour and a half. If you stay on this train, it’ll take you back to where you need to go.” I wanted to cry. When I was close to home, because most of the passengers were off the train, I saw an older Black man.

“Are you okay? You seem lost,” he said. He had on a green hat and a green sweater. I don’t think he was wearing a mask. I didn’t want to give off the impression that I wasn’t lost, because I was. “Yeah, I was lost, but I’m getting close to home,” I replied. I called my mom, she asked if I wanted to still go to school. I didn’t see the point, so I just went home. Not to my sister’s house, because I knew what they were going to say. When I got home, my mom started making jokes. After a while, we went to my sister’s house. It was like they were waiting for me to come so they could make fun of me. They were all looking at me, shaking their heads and laughing. “How you got lost? It’s only three stops! You had one job.” After their disappointment wore off, my family started discussing who was going to take me to school. Now I know the importance of asking questions and paying attention!

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