Red Line Trains: Unsafe at Any Speed?

Jessika Bialak, reporter in Evanston

Jessica Bialak makes her solo writing debut as she travels around, investigating the world of the homeless in Chicago.  Jessika has been writing with her best friend Steve about food pantries and other services.  Jessika approached me with this story about violence, homelessness, bullies, and the train.  She told me she had written it this morning while the sun was coming up—so she wouldn’t forget it.  I had to print it!  --Editor

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My grandmother—whom we lost last year to Covid—once asked me, “What your major is?”  She spoke Polish (and several other languages) fluently but not much English.  “My English is terrible!” she would shout—almost proud of the fact.  When she got to America, when her husband asked her about learning English she reportedly announced, “No more languages.”

I told my grandmother I would major in “writing’ and immediately my parents said that was stupid, they wanted me to major in business, and I needed to get serious about the family restaurant/banquet hall/deli business.  I had seen my brother major in business, and I had seen how much he detested it, every day.

My grandmother said, “Here is money for writing major.”  She told me to go to the best school, and I found it.  My brother was already studying in Evanston, so I had an anchor.  That kept us near our family—all of them in Milwaukee—and connected as Polish people are.  When my grandmother found out I would be around Chicago and able to keep up my Polish and near my brother, she was happy.

I am from a very peaceful and quiet family.  I never knew I would be finding myself in dangerous—potentially deadly—situations all the time.  I want to report on what’s really happening out there and when my friend Steven told me about StreetSense, I screamed, “Me too!  I want to write for StreetSense!”    

A message I keep sending to everybody is this:  It is NOT the homeless people out there committing all the crimes and making things dangerous for the average citizen.  It is the CRIMINALS who are preying on the homeless, and the citizens, and everybody else.    

I tell people in my classes this message.  I write it in papers, and I scribble it everywhere I can dare to scribble it.

I travel among the homeless and stick out, according to Steven.  At 6’2” and blonde, I am unique in the throngs of people traveling with bags and suitcases, wandering up and down the street, and falling asleep—sitting up!!!—on the Red Line train.

How people can fall asleep just sitting there –I do not know!  And it is terrible for your circulation, as we are always hearing.

Sometimes my roommate “Claire” goes with me on report-gathering trips and overnights, sometimes Steven does, and sometimes Mario (Steven’s beau from Brazil) will do overnights too.  Homeless people ride back and forth on various lines – such as the Red Line that goes from Howard down to 95th and back – all night long.

One night recently, we were leaving 95th and heading north.  Claire and I were seated right outside the conductor’s spot on the ‘head car” as the CTA people call the first one.  A small Asian woman entered and sat right across from us, carrying (not wearing) a large backpack.  A young Black dude roared in right behind her and stood over her, fists clenched.  “I want that backpack,” he said firmly.  She responded, “No, you can’t have that!  It has my sh*t in it for work!”  A guy walked up and said, “Hey man, leave her alone!  That’s her backpack!”  The dude stood there and repeated, “I want that backpack!”  He was probably three feet from the conductor, right on the other side of the door.  The woman grabbed it, repeating, “No!”  The other guy went out the door and right up to the window where the conductor was looking out – again all of this with everyone in this story just a few feet from each other, “That man tryin’ to take that backpack,” he warned, pointing at the dude standing there.  The conductor opened the door and asked, “Is there a problem?”  The woman said, “This guy is trying to take my backpack!”  The dude ran off the train, so the conductor closed the doors and took the train out of the station.

Right away we started discussing the situation, what had happened, and tried to figure out what this random fool was thinking.  He was “brazen” as some people would say.  He was right next to the conductor, and still he had the guts to just walk in and try to get the backpack through intimidation. 

Another night, there were random people sitting on the train, some homeless, some not, and we had just been talking about all the violence and how unsafe it is to try to get rest on the train when there are thieves and fighters running through the cars, threatening and punching and robbing and kicking as they go.

There was a little White guy half asleep sitting across from a Black man who was looking at news on his phone.  Things were quiet.  Suddenly a young African-American dude—a bully—entered the car from the other end and started screaming how he was “gonna have to kill some White people” and how it was “too bad to have to kill them” and similar warnings, saying all homeless people had to get off the train immediately or he would have to “kick their f*ckin’ ass too!”     

Everyone looked around, not what sure to do. 

Finally, the bully settled on a guy who would be his special victim: the White guy who was dozing off.  The bully stood right in front of him and started screaming he was going to kick his ass, beat the f*ck out of him, teach him a lesson, etc.  The White guy simply sat there, looking at him.  The bully went on, saying how he planned to break the guy’s jaw, drag his body off the train, break his legs, and piss on him.  

The Black man sitting across from the victim stood up, and he yelled at the bully, “That man has done nothing to you.  I want to see you hit him, and when you do, I will beat YOUR f*ckin’s ass.”  The bully turned around and said “What?!” seemingly shocked somebody had the nerve to speak up to him.

Then the Black man took off his jacket.  He was wearing a shirt with cutout sleeves—and it was easy to see his biceps—which were incredibly huge—and his big chest.

The bully stepped back.

The Black man yelled at the bully, “Do you wanna fight ME?”  The bully said nothing.  The Black man yelled again, “Do you wanna fight ME?”

The bully said, sheepishly, “No man—I am cool—we are cool!”

The Black man went on, “I think we should fight!  I wanna see how you break MY jaw and break MY legs!”

The bully said, again, “No, that’s okay bro—I am cool—we are cool—we don’t need to fight.”

The Black man simply said, quietly, “Get your stuff and get off this train.  This man has done nothing to you.”  

The bully gathered his bags and coat… “Okay, we’re cool, bro,” he said under his breath.

He got off the train, and the Black man said to the White one, “I’m sorry for that confusion.  You shouldn’t have to listen to that kind of thing.”

The White man said nothing, maybe not sure what to say.

The Black man put his jacket back on and got off at the next station.

Claire and I sat there, speechless, frozen, scared, confused.  We agreed that the level of violence—and the quick appearance of it out of thin air—must mean things are getting rougher and people are more out of control.    

Last night, we decided to go look for more stories.  We saw so many colorful folks – and some homeless people who were in fact “taking up too many spaces” with their sleeping, spread out, maybe drunk one guy, plus the usual homeless hiding and huddling in the corner, trying to not take up more than one spot, with their little backpack, maybe trying to keep their eyes open, maybe looking at their phone, usually hiding things under their coat—their money, their phone, a sandwich, keys, an important letter, a note about a free dinner coming up.

However, a lot of homeless people are simply desperate to get some rest.  Evicted last week or fired last month, a lot of “citizens” are struggling to get money for housing, worried about all the violence, and scared of getting killed before they have a safe place to call home.  

The homeless will tell us pretty much anything we ask.  We do not know if the stories are true but we ask away and they tell us all kinds of random information about all kinds of topics.

There was one guy on the Red Line—last car—who was lying down, being loud and obnoxious to wake people up on purpose, and he was doing a sort of “fake laugh” just to be an ass.  Claire whispered, “I don’t like him!”  We tried to keep an eye on him. 

I asked Claire if I am safer traveling with her because she is Black, and she laughed.  She warned me, “The toughest bastards out there are not concerned who is what color.  They will steal, punch, shoot, kill… they are criminals.  It probably doesn’t hurt that I am Black, but don’t think it’s a guarantee you—or we—will not have to deal with some violent sh*t some night.”  She reminded me further, “Things are getting out of control in this little corner of the world.”  

Early this morning, as we were halfway dozing off and headed south into the 79th Street station, “fake laugh” guy was headed to the door, and seeing a young Black girl texting on her phone, took the phone out of her hand and waited for the doors to open.  The girl screamed, “Hey!  That’s my phone!”  He yelled back, “That’s my phone!  I need it!”  She screamed again, “That’s my phone!”  He went over and punched her twice and she ducked down in the seat, yelling, “Don’t you hit me, bitch!’  Being called a bitch set him off, and like other criminals I have noticed lately, if somebody crosses them while they are doing their violent crime, they will get extremely angry if somebody challenges them or sticks up for themselves or tries to fight back or threatens to call the police.

The “bitch” comment got this response from him:  he came back at her yelled, “Call me another bitch!”  And he hit her about five times, using both fists (which probably saved her because that wasted energy always seems to lessen the blows and makes them not find their mark).  Using ONE fist with more focus seems to do a lot more damage.  At this onslaught, the girl screamed “Bitch!” at him once again.

This was way too much for the guy, apparently, and he jumped up and grabbed the pole overhead to lift himself straight into the air.  He swung toward her and with one foot tromped on her head and with the other tromped on her torso.  Then he ran to the door and ran off.

The girl, with blood streaming out of her nose, ran to the door and holding it open, screamed at him to come back and bring the phone back.  She held the door open and yelled as people urged her to be careful and stop yelling at the guy, who was most likely out of the station by that time.

She rang the button for help about ten times, but nobody answered.

Finally, she let the doors close.  The train pulled out of Jackson.  We tried to catch our breath and we talked about what had happened.  We were relieved the doors were closed, the guy was off the car, and the train was moving.   

So much violence.  So many people willing to use it on a moment’s notice.  Fighting every single fight like it is the most important one.  Dealing with every conflict like it is a kill-or-get-killed attack. 

People are afraid of the homeless?  I think they are not seeing who is doing what. We must spread our message—even if it does not make us popular to do so.