Gale Warning

by Daryl Gale

The Library Rapist and Me

I’ve been having a real crisis of conscience this week. If you’ve ever wished you could turn back the clock, or if you’ve ever been plagued by the woulda, coulda, shouldas, you’ll know what I mean.

Last Friday, I left work a little early because I'd injured my back earlier in the week and it was giving me some discomfort. At about 3:30 p.m., I was walking east on Market Street between Third and Second, headed for the subway home and, I hoped, some relief in the form of a hot compress and pain pills. Limping and grimacing, I was almost too busy wallowing in self-pity to notice the young homeless guy standing in my path.

He made what I assumed to be the standard request for spare change, but I wasn't listening that closely and already had my stock answer prepared.

"No, sorry," I deadpanned. "I don't have any money." (For the record, this is my stock answer partly because it's short and sweet, and partly because it's almost always true.)

"Fuck you!" the young man screamed, instantly transforming from humble mendicant to indignant aggressor. "You're not sorry! You could help me if you wanted to, motherfucker! I just want a little fucking change, you cheap ass fuck! You could help me if you wanted to!"

At first I was stunned into silence. It took me a second to respond.

"Why don't you get a job and stop harassing working people, ya bum?" was my angry, and decidedly non-politically correct reply. Now, before you read me the riot act for being an insensitive lout, understand I'm normally not mean to homeless people and will give up a little pocket change on occasion.

But this guy pissed me off.

I continued walking toward the subway with homeless dude still screaming obscenities at my back. I seethed, but bit my lip and kept walking. If my back had been 100 percent, I thought to myself, I'd have surely shut him up old-school style. I vowed to catalog his face for future reference, just in case our paths crossed again.

I didn't have to wait long.

As I was having my coffee Sunday morning, I turned on the local news. They led with the heart-wrenching story of the 8-year-old girl who was savagely raped and beaten in the ladies room of the Free Library's Independence Branch Saturday afternoon. The image on the screen made me spill my coffee on the bed. The alleged assailant -- 23-year-old Brian McCutcheon -- wearing a white, hooded jumpsuit and being led away in handcuffs was, you guessed it, my aggressive panhandler from Friday afternoon.

I was horrified. A chill ran through my body that I'd never known before. I suddenly found myself close to tears.

If the cops are right and he's the guy, then my expletive-filled run-in with him was less than 24 hours before he brutalized and ruined the life of that innocent child. I have a 14-year-old daughter myself and I was filled with the white-hot rage only a parent can feel. I've spent many hours with my little girl at the local library, and taught her to appreciate the wonder and beauty of its literary treasures. I reminded myself of the number of times I had let her go to the bathroom there without giving it a second thought, and shuddered.

A thousand thoughts of guilt and remorse entered my mind as I stared hypnotized at the television.

Maybe I should have looked for a cop last Friday afternoon. Maybe nothing would have happened, but maybe they'd have at least taken him in for questioning or something.

Maybe I should have called one of the people I know at the local social service agencies. They deal with the homeless and the mentally ill all the time, and maybe could have gotten him off the street.

Maybe I should have just picked up a brick and caved the bastard's head in. Drastic? Sure. But if he'd been in the hospital, I reasoned, he wouldn't have been at that library, and right now a little girl would be playing with her dolls without a care in the world.

Since Sunday, I've been able to successfully convince myself that it's not my fault. But you know what? It is my fault. Yours too, by the way. Because if it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes that same village to keep a child safe from harm. And in that, we continue to fail miserably.

If we really do have a responsibility to our fellow citizens, where does that civic duty begin? If it's our job to keep each other safe, how do we know when to cross the line from minding our own business to becoming our brother's keeper?

Maybe it's an easier decision when you're talking about running into a burning building to save someone or stopping a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his chest. But what about the guy who may have the potential to harm someone, but hasn't committed a crime yet? Or the child in your neighborhood who's always scratched and bruised, but could just as easily have gotten the injuries on the playground as from an abusive parent?

I'm going to be giving these questions a lot of thought, and I hope you do too. Until we figure out the answers, none of us is truly safe.

Daryl Gale’s weekly radio show, Dialogues, with co-hosts Rotan Lee and Bill Miller, is burning up the airwaves Fridays 7-10 a.m. on WURD (900 AM) in Philadelphia.