The Mask

The Mask
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Anthrax Girl
Tired or Terrorist?

I was at the Concord NH bus station with an unexpected three-hour layover. Taking the bus had not been in my original travel plans. Because of feeling ill I had not managed to link up with a potential car-ride from a friend in time. So I was forced to resort to this method of transportation which is particularly difficult and tiring given my health condition. I was already worn out from the strain of the extra traveling and the long, late hours. When I finally made it as far as Concord, I discovered the cleaning agents inside the station were powerful, as were the traffic fumes from the interstate highway outside, so I had no choice but to use my mask. This was the first time I would be wearing it out of the city in public, so I chose to sit inconspicuously at the back of bus station, by the parking lot, on the curb against the brick wall. I have a special diet and can't stop at fast-food joints, so I always carry a silvery soft-sided cooler with food which I was leaning against. People occasionally walked past me back and forth to their cars, carrying a suitcase, picking up a visitor, not really paying any mind to me. It was a hot day, about a week before July 4th, so I had a cap and shades on. I blurrily watched some ants fussily hauling crumbs around for a while, and eventually dozed off leaning against the station wall.

I awoke rather suddenly, to quite a surreal scene unfolding around me. A ring of six or seven police officers was closing in on me, hands casually hovering above their holsters. What the?! The lead officer called out "Hey buddy, what's with the mask?" As I slowly emerged from my haze of exhaustion and heat, I was hardly able to move and my limbs felt like lead and were unresponsive. "What have you got in the bag? Do you have any weapons?" I was realizing that there were other uniformed people and official vehicles around, and that this was serious business. I had better get over my shock and ask my brain to get in gear quickly, no easy feat in a chemical-induced fog and state of exhaustion. In a lot of pain I slowly sat up, took off my cap and the mask and shook out my long hair, and put my hands up.

I somehow through severe brain fog and disorientation and slowed speech managed to explain coherently enough that I had a health condition and needed the mask for severe allergies. I saw more vehicles arriving, two fire trucks, an ambulance, and three police cars, all with full crews. I half-noticed that I was hearing sirens. I'm so used to them frequently being in the background of the city that I hadn't really been aware of them before, and unconsciously assumed that something important must be going on just a little ways over. It looked like quite a bit of excitement for the quiet flower-lined station. Probably the better part of the Concord Emergency Services was present. As the new arrivals came over and joined the cluster, it finally dawned on me, and I said, "This can't all be for me, can it?" But apparently it could.

The main officer continued to ask questions about what I was doing, where I was going and why, where I lived. Through my haze, I somehow told the officer I had a doctor's letter and informational pamphlet I carried with me, in my backpack. The ambulance crew of five or six interrupted to ask if I needed medical attention and I said no, not at this time. Though given the way my heart was racing, perhaps I should have asked for a blood pressure check. I told the officer, "I am now reaching for my backpack to get the letters and hand them to you, okay?" and he nodded. I took care to move slowly, and to request permission for everything I did. I asked to put my mask back on, since the ambulance exhaust pipe was a couple of feet from my face and now I was getting a worsening blinding headache and nausea on top of everything. That exchange and getting the words out was harder than taking a final exam for an engineering class, but I knew it was one of the most vital conversations of my life. Having some of the explanation available in writing for when I got cognitively overwhelmed and couldn't speak was really helpful.

Although gradually the situation got cleared up, the excitement and tension were running high in everyone present. Somebody had called in a report of an unresponsive body, wearing a gasmask with a suspicious-looking container, at a transportation center, all while the country was on Homeland Security Yellow Alert for the Independence Day holiday. I realized as the officer continued to ask me unusual questions about my weight and whether I had any tattoos that my information was probably being compared right then and there to an international database of terrorists. Maybe they were even ordering up a wiretap on my phone. I can only wonder what they might have thought was in the bag--explosive chemicals that needed to be kept cool before detonation, or vials of lethal substances to be released in the air.

I used to work on an ambulance, and if I was in the first line of defense and thought somebody was trying to release sarin gas at my pretty flower-trimmed bus station, I'd probably get pretty activated, too. When the call came in, it must have sounded to the emergency personnel like a terrorist was on the verge of attacking a major transit hub in their very own neighborhood. Maybe that terrorist was a real idiot and had accidentally poisoned himself in the process and was now lying unconscious, or perhaps he'd been shot by an angry accomplice, or maybe stopped by a faithful citizen just in time. Maybe toxic chemicals were leaking out and it was already too late to stop decent folks from being contaminated... Any preliminary version of the story certainly contained a number of elements that would encourage imaginations to run wild.

But upon investigation they realized that I and my space-age cooler of zucchini and carrots were not likely to be a deadly threat to the peaceful metropolis of Concord. And I realized they were not going to shoot me or quarantine me or even confiscate my precious hand-drums. The officer explained that people had been concerned, I responded that I appreciated where they were coming from. We all calmed down, mutually taking in and accepting the other's legitimate reasons for being there. After everyone official returned to their rigs and drove away, I was an ordinary, free, simple mask-wearing citizen again. Score one for chemical sensitivity public relations, I guess. Lordy!

I leaned back against the wall, put my cap back on and pulled it low. I heard regular people, the next load of bus patrons, walk past me to their cars in the parking lot apparently oblivious to all that had transpired, but I still felt exposed and abnormal. I unfolded a jacket and pulled it up entirely over my face and mask, burka-like. I hid there quietly for a little while, shaking softly, hurting, breathing deeply through my mask filters. I reflected on how the events of 9/11 had gotten strangely tangled into my unusual health condition and needs. I registered the atmosphere of alarm and suspicion and wariness that resulted from a population concerned for the first time about terrorist attacks on local soil. I better understood the weight of the symbol that my mask represented in such a climate. I was thankful to see that the officers' reason and common sense and good judgment came to the forefront of our interactions pretty quickly, even in a highly charged, uncertain atmosphere.

Coping with a disability is always a learning process, but I must say this sort of experience was an entirely unexpected complexity to integrate. Having learned a little something, I decided to inform the bus driver of my condition and show the mask to him before getting on the bus, and in the future to explain immediately what it was to any group I might take part in. No more trying to stay inconspicuous in a corner.

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully and I reached my destination in peace. When I introduced my mask and told my story to the group I had come to join, they endearingly dubbed me "Anthrax Girl". And if anybody has bugged my phone or put me under surveillance since then, I haven't been able to tell.

Note: The act of writing this story much later took months and much help from others. It was also harder than final exams in engineering, because of the cognitive injuries and memory problems. I had difficulty holding more than one thought at a time in my mind, I'd lose track of the thread, I'd go blank. Because I had problems holding the 'big picture' in my mind, I didn't realize until years later that the story didn't really capture the degree of pain and disorientation from the physical and cognitive effects of my injury that I was suffering during the incident. Even with tons of effort, I still wasn't able to say what I wanted and needed to, which has been the biggest frustration of this experience.

Note: a version of this story was published in the Chemical Injury Information Network's newsletter "Our Toxic Times", sometime in 2003.

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