Leaving the train station at Prospect Park late on a Saturday night I hear a commotion coming from a cab parked outside the station on Lincoln Road. A woman has exited the vehicle with her son – she’s unfolded a stroller and is carrying several bags – and, turning back, she’s screaming and thrashing at the person inside. She slams the door shut, turns and struts angrily away, towing the crying child behind her. I shudder, glance around me – two young men (a couple?) who were on the same train I was, have also stopped – and they seem equally unsure about whether to get involved or not. I’m about to keep walking home when then the cab door suddenly swings opens and a man gets out. He strides up to the woman, cursing, and begins assaulting her. He’s swinging his fists wildly, the woman flailing to defend herself. Before I know what I’m doing I’ve jumped in, grabbing the man and struggling to push him off the woman, who’s now on the ground, her belongings strewn around her. Chaos ensues. One of the two men from the train has come to my aid, pulling at the man. I’m on the ground (has he knocked me down?); I get up and continue pushing him back, yelling ‘Stop!, just stop!’ He’s cursing at me, threatening the other man and the woman who’s still lying on the ground. Finally he gives up, marches back to the cab, which is still sitting at the curb, and climbs in. The cab departs. Cautiously the two of us help the woman to her feet and gather up her belongings. Does she want the police? No, she just wants to get to the Bronx. She seems remarkably composed, given what has just transpired. But then she suddenly busts into tears. ‘It’s his birthday,’ she says between sobs, nodding at her son, who’s standing a few feet away, also sobbing. ‘He did this to me on his son’s birthday…’ I have the urge to embrace her but I hold back; instead I take her hand. She lifts it toward her face, gesturing to her left eye, which is swollen and shut. ‘Is my eye okay?’ she asks, then before I have a chance to reply, repeats her statement about needing to get to the Bronx. The couple from the train are asking her if she needs anything. She says no. I repeat my inquiry about the police. Again she declines. ‘Are the trains still running?’ she asks. We assure her that they are (they always are – it seems strange she doesn’t know this; I wonder if this is a sign of disorientation?) She barks at her son, still sobbing, to come along, and pushes the stroller angrily into the station. I catch the eye of the man from the train who has intervened and we both shake our heads and shrug, as if to indicate both our sense of helplessness and the fact that we’ve done all we can. They both leave, I linger for a moment. I notice another stranger, probably from the same train, talking animatedly on the phone. He finishes his conversation and approaches me: he’s been speaking to the police. I tell him that the woman said she didn’t want the police. ‘Yeah,’ he replies, and adds, ‘but the kid –‘. In any case the gesture seems futile at this point, and I realize that I’m also annoyed that this stranger chose to stand back and react by using his phone instead of assisting physically. But perhaps he acted correctly? In any case there seems to be no point in my staying, so I murmur something about how messed up the whole situation is and excuse myself. Shaken, I return home to my empty apartment.