JO Magazine

In which Shady tries to do a good deed … then tries to do the right thing … and still ends up staying out way past his bedtime.

Words by Shady Salah.

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED to do something good by helping somebody, and then had it turned against you? Well it’s happened to me. I was on my way back from the airport—and God knows how much we taxi drivers love going to the airport—with my left arm hanging outside the taxi window and the cool wind passing through my fingers. It was after midnight, and I was trying not to fall asleep.

A few kilometers outside Amman, as I was waiting at a traffic light, an Asian girl suddenly appeared and opened the car door. She was crying and talking at the same time, which made it very hard to understand a word of what she was saying. Finally, I figured out that she wanted to go to the airport.

Wow! Two trips to the airport in one night. I thought it must be my lucky day. But I was wrong.

The girl was broke, and didn’t have a passport or plane ticket. But she still wanted to go to the airport. I wondered if she was planning to stow away on a plane, like in the movies—or put her address on a box and hide inside until it was shipped home.

She was still weeping, but somewhere between all the tears, she managed to get out that she worked for a family as a housemaid, like a lot of other Asian girls in this country. She claimed her employer and his wife had beaten her up and kicked her out of the house, and she showed me scratch marks on both her arms.

But the girl’s story just didn’t sit right, because she was carrying a big bag with her. If she’d actually been kicked out, like she said, when did she have enough time to pack this entire big bag? She was also dressed all in black, like she wanted to sneak out in the dark. Another thing caught my attention: while her arms were all scratched, her face was untouched. Now, when women fight, they pull each other’s hair and attack each other in the face, not just the arms.

Many housemaids escape from the houses where they work, and they always claim they were abused. Are they all being abused? I don’t think so. But it’s the oldest trick in the book. Mostly they run away to find an easier job with a better income. Some of them work in massage parlors and sometimes as prostitutes, instead of just shining, washing and scrubbing. Others simply work in restaurants.

This young girl was still crying, and I couldn’t understand why, but there was nothing I could do for her. And since I didn’t buy her story, I assumed she might have stolen something from the house she worked at. This housemaid might be wanted. Whether she was lying or telling the truth, I had to take her to the nearest police station either way.

So I drove on without telling her where we were going. In a few minutes we arrived at the police station. She refused to leave the cab, but when a police officer who was standing outside called to her, she got out.

At the police station, everyone’s a suspect— especially a taxi driver. The first thing they did was check my name in the computer to see if I had a criminal record. And they actually seemed disappointed when my record turned up clean.

But still, they didn’t let me go until they’d asked me tons of questions. Every time another policeman arrived, he wanted to hear the story again, so I ended up repeating it four different times. I think I was interrogated more than the girl. All for trying to do the right thing.

Finally, the employer came to the police station to report that his housemaid had run away after stealing his wife’s jewelry. When they searched the girl’s big bag, they found the jewelry inside, along with a mobile she’d also taken from the house.

The girl wasn’t a victim as she’d claimed, so in the end I suppose I’m glad I took her to the police station. But doing so meant I had to wait around for two hours for the procedures and paperwork to be done.

Now I know for sure that it’s better not to get involved. I should have left her in the street and just kept going. She would have been caught anyway, with or without my help. 

Love it? Hate it? Send fanmail and angry notes to cruisershady[at]yahoo[dot]com. The opinions expressed in this article are the columnist’s own, and do not reflect the views of JO. ‘Nuff said.