Did I Save A Life? Or Was I Taken? Does It Matter?

Down the street I went with long strides. I've learned to do so when out on my power walk, the one designed to ramp up my cardio as much as it can be while not running, which with my bad knees would be more than challenging. It was a gorgeous afternoon. My back, which had been killing me for two weeks, was finally feeling better after four trips to the chiropractor. Two kids were selling lemonade and I'd bought a raspberry combo. Seventy-five cents. Such a deal. But great fun.

I passed her the second block down. We acknowledged each other with a quick hello. Within three more steps, she turned and said, "I was wondering if you could help me."

She was a person of color. I have expected such things, though I'm not sure why I am often solicited. I must have a friendly face. It's certainly tolerant, liberal, or to be more cynical about it, gullible, naive and all too aware of white privilege and the inherent guilt attached to it. In terms of either, I was in exactly the right place at the right time.

She continued. "I've just been to St. Mary's Hospital," she said. "I've been thinking about committing suicide."

That'll bring you up short. My first reaction was, indeed a reaction. "Well, you don't want to do that," I said.

But there's always a reason. Robin Williams had one, and nobody judged him about it since he was about to slide down the long road of unavoidable dementia and, before it took too much control, decided to take matters into his own hands. Ronald Reagan knew, too, and made an announcement to that effect, then settled in. It took quite some time for it to claim him. (Did it matter that he was once president and conservative icon, euthanasia was out of the question? Your guess is as good as mine.)

She went right to the heart of her existential, Hamletesque conundrum. "My daughter's at Taycheetah," she said, naming the girls' reformatory about three hours' drive to the northwest. "She killed her baby."

Yikes. "I started to go in[to the hospital], and then I had second thoughts," she said. "I thought about my family." She mentioned three grandchildren as well as a nephew.

I searched my mind for a Rolodex of reasonable response options. "Well, the most important thing you've done is admitted that you need help," I said. "If you go back there, they'll help you work through this." Looking back, I realized that she might have gone to St. Mary's to get drugs to kill herself. I had suggested that the opposite road might have the same origin. Did I confuse her more?

Forelorn, she looked at me and said, "Do I forgive her?" It wasn't the kind of tone that indicated a hypothetical kind of question. It looked like she really wanted to know.

That was worth a session with a psychiatrist, which she obviously couldn't afford. Or a conversation with a husband or partner, of which I figured there was none. I was the only male around. I was already giving her advice. I was already drawn in.

"Yes, you should," I said. "She needs you now more than ever. She's going to love you for the rest of your life. And those grandchildren are going to need their grandma all the time now. You have to be there for them."

Then I said something I have never said to anybody. It just came out. But it's been true for a while now. "Actually, I'm jealous of you," I said. "You have children and grandchildren. I don't."

She stared at me. "That's really great," she said, as a reaction to my support and application of perspective.

Katie took a moment to introduce herself. She showed me the stamped envelope that she had with her daughter's reformatory address and that of her own: North 34th Street, not the best area. She was a long way from home if she'd had to walk it. And maybe, just maybe, during that long walk (or bus ride) she had had a sufficiently long talk  with herself that, combined with the endorphins stirred by the activity, got her mind in the right place, at least for that moment.

The very fact that she was engaging with me felt like she was willing to try living again. It's the quiet ones that lash out in violence applied either toward someone else or themselves. Those who attempt any method of reaching beyond themselves, if they aren't completely rejected, tend to try again. Back up the stairs they might just go.

I thought it was an indication of that, anyhow. If not, it was one hell of an act, one that she could only try once. But it didn't ring like a genuine fraud otherwise would, if I may make an oxymoron.

But in the end, it had to be about money, too. She needed to catch a bus home and get something to eat. I got out some money and give her a five. She asked for five more. I gave it to her.

There was something a bit too casual about that second request, a presumption of a bottomless pocket, that brought me up a bit short, too. But I decided to file that feeling. What if all this was true? What if her last few bucks had been spent taking a bus to the East Side? She had mentioned that her disability check was coming on Friday. I could understand that with two days left, she'd run a bit short. Again, it sounded too genuine.

She asked me where a mailbox was. "Just keep walking," I said. "You'll see the sign for Pizza Man. The mailbox is just across from there, right on the corner. You can't miss it."

I suppose I could have watched her traverse the two blocks to make sure she mailed it, but I didn't. I chose to apply my best instincts and trust her.

I have been approached by several people of color in my neighborhood and the one immediately to the south of me, both considered East Side, both considered places of relative wealth. As a retired teacher who has had to lurch through nine years of financial struggles, I didn't qualify. But my residence location says something different, as well as my inclination to connect with people who seemingly mean no harm. They just want a couple of bucks. And, of course, I could have said that I didn't have a dime on me, the kind of lie that will always get you out of it, the kind that's never believed but since the panhandler isn't a thief, will release the situation without insulting implications.

Was I taken? The contrived story, if that's what it was, was unique in approaches by panhandlers, which date back to Washington, DC and other places where the NEA met ten or more years ago, such as Seattle, Portland, NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and many others. Not all were people of color. A quite attractive, middle-class-looking, white couple hailed me near Dupont Circle one night and asked for 17 dollars so they could catch a cab back to their hotel, which was, well, 17 dollars or more away. They said they were out of everything, including credit cards. We lined up a place for them to send the re-payment. Can you guess whether I got the money back?

But then, does it matter? If out of the goodness of one's heart small charity gets betrayed as petty theft, and the giver feels better for having given, should the giver feel like less of a person, or more? This is a far different question, of course, concerning scammers who prey on seniors to trust them with everything they've invested and then abscond with the big bucks. Those people disgust me and deserve all the prison time they're given.

I've been in situations where I felt it wasn't in my best interests to trust anyone about anything. So I didn't. Maybe I had a chance to make a friend, but the odds were against it. At what point do you take a step back from Mother Teresa's utter altruism and preserve a semblance of oneself? If you're made to be a sap, whose thought is it that counts: Yours, or those bearing judgment?

If Katie was to be believed, I hope she's still alive and that she got help at St. Mary's or wherever she could (and I sure hope someone told her about the suicide hotline, which, in the shock of the moment, I'd forgotten to suggest). If not, well--she got her one chance with me. It's a hell of a way to make a living. That she has to, or feels she has to, is a topic for another time.

Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark