They Are After Me

Jasper and I walked over to V and 19th Streets this evening. Jasper was keen to explore the neighborhood beyond, called Newton Booth: new smells, new dogs, and an expanse of lawns never visited before. I pulled him back. “It’s just too far away,” I said. Despite his pleading we began returning home. 

Passing the Broadway light rail station, a woman approached and asked, “Can I walk with you? I was over by the Catholic store, and I’m worried about all these black men. They are following me! I should have gotten on that light rail train. Should I have gotten on that light rail train? Can we walk, maybe towards the McDonalds? They are after me.” (She seemed to have a kind of nervous, paranoid energy. I looked around. There were several black men nearby. They were all shuffling along while looking at their shoes and didn’t reveal or express the slightest interest in her. I said, “It looks pretty safe right here.”) 

“Can we pray?” she said, and paused for a few seconds of prayer. 

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I have an envelope with money in it. Five thousand dollars! They know I have it!” (I wondered how anyone might know she had lots of cash?) “They’ve taken my purse and my car and my belongings” she said. (Who are ‘they’?) “I need a place to stay. I was staying in two motels in West Sacramento, but all they had there was cold water. The Econo Lodge was better, but they wanted a deposit.” 

“A deposit? I’m afraid I can’t help. I don’t have any money,” I said. (And it’s true, I rarely walk Jasper while carrying a wallet.) “No, you don’t understand,” she laughed, rolling her eyes. “I don’t want anything like money. I need to explain. I wish I had my wig with me. I’m quite the good looker!” (Really? Something seemed up with her teeth.) “Maybe I should find a place to couch surf?” she said. 

She continued: “My father is a billionaire. A billionaire! But he doesn’t let me take out more than a hundred – no, fifty - dollars a day.” (“Oh, so he’s just parsing out the money,” I said.) “Yes!” she replied. (Then I got distracted, because parsing was clearly the wrong word. What is the right word? English has so many words. I must be tired. It’s all this walking to reveal to Jasper a tantalizing new neighborhood.) 

“My father is one of those corrupt billionaires,” she said. (“Ah, a corrupt billionaire. Not one of those straight-arrow billionaires,” I thought.) “Yes, he tried to kill me in prison!” (“That’s interesting,” I thought. “Was it her prison cell or his prison cell? Or were they both in prison together? And why? Maybe it was all that close company? It can drive anyone bonkers.”) 

“What I really need is a place to stay,” she said. “Can we pray?” (And she paused for prayer again.) 

“I’m afraid I can’t help,” I repeated. So, she walked off to wait for the light rail train, surrounded by various inattentive but I assume menacing black men, and Jasper and I headed in the opposite direction for home, clearly not fully understanding her plight. 

(The well of human need is infinitely deep.)