Early early yesterday morning as I hurried down the front steps to get the paper, I saw a car parked out front and a person looming in the dark beside it–“what’s up?” I asked, and he replied “My battery’s dead.” He had an African accent–an Uber driver–he had dropped someone off, unwisely stopped the car. There was a panicky quaver in his voice that went to my heart. Poor soul. Lost and afraid in a world he never made, stranded in the cold heartless suburbs.
However, I have a strict schedule in the morning:
- leave the house at 7:29 AM
- to catch the bus at 7:38 AM
- to get to the train station at 7:52 AM
- to catch the 7:54 AM train
- to get to my desk at 8:30 AM.
AND my oatmeal and coffee were impatiently waiting for me inside. I told him to call the nearby garage and hastened back inside with the paper.
But felt badly, thinking he probably didn’t have the money for the garage.
I thought guiltily of the jumper cables and car snug in my own wee garage.
And as I washed the breakfast dishes (7:20 AM) I thought, if he’s still there I will have to help him. And he was, and I did–got the car out, went through that frantic business of trying to remember where the Mini hides her hood release (=PASSENGER SIDE, why Mini, why?) and gave him a jump. He was frantic with relief and gratitude, and drove me to the bus stop–would have driven me to the station, but what do you know, all this good Samaritan business took so little time that I made the bus.
Once at work I felt that I had done my good deed for the day, and could revel in wickedness until tomorrow.
Didn’t of course.
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