Helpless

This holiday season, most of our days are spent in ‘meetings’.  Long, boring meetings.  Meetings that numb your mind as well as your butt, and you walk out a brand new zombie; your day gone, nothing accomplished and better yet, have yet to have done your grocery shopping.  The prospect of returning home without an enticing dinner is less than appealing.

Today is no different.  Christmas is a few days away and there is plenty of food to buy, as well as a visit from my brother coming in for the holidays.  Yet, in spite of all we have on our ‘to do’ list, there is that obtrusive ‘meeting’ interrupting yet another beautiful day. 

We are on the street going opposite of the way we should be.  I see the guy we are meeting sitting out side of a coffee shop.  I slow down and yell to him, “Hey man.  Can we park there?”  He jumps up and sets his coffee down, and while nodding an affirmative, he flags us on over and moves a cement brick so we could have a place to fit in.  We do a u-turn and head back to where we just were…but on the opposite side of the median.  I have become easily classifiable as semi-pro with parallel parking.  I pull up past our spot, and start to work my charm.

As soon as I back in, I notice something splash outside the passenger side window.  I look, and I catch a glimpse of a guy falling.  He is almost in tact with the pavement.  His water bottle has flown ahead, and his bag is in mid air.  I yell to Tonya to look, “What is happening!”  I can’t hear what is happening, but I see it.  The guy falls on his side; his head slapping the concrete after his shoulders go down first.  His arm follows suit, slapping down over his head.  “Man, that guy just ate it…” I am uttering as I turn the car off.  I see his feet start moving.  The only thing I can think of is get this guy help.  I see what is happening now, he’s having a convulsion.  “Oh no!” Tonya says concerned, “he’s an epileptic” and she is already out of the car.  I get out quickly, taking note of the oncoming traffic so I don’t get hit in my haste to get to the guy.

As I round the front of the car, a small group has gathered.  The chef from the place I had been helping out is down beside the guy, trying to comfort him.  There is a small scene of chaos.  I go up to my friend and tell him to call an ambulance.  I hate seeing this.  I saw the guy hit the pavement hard.  He is sprawled out on the pavement, and he’s convulsing, with his head about to hit the wall.  His duffle bag is strewn beside him and a puddle of water growing from the water pouring out of his bottle.

The sight of this un-nerves me terribly.  I feel so helpless.  I have no idea of how to ask what is going on, or how to ask if help is on the way.  I pace back and forth with my eyes starting to water.  I feel really, really small and inept.  The others are talking to one another.  A girl working in the coffee shop runs and gets a few towels.  I ask my friend to call an ambulance again.  He is a bit skeptical, and says to wait a few minutes until all of this subsides.

I stand and watch the twitching body come to stillness.  He lays there motionless.  I look down and notice a plastic bag full of boxes of medicine.  He has a tag around his neck.  My friend says that it is like a medical alert tag.  It says he is an epileptic.  The chef is rubbing his arm, talking quietly to him.  His eyes twitch and he slowly tries to open them.  From my angle, I can see he is trying to pull his eyes forward, as they have been rolled deep back into his head.  He lies there, blinking, having no idea what is going on.

“He’s not going to be able to say much at first.  Seriously, please get help” I ask my friend.  He is a skeptic, and says he thinks it is all a scam. “I’ve seen it before, I think he’s bluffing”.  “No man, I don’t think so.  You don’t slam your head down that hard onto the concrete is you are pulling a stunt” I counter his remark.

The fallen guy starts talking.  The chef is speaking very calmly to him, rubbing his arm, and then places a hand under his head.  The guy blinks repeatedly, and then finally opens his eyes.  He is obviously trying to tune back in to reality.  He gives his name and asks for help.  The chef gives him a towel and helps to prop him up against the wall.  The guy moves his arm, as if he is trying to get some feeling back into it.  He looks around at the small group who has been witnessing the event.  He mutters a few more things, and starts rubbing his head.  He asks for help, and asks where he is.  He does so as he starts crying.  The chef bends over and reads his tag.  He’s lost and has no idea where he is.  The chef asks his name.  He looks at the chef with tears rolling down his face and tells him.  He is rubbing his head and then his cheek, on the side of his head that hit the concrete.  His repositions himself and pulls out a business card.  He asks for someone to call the number written on the back of the card, that this person will come and help him.

Tonya later informs me that part of what was happening, was the guy said he was doing construction work for the guy on the card.  He had a fit and nearly fell off a second story.  The foreman let him go, and said he should find other work or go home.  This is the man he is asking for us to call.

I am not easily fooled, and try to be constantly aware of scams and beggars.  However, I am very moved by what I just saw, and I do not think it was a scam.  I tell my friend, he took too hard a fall to be a set up.  He is visibly shaken and by the discoloring on the left side of his face, you can tell he truly hit with good force.  The chef stands up and comes over and asks for everyone to pitch in for bus fare, to get this guy on his way.  He verified that according to his tag, he is not from here.  The poor guy is confused when he finds out what neighborhood he is in, and starts to cry more. 

I am not from here.  I don’t understand what everyone is saying.  I just know that I am looking at a guy propped up against a wall.  His belongings strewn on the sidewalk, and a plastic bag full of medicine lying beside his duffle bag.  I watch the chef go to him and talk, and help him get comfortable and pull his belongings together.  I don’t fall for the poor dirty beggar with hands out stretched.  However, seeing this guy take a fall, his head hitting the concrete with full on dead weight, and seeing him salivate while convulsing and then coming to, looking with that glassy empty stare slowly coming back into consciousness…I cannot feel the same as my friend.  I am blinking to clear my eyes of the welling tears.  He’s taken the fall, yet I feel so helpless.  I felt so small and useless.  The sight of this really struck me, re-iterating the frailty of life.  In a brazen flash I was so very aware of the simple blessings that we take for granted, like being able to walk home without any problems.  I can not imagine going through what he just did, having your world turn upside down…the lights go off and you awake in a completely different world.  Your head throbbing and arms aching.  Everyone is a stranger.  Home seems like a very, very long way away. I am a stranger in a strange land, and I am also just one more stranger in the eyes of the dazed man. I was the helpless stranger.