Two things

I try not to indulge in guilt too often – For, as a recovering Catholic, I know more than anyone that guilt is an indulgence.  And you can soak in it until you forget why you felt guilty in the first place, only that you know that you’re desperately trying to make yourself feel better. 

However.  Two things happened last week that left me feeling guilty and pensive.  So I blog.

Since our move last winter, my commute has expanded quite a bit.  Not that I’m complaining!  Well, I am, a little, but I do love our duplex.  So each morning I walk 15 minutes, pile onto the Blue Line for 35 minutes, get off at Clark and Lake, then walk another 5-7 minutes to catch a bus up to Streeterville and the medical district.  (I get a lot of reading done and have greatly improved my crossword puzzle skills.)  I generally spend that last bit – catching the bus – in a bit of a rush, trying to make up for inevitable Blue Line delays.

Last week was no different.  I half-jogged from Clark/ Lake down to State, and near-sprinted across the intersection when I saw my bus on the other side.  As I sped by, I caught out of the corner of my eye, a guy using a walking cane to cross the intersection.  He’d veered a little to the right as he went through the street, and was sort of paused, as his cane bumped into the curb and the pile of dirty snow on top of it.  I saw all this in an instant, and then

 I was on the bus and off to work.

And as I sat on that bus, my brain started screaming at me.  Things like, “The sidewalk is to your left, sir!” and the simple but effective, “This way, buddy!”  As soon as I sat down, I kept thinking about how easy it would’ve been to give that guy a hand.  I don’t know if anybody did.  Again, I’m trying not to be dramatic here.  I know it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done.  But did you ever have one of those moments?  Where you could help someone, and you think about it, maybe you even open your mouth to speak, then the moment’s gone?  I’ve felt this way before – on the train overhearing hopelessly lost tourists, that sort of thing.  Maybe I don’t want to feel like a bad person, even though I’m clearly a lazy one.  Maybe I just hate feeling wimpy and wistful all in the same moment.      

Anyway, maybe it would’ve faded a bit if I hadn’t had another weird situation the following night.  I was coming home from an extraordinarily late night at work (grant-writing season is upon us!), and on the Blue Line, I sat down, exhausted and opened my book.  After a few stops, the guy sitting next to me decides to chat: “You from around here?”

I glance up and appraise: Not much older than me, semi-grungy looking kid.  Probably not a murderer.  “Yep.”  And pointedly turn back to my book.

“Not me. I’m from [insert city here, I wasn’t really listening.  Maybe Bentonville?]” 

“Oh.”  Aaaaand pointedly back to my book.  It’s the bare minimum polite that I can muster on the way home.

After he asks me three or more questions that all have one-word answers (is that a good book?/ coming home from work?/ do you always work so late?), he asks me one that requires more.  I hate being a polite Midwesterner!  I just wanted to go home! 

“So where do you work?”  Ahh, the dreaded no-short-answer question.  No matter what I say, it requires an explanation.  Hospital – Rehab – Not drugs – Remember Christopher Reeve? – That kind – No, I’m not a doctor.  That last bit is important, because I am unable to let people think I’m a life-saving doctor, making children walk again and healing puppies with my fingertips, etc.  Which this guy did.  “Wow, a doctor.  That’s a really noble thing you’re doing.” 

So I finally put the book down and gave a terse (but polite) explanation.  And back to the book.  That’s when he lets me have it:

“Oh, that’s cool.  I’m not really working right now.  Actually, I’m homeless.  Actually, I pretty much live on the El.”  So I slowly put the book away, passively letting him go on.  And I listen to his story – in remarkable detail from a stranger – about where he planned on sleeping that night (O’Hare) and where he gets food (it varies) and how he became homeless (hard luck and some other factors). 

I listened until my stop, then I said goodbye.  On my walk home, I thought about the four dollars in my wallet and whether I should’ve given them to him.  I thought about how he didn’t ask for them.  I thought about how he didn’t smell, and how he much he appreciated that I knew what tuckpointing was, and how he expressed a preference for Lutheran ministries, because the Catholic ones made you do stuff.  And when I arrived home, I told Erich about the encounter over a beer.  He said it was sad. 

And that was that.     

Photo courtesy of School of Rawk