It was a cold day; snow on the ground at least a foot deep.

I saw a man walking down the street carrying bags.  Two backpacks, one on the back and one on the front, and two duffel bags, one in each hand.

Driving by I watched him throw his bags into a patch of snow alongside the sidewalk, turn, hang his head and trudge off.

A man had just quit.  And I watched it happen.

The Jeep jerked in to the first place it could stop.  I jumped out and walked briskly up the sidewalk.  He had turned around and was walking back towards all of his worldly belongings, as I picked them up out of the snow and brought them to him.

“You look like you could use a hand.”

“They won’t let me in.  My girlfriends in there, but they won’t let me in because I’m not related.  Those goddamn people.”  Almost in tears he continued his story.  The hospital was across the street, but he was not welcome there.

“Can I give you a ride somewhere?”  He just looked at me.

It was cold that day.  The kind of day people should not be outside for no good reason.  Not being allowed in to the hospital to see your woman was not a good reason for being out in the cold.

I led him back to my car, turned it on and turned up the heat, told  him to take a seat.

“It’s no good being cold on top of everything else.”

I put the bags in the back of the car.

“Do you have a place you can go?”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to stay with some people I know.”

“Great, where are they?  I’ll give you a ride.”

It wasn’t a long drive, but he was warmer when he got there than when I first met him.

He probably said thank you or some other thing, I don’t really know.  I can’t say I did it just for him.  Part of me needs to believe there is help out there.  That there is something good somewhere in humanity.

 

Another day:

The weather warnings were out.

It was going to be the coldest that generations had experienced.  Ten minutes exposed outside would freeze your flesh because of all that wind that came with the extreme cold.

Pulling out of a place of commerce, I saw a man walking on the side of the road across a busy street.  I pull out, and up to him.

“It’s too cold to walk.  Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

He was walking to the bus stop.  “Get in.”

“Where were you taking the bus?”

It was just a town up.  Ten minutes of my time could help this guy out a lot on a day where being outside too long could literally kill you.  “Let me give you a ride.”

He looked at me like I was some kind of alien, or at least a bizarre permutation of anything he had seen before.  The world, the way it is, maybe he thought of his safety; I was not concerned for mine.  He got in my car.

I turned up the heat and pointed the vents at him, and got on the turnpike.

“Uh, I hate to ask, but could we stop at the Walmart?” he asked.

I had nothing to do.  “Sure.”  He needed a bottle of propane.

We got to the Walmart and he went off to find the fuel for the little heater that must have been saving his life.  He was living in a tent somewhere.  He walked off and I told him I would be waiting there, at the front of the store.  I bought a bag of chicken tenders and potato wedges, and a couple Monster’s, found a bench at the front of the store, and waited.

He came back broken.  They had no fuel.  He was going to be cold.

“I saw another place as we drove here” I said, and we went to the car.

“Here, this is for you.”  I handed him the chicken and potatoes.  “Do you like Monster’s? Take your choice.”

The next place had the propane; we found it quickly, and I grabbed two bottles and brought them to the register.

We walked back to the car quietly.  He had me drive up one more exit, and then said “Stop here!”  It was half down the offramp.

“See that stick?  That’s my marker.  My camp’s in there.”  He got out, and walked in to the woods.