Dangerous Choices

I had some friends over to watch the movie Thank You For Smoking, and one of them left her keys here. So we figured out a midpoint and split the hour drive. When I got to the agreed upon Denny's and passed off the keys, I was approached by a young man in need of some help. This guy was wearing plaid shorts and a couple of t-shirts, he had a lot of tattoos and buzzed hair. He also had a fresh white bandage on his arm and was carrying a plastic baggie with what looked at first like hospital bed restraints but turned out to be his belt and the contents of his pockets from his recent arrest. He needed a ride back to the shitty hotel that he and his pregnant fiancee were reduced to living in. He was very worried about her because the last she had heard from him he was going to jail.

I was very suspicious of this stranger asking to be allowed in my car in the middle of the night, especially when I noticed that he had a large swastika tattooed on his left calf, but he showed me that his pockets were empty and offered to let me hold his bag of belongings (a pocket knife, belt, prescription drug bottle, and a hospital wristband) I asked my friends that I was there to meet to follow me and said yes. I know that this was a dangerous situation, and that this guy could possibly hurt me, but I relied on the facts that I was holding his knife and that I have martial arts training ease that fear.

As I drove him what wound up being just under a mile to his motel, I got filled in with the bits and pieces that where his story. He is 24 and his fiancee is 30. She is 3 months pregnant with his child. She lost her house and her two kids recently. all that they have is a car and no phones. He was recently bitten by a brown recluse spider and the bandage and pills were from an infection. He had taken too many pills and was out of his head in a WalMart where he started to use his knife to open a package that he was thinking of buying. They called the cops and he was arrested for petty theft. He cooperated and they processed and released him, but he had no phone and no transport so he needed help.

I wonder how wise it was to help this stranger, but I really wanted to help him. It was raining lightly and he was in a shitty situation. I wish I could have helped him more but the safety factor plus the late hour and a rather cynical thought that there was nothing that I could say or do in the time I was willing to commit would make any kind of meaningful difference in this man's life. I simply told him to take care of himself and his baby and dropped him off.

Its moments like this that I really appreciate all that I have, materially and through the relationships I have with friends and family.