Between four and four-thirty this morning the dog went nuts. Beth got up and looked out the window. Two men were standing in the drive. She threw up the sash, opened the storm window, and asked what they wanted.
They had run out of gas.
“Tell them we have none,” I mumbled into my pillow, and the message was relayed. This was not a verifiable truth. There may have been a gallon or so for the lawn mower in the shed. I lay there another five minutes until my conscience got the best of me. I pulled on some clothes, a hat, gloves, a goose down lined coat and I sent the dog out to pee while I started the car.
It was another five minutes before Molly had made her tour of the perimeter, pointed out the abandoned ford pick-up across the road, sniffed up a few trees and made her decision about whether she’s join me in the car. No fool Molly, she went back in the house, as I drove off to the rescue.
Meanwhile the wandering pair had visited the neighbor down the road without much luck. I picked them up as they were trudging back to their truck, empty gas can in hand. It was 4:45AM, it was snowing and the temperature was 14 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. They had no hats, their coats were thin, they were on their way home from a Friday night pub crawl and they’d dressed for style, not for survival. They were running on fumes, they didn’t know my road, but they chose to take it in hopes of getting home before the gas ran out. So there they were, wandering around in dress coats and street shoes before dawn on a freezing snowy morning, rousting irascible old men out of bed in hopes of getting a favor.
I picked them up and drove them into town where they filled their gas can, then I drove them back. I listened to their conversation, turned down the couple of bucks they offered for the lift, turned down the pinch of snuff from the proffered tin, fought down the urge to offer advice on the overuse of cologne, and generally wondered what I was doing in this company at that hour of the morning.
When we got back to their car, I watched to see that they got it started. They succeeded, and with a merry honking designed, I guess, to insure that if Beth had gotten back to sleep she’d be rousted one more time, they were on their way. They’ll have to cook up another act for this year’s entry in the Darwin Awards. Freezing to death on Lalor Road, or any of its variants, isn’t happening for them in 2024. To all my fellow humans, my apologies. These are young men, and their genes remain in the pool.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
alan herrell - the head lemur 12.15.07 at 11:17
heh
madame l. 12.15.07 at 2:06
it was getting all capote there for a minute.
in other news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/15/facebook.socialnetworking
“In Britain, there are just a handful of whales - ”
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madame l. 12.15.07 at 2:19
can you say poof, i mean puff, piece?
McD 12.15.07 at 5:14
The most interesting outcome
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Jon Husband 12.15.07 at 5:27
Good story. I’m certain I’d have done the same thing.
That said, I found myself thinking …
I live in an urban environment, in a condo close to downtown, back alley and all … not out in the country or semi-country. Whilst this city is not as bad as most North American cities, there are a few street people here and there, and relatively more near-street people. “They” have been a presence for many years now, and continue to be. Modern capitalism guarantees this. I try to be conscious, I try to “recycle” through the back-alley environment much of what I don’t use or have decided I won’t use any more without being condescending (never know what’s the best thing to do). I also give money on the street more often than not, and have given other stuff in the past (including once the proverbial short off my back, since I was wearing a t-short underneath).
I don’t really know what to do when faced with a continuing procession of people where no doubt I could be of some kind of immediate help (I subscribe to the “there but for the grace of Dog go I” school of thought). I guess I will keep up my passive-aggressive resistance to a full-scale embrace of the core elements of our modern win-lose societal orientation.
Frank Paynter 12.15.07 at 6:26
The Capote bit always shadows a story like this, Leslie. Even so, consider how scary it must have been for these weedy youth to get in the car with a surly government trained killer such as myself.
McD, thanks for the kind words.
Jon, I always have trouble faced with the concentration of misfortune on city streets, and I’m practiced at looking away from people, or right through them. Had an enlightening moment in DC about six weeks ago. A panhandler asked for cash and I gave him some and asked for directions in return. We had a short conversation and shared a moment laughing at some of the halloween costumes people were wearing. So the dehumanizing aspect of mendicancy was mellowed somewhat by our shared conversation. The fact that the directions he gave me were totally messed up is another part of the story.
Frank Paynter 12.15.07 at 6:57
For some reason I’m reminded of a story my friend told me many years ago about walking up 5th Street in San Francisco toward Market from what was then the Crocker Data Center. He was walking with his boss Joe, an obvious alcoholic, a guy all red-faced and intense, spider-web tracery of burst capillaries on the nose, you know the look. Anyway, they passed a down and out guy whose fortune had been reduced to a clean refrigerator carton and a spot on a sidewalk warm air grate who looked up at them, sized Joe up, and said, “Dude… go back to Europe!”
jmo 12.17.07 at 5:35
I don’t know what this says about me, but if I had been woken up at 4am by two strangers asking for gas, I’d automatically be ultra suspicious of their intentions. Maybe I have lived in the city too long. Maybe I read too many shitty newspapers. It’s kinda sad.
ahfukit 12.17.07 at 7:00
Frank, according to The Gift Hub, those boys might have been errant Jesus testing you. You passed. If they had been errant Satan, you might also have passed.
Merry Christmas to all you assorted holders-back, and to all the embracers too. God bless us, everyone.