So, long story: this morning at 6:30 I'm about to get in my truck...

So, long story...

This morning at 6:30 I'm about to get in my truck to go work out when I hear "Hey, sir! Help! Can you help us? Please!" coming from about a block away down Park Avenue. Walking toward me is this haggard-looking young couple. They've obviously been through the ringer, I just don't know which ringer. As they approach in the dark, I can make them out a little better. African-American guy in late 20s / early 30s, Caucasian girl in early 30s. As the story goes, their car ran out of gas on Boulevard AND the battery was dead, and they're on their way to a job interview for the guy. A likely story, I say to myself, and now you guys know where I live and everything. Do I have a gas can and could I take them to the gas station (which was one block away) and then go help them jump their car? Hell no, I'm thinking. And now I'm going to be late for my workout. Then the guy, getting more desperate, starts to dig in his pocket... I take a step back and out comes wadded-up cash, dropping to the ground a-la "Pretty Woman", and he's like "Look man, I've got cash, I can even ride in the back of the truck and she can ride in the front, we just need help!" So I'm like, they're already here, I can't just walk away, what do I do... so I said, "Wait here. I'll go get my gas can. If you're here when I get back, then we've got some trust." They sit on the steps while I go out back to the shed and get my gas can, jumper cables and a butcher knife, the latter of which I slide safely down the side of my gym shorts, handle-up, shirt pulled over. I walk back out front and I say, "Ok, let's go. And BOTH of you are riding in the back." No deal, they say, the girl needs to ride in front, and the guy is like "You can even check her out, she's clean, she's not going to do anything." I'm still not feeling very good about this. Then I remember those items in my shed that just got up and walked out a few days ago.. and I'm thinking, are they coming back to finish that job? Oh wait, I've got a butcher knife. Suddenly knowing I was armed a little better, I just said "OK fine, girl in front, you in back, let's go to the gas station." Off we went. On the way, to the gas station (all of a half block), the girl is explaining how they are from Gwinnett and she has no idea where they are and they are on their way to a job interview for him, and they have been freaking out for the past 30 minutes wondering what to do. I can smell the booze coming from her scattered words, and I start to worry again. Maybe they’ve just been up too long soothing their nerves for what is to be a pretty stressful job interview, maybe I’m about to get slashed to death. We're at the stop sign at Sydney and Boulevard, and I'm trying to cross Boulevard to get over to the gas station. Every split second the guy is yelling, from the back of the truck, "You got it, go! Oh wait, not yet. Ok, GO!" like I haven't pulled up to this very stop about fifteen thousand times on my own the past ten years and successfully negotiated my way into pre-7am traffic. I'm thinking, this dude wants us to get t-boned, I see what they're up to. He wants me to get T-boned then they’re going to jump me in the middle of the melee. I pull out into traffic. The butcher knife slips out in the turn and falls to the floor. The girl looks at it and doesn't say a word. I pull into the gas station 3 seconds later and the guy jumps out with the gas can before we even come to a stop. I feel better - lots of people, fully-lit, and I can get out. I lean down, get the knife, and get out of the truck. I slip it back in my shorts as she watches, close the door, and the guy is coming back out with the gas can having already paid for his 1 gallon, I suppose. As he fiddles with the gas pump and fills it up and yammers on about how this is all gonna work out, I take out my phone and text Carl who's still asleep at home, "I'm doing a crazy thing. Helping a couple put gas in their car then jump it off. If you never hear from me again, I have my gps locator on my phone on, and my Apple info is user: _____ / pass: _____." His reply, "This is craZy.” With the capital “Z”. The guy has his gas, jumps in the back, I get back in with the girl, and we're headed down Boulevard to this mystery machine which has allegedly, by some coincidence of early morning fate, run its own battery down at the precise moment it ran out of gas. As I then assure myself that what he's going to do is pour gasoline on me from the rearview sliding window while she takes out a cigarette lighter and sets me ablaze so that I look like a slo-mo comet going down Boulevard, I see the vehicle ahead, flashers blinking, pulled half onto the sidewalk and half in the far right southbound lane of Boulevard in what is arguably the absolute busiest section of southeast Atlanta side street traffic this time of morning, while still being pitch dark outside. And they've conveniently pulled off under the only non-working street-light, too. I pull off on the sidewalk in front of the truck. He jumps out, girl jumps out, he starts putting the gas in, and the girl gets out and gets in their vehicle and tries to crank it. Click. That's it. Sure enough, the story all seems to be coming together. But wow, in order to jump them off, I've got to get parallel to them IN freaking Boulevard and just pray to GOD no one comes barreling down in the right lane reading their morning email on their flip phone while wiping the crust out of their eyes. And of course I'm going to have to sit in the truck and gun the accelerator to get their vehicle to charge. I think, shouldn't I just call the police? Isn't this the same as a traffic accident at this point? And why the hell didn't they do the same thing now that I see everything adding up? Again, worry, caution, pause. Then I say, look Rob, we're 95% done... just get it over with, if a police car drives by, they'll obviously stop with two cars blocking a lane and their hazards on and hoods up. So I do it. I wait for the light behind us to turn red so the onslaught of those last few crazed late-to-workers (it's now 6:59 AM) can cease. I back the truck up of the sidewalk and saddle beside their vehicle. I pop the hood. Dude gets my cables out of the back, lifts both hoods, and efficiently gets to work. Girl starts turning the key on her vehicle. Click. I gun the gas. She tries again. Click. Dammit. Light changes. Here comes all the traffic. Horns. People slowing down. Click. Someone yells "Move your f***ing TRUCK!" Click. This is not happening, I say to myself. Then suddenly, their car starts. And revs up like they're ready for the Indy 500. I hear him throw the cables in the back of the truck. The hood slams down. He yells, "Thank you!" It's over. We're done. I pull out when the light changes and drive home. …… As I relax my nerves a bit on the short ride back, these are the things I hear on NPR: prejudice in Greece because a blue-eyed / blond haired child was found with Roma “parents” and how that translates to similar global profiling in mixed relationships and mixed parenting, after which the local station identification comes on and reads a sponsorship from Marta where they are “making it ‘safer' for everyone so that everyone feels comfortable riding Marta.” This, after just late last night, I read a bit in this wonderful collection of stories from “The Moth” (that my dear friend Catherine helped put together) where this white 10-year-old kid is very near his own personal nervous breakdown because his soon-to-be black stepdad gets stopped by the police every… single… time they’re out together since they are such an unlikely and suspicious pairing. It was almost as if my situation was fitting in so perfectly now with the information that was coming at me at this moment, like I was in a modern-day Aesop fable or something. And I sit there in front of my house and I think… is everything always as it seems? No. How do you know? You don’t. Could I have been played this morning? Absolutely. Was I? No. Everything was just as they said it was. I took a craZy (as Carl spelled it) chance on humanity even though I was 100% suspicious. I’m partly ashamed, partly relieved, and a little bit hard on myself for taking such a risk. Mostly I’m just glad I helped someone get to their job interview. We never know when we’re going to need help. We never know if acting like a good Samaritan will get us killed. We have no idea how, in our most desperate moment, we’ll come across to someone leaving their house in the morning not expecting our approach. I’m just glad they found me...

... and I’m glad this happened today. To me. I’m glad it happened FOR me.