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The Speech Impediment Community before/after As I came back to my car with a boat load of groceries, there was a man standing next to it, giving me the eye. I studiously avoided it. The eye, I mean. He politely waited as I stowed my groceries. What is it? Panhandling? Some sort of stupid comment on politics or life that I would dumbly nod to, just to get on my way? He stepped up to me as I opened up my car door and started to get in. I could have made a clean getaway. (and it occurs to me, that if I were really high, I would have. Man I would have smoked right out of there, and laughed cruelly later...and still depended on the kindness of strangers at some point later on down the road. Karma, it is a bitch. But who am I to say that maybe dude didn't karmaically deserve desertion. Just don't know, until the karmaic receivership debts pile up like mad, the roof caves in and all that is left is my psyche freakishly clawing the walls with bloody fingertips and broken fingernails) But I didn't. I made eye contact, and his lit up. His eyes, I mean. He took a few tenative steps towards me as I quickly sized him up, gripped with a sensation I'm not all too familiar with, something akin to distrust. As if here I will get ripped off, but when I worked the ghettos of Detroit I wouldn't. Maybe I had crossed wires at that point, maybe he did something to set me off. In fact it could very well have been him. He started to speak. "C-C------" he sputtered, hissing and grunting at me. I simply stared at him. In retrospect, I think his approach with out identifying intention is what set off my alarms of distrust. There is always a broadcast of intent, unless someone wants to hurt or rob you. You will know them by their blank faces and definite step to you. "C-C--hh-e-c-" he continued hissing and grunting. "Do you need some help?" I asked. "Y-y-yes." he said. He went into his problem at length, but I ended up cutting it short and giving him a jump start for his car, a nice car, high end buick. It was cold and rainy and took way too long. He even tried to make small talk, unsuccessfully so. Maybe if it was warm, I'd be game for trivia with the speech impediment community, but not today, pal. I don't give a fuck how you ran your car out of juice. Did my good deed for the day, and went on my way.
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