I nod to a heavy woman who leans on a cane, then push open the glass door of the gas station convenience store. It’s 10 p.m. I’ve been on the road or teaching or meeting for eleven hours, half a sandwich and a cup of coffee nine hours ago. I grab a bottle of water and a sandwich, pay for them, and start for my car. I want to get home and go to bed.
“Can I get a ride? I really need to get away from here.” The woman stands inside the door now, next to two old suitcases.
“Pardon me?” I ask, to focus and gain time. She’s about my age, or older, red-faced, round. A knit hat and frizzy hair; a crumpled face. “Where are you heading?”
“Which way are you going?” She asks.
“North,” I say.
“Fine. To a city?”
“No. Rural Massachusetts .”
“That’s good. I’ve got to get away from cities.” Is she picturing a bucolic life in the hills? It’s snowing pretty hard. “I don’t have any money.”
“That’s okay,” I say.
“I’m going to Maine.”
I look at her, hard. I’m a pushover, but I try not to act like it. “Where will you stay tonight?”
“We can work that out. Maybe I can sleep on your floor. You have a girlfriend? You could call her.”
“I’m married,” I say, and hold out my hand to show my wedding ring. Does she think a woman will be softer on her?
“Or an all-night gas station. I just need to get away from here.” Is she running away? I picture an angry man, violence.
“Where’s your car? Can you carry my suitcases?”
She spreads a green wool camp blanket on my car seat and hoists herself in.
“I’m a prune and I scar easily,” she says.
“Sorry?”
“I’m a prude and I scare easily.”
“Oh.” If I were—the opposite of a prude—and wanted to show her, and wanted to scare her, would her saying these things make me less likely to act? “Okay,” I say.
I share my tuna salad sandwich with her. She’s Marjorie. I’m Steve. I teach; she used to teach. I have two kids. So does she, although obviously nowhere nearby. If I was a fireman, I believe she would have used to be a fireman.
“I can’t take people stealing my Social Security number any more,” Marjorie says.
“Uh huh,” I say. I think, if I were going to steal someone’s number, I’d probably choose someone of greater means.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“Duchess County,” she says. Who names a county when you ask them where they’re from? It’s the county we’re in, that’s all.
“I don’t want them to steal my number any more. I hate cities. I hate Maine. I’m going to take a nap, if that’s okay,” she says.
“Fine.”
I drive through the snow in silence.
What the hell am I going to do with her? She’s not sleeping on my floor, and we’re headed to the middle of nowhere. I picture a truck stop, twenty minutes north of my house. I guess that’s it.
Marjorie holds herself still for a while, not really sleeping, but then gives in and starts snoring softly.
I call a friend on my cell phone; my wife is asleep already.
“So I’ve got a hitchhiker named Marjorie next to me and I don’t know where to drop her.”
“You picked up a homeless person?” This is when it dawns on me. I’ve picked up a homeless person. She’s not running away, she’s not headed to Maine. She’s sleeping in my car and what comes next she’ll figure out next.
I wake her after a while. “What shall I do with you?”
“I can’t stay on your floor?”
“No. Sorry.” I’m not even going to ask my wife. We both have to get up in six hours to go to work. “What about a shelter?” I picture a shelter in a small city half an hour north.
“No. No shelters. Too dangerous. A truck stop, I guess. Or what about a church?”
I call my friend. “What about a church? Can you check the yellow pages?”
“I’ll go on Google.” He’s laughing at me driving through a snowstorm, sucker, with a sleeping homeless woman next to me. “Really nothing. I’ll call the police.” Later, “Hey! Police say there’s a shelter in our town. Who knew? No churches open though.” He names an address on a side street I’ve never been down. Twenty minutes later, we pull up outside.
“Marjorie, end of the line.”
“Where are we?”
“A shelter. Look, it’s a small town. Very safe, friendly.” The shelter does look safe and friendly, new construction, a small house with a wheelchair ramp and handicapped parking, well lit. Large windows show a spare common room inside. Better maintained than my old house, I think. Lower heating bills.
“No. I don’t do shelters.” Pride? A criminal record? It doesn’t matter, she’s not going. Beggars can’t be choosers, I think, and then feel bad for thinking it, bad for her. And it’s not true, because I’m about to drive her to the truck stop. She falls asleep again.
Thankfully, the truck stop is open. I pull up short of the door. How will we do this? I wake Marjorie. She asks some questions about the truck stop, but I don’t know any answers. I put her suitcases on the sidewalk under the eaves, out of the snow. She gets out, hooks her blanket off the seat with her cane. Will I take her suitcases inside? Sure. A compact man in a red shirt and a girl are talking back by the dairy case. I get the suitcases inside, squeeze $20 into Marjorie’s hand, and say good bye.
But she’s done with me, now that I’m abandoning her here. She’s looking for a place to sit down and smoke. She doesn’t say good-bye, or make eye contact. She turns and walks down a hallway past screeching video game stations. I don’t hurry, but I don’t stick around.
As I get in my car and take off, the man in the red shirt accelerates to the front of the store, eyes swiveling between Marjorie and me. He comes to the door and looks out, but I’m gone. Marjorie is his now.
I drive home, alone, and think about how little any of us can really do for anyone else. And I think of us—those of us willing to help, briefly, and those of us unwilling to help but unable to harm, thrust unwittingly into the role of Marjorie’s helpers, passing her from hand to hand, hour to hour, as she rootless skitters through life.
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