The Donation

Posted on March 13, 2006 in Encounters

Run your fingernails down a wet street and come to a stop in a parking lot. Push the two action figures — named Joel and Lynn — into the local Trader Joe’s and watch them shop for Pink Lady apples, frozen pot pies, milk, cheese, and carrot cakes. Send them to the checkout line. They separate. Lynn stays in the line so that Joel isn’t tempted to add more to the cart from the candy displays. Joel goes outside and talks to his friend Donna while he waits. He gripes about another bipolar who has a narcissistic streak, who he takes pains to avoid. One who has a lot of stories about violence and kidnappings. He wonders if she is a fraud. The Lynn action figure pushes the seven bags full shopping cart out the front door. Our principal hero joins her, still talking to his friend, and pushes the cart with one hand.

They arrive at the car. Joel opens the trunk. He’s still talking to Donna as he begins to lift bags out of the cart and into the back. A woman wearing an expensive outdoor jacket approaches them. She wants a “donation”. Joel notes that her voice is quiet and flat. She needs the money to rent a room in Rancho Santa Margarita, she says, because she is homeless, fleeing a violent husband, and two months pregnant.

“You decide,” Joel says to Lynn. The Lynn action figure declines to help. The woman approaches another family of shoppers. This is a little odd, Joel says to Donna. (Yes, they are still talking.) Can you know that you are two months pregnant? Donna assures Joel that you can using the new early warning kits that they sell these days. Joel is not certain that this woman is telling the truth — doesn’t she know that there are shelters that would take her right in? — but he is sure that she’s in trouble. That flat affect and that lethargy that pulls the features of her face down. She’s sick. Joel is sure of that. She’s sick and he doesn’t know what he can do to help her other than call the police. But he won’t do that. The police are boors.

Our heroes go home. Joel hangs up the phone. Gets out of Lynn’s way while she puts away the groceries. Thinks about the woman in the parking lot and the woman who triggers him. Who is he, in this great universe, to diagnose or to judge? The cats finish their observation of the unpacking. Fiona patters into the office and begs for catfood. Joel believes that she is hungry and feeds her.