Photo: bradleygee
Yesterday, I heard a soft knock at the door. I opened it to see a large black guy standing there. I figured he must be one of my neighbors.
“Ma’am, I’ve ran out of gas just up the street here,” he said, motioning around the corner to Church Street where I couldn’t see. “Do you have some yardwork I could do so I can run up the store and get some gas?”
“I do need my lawn mowed,” I said, “but I don’t suppose you have a lawn mower with you right now.”
“Naw, but I’ll come back with it if you’ll just give me a few bucks so I can get the gas.”
Still wondering if he was a neighbor, I asked him where he lived.
“Oh, I live over by Lanana Creek, in the Black section.”
When he said that, I got the feeling that when I had stepped out the door I had entered some sort of time portal that had carried me back to the 1950′s. In this house, anything feels possible.
I went into the house, found five dollars, and handed it to him. He promised to come back and mow my yard. Of course he didn’t come back. I didn’t expect him to. The thing that is currently bugging me is that I am wondering if he thought I expected him to. I can just hear it now…”That white bitch thought I was going to mow her damn lawn for a lousy five dollars! Sheeet no…”
Or not.
I do know that there was never a car that was out of gas. I saw him walking down the street today, so there is no car at all, most likely.
I don’t regret giving him the money for two reasons. One, anyone who is desperate enough to come to your door and beg probably needs the money, even if it’s to get drunk. Two, if it ever happens again,with him or anyone else, I can say, “Nope, done been there. No money here for yardwork that doesn’t get done.”
I think those two reasons you listed are pretty good reasons.
Kelvin Kao’s last blog post..Why Being a Puppeteer Is Like Being A Director
Ahh! It ate my earlier post, I guess. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it went something like this:
Wow, ‘Black Section’? That’s pretty crazy. Also, I probably would have not answered the door at all. No peep hole?
Though, maybe that’s just my paranoia from having lived in Southern California for so long. I always checked who was at the door and if I didn’t know them or they looked shady in any way, I just stayed quiet and they would eventually leave.
Binary Blonde’s last blog post..Two Weeks and Counting
Wow, that would take major guts to just randomly walk up to a stranger’s house and ask for money…at least I would think so and it’s not something that I think I could ever do.
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I’ve had similiar stuff happen-but in local parking lots. It almost feels like a confrontation and I’ll pay a few bucks to escape it. Have you ever seen Road Warrior? I’m hoping that we don’t come to that point eventually.
Margaret’s last blog post..Whew
It’s always a story about running out of gas! I had a similar thing happen to me, but the guy was probably a drug addict, or at least Rahim thought so. “Black section” would have closed the door for me. Be careful, that’s all.
mary’s last blog post..Protagonize
When I first moved to downtown Sac, I had a homeless man knock on my door and offer to rake the leaves. He looked really sincere and really thin. I gave him some money, and then he asked if I had a rake. I said I didn’t have one and then I went to work. I wasn’t really expecting to get the leaves raked. About an hour later my roommate calls me all pissed off because there’s a homeless guy raking our leaves with a 3 pronged broken rake. I’m not sure what she ended up doing, I suggested she find him a better rake and maybe make the guy a sandwich.
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