The Good Samaritan
I am coming down off the high as I plunge through streets clogged with people, faces turned to phones or to the sidewalk, never looking up, never meeting eyes, never smiling. I could walk this way in my sleep, have walked it in something like sleep too many times to count. The wind is dead and the air is too warm but I head right over the pavement towards my destination, towards the end, towards the ‘that’s it’ that I’ve located for my existence.
The building looms into view, tall and imposing and with perfect ledges and shutters and things to grab and hold onto and climb and let go of.
Back on the street the people keep walking, keep living their private, separate lives, and for once I am glad they don’t notice a teenage kid with a plan they wouldn’t like. For once I’m glad they won’t try to stop me, won’t notice me at all.
I reach the building and reach out my hand and grab onto the first massive shutter, and my feet leave the ground and I’m climbing upward, upward but not towards heaven, up so I can go down.
I reach the second floor level and I feel my heart pounding inside me but not from fear, from the exhilaration of danger and ending and finality. My fingers find places to hold and my feet inch their way higher, and below me I hear voices, and hey, look at that: someone has finally noticed me, noticed me like my dad never did.
Oh well. Too late.
I climb higher, reaching the third story, and up here I can finally feel the tiny bit of wind that has deserted the lower levels of existence, like it’s too high and mighty to grace the common horde with its presence. Up here, up here I can feel it.
And now I’ve reached my destination and I turn and let my body sway into empty space, my hands holding the window sill above me, my feet balanced on the ledge below me, and I look back over the crowd that’s gathered looking up at me, some trying to open the doors of the building that are always locked, and I know there’s no way they can reach me in time.
And that’s when I see him, the kid emerging from the crowd and reaching for the wall, reaching for the same window shutter that helped me start my escape, and his feet leave the ground as his hands grab and he’s coming up.
I stand and sway and watch him come and watch the people pointing, and someone on the phone calling for help, probably. And it’ll be too late by the time the police get here, and I’m ready to let go, but I can’t stop watching the kid climb. He’s faster than I was, and already he is on the second floor level.
I could let go while he’s coming. Just release the ledge and drop, but I don’t. And I wait. And I watch. And the people below watch. And the boy keeps climbing.
And now he’s only a few feet below me, and his face turns up and I can see his eyes. They are green, green like my dad’s eyes, green like bile staining the floor, green like the life that has escaped me all my existence.
I look away and out into empty air, my eyes blurring so that everything around and below me runs together, a mass of dots and colors swarming and merging and coming apart. I stand there, swaying, on the edge between air and solid, and I feel my life tugging towards the end, towards an end to reality. I look back at the kid and my gaze sharpens. He’s looking at me, and he pulls himself up and he’s finally beside me, hands holding the windowsill, feet balanced on the narrow ledge, and he’s still looking at me.
“Hey, man, you okay?”
I laugh and it rumbles out low and rough, like my dad, and I turn away from him and my hands slip.
For some people, their life flashes before their eyes. Nothing comes to me but reality, a realization that I don’t want to go. My body tips and swoops downward and my hand swings up in a desperate attempt to grab the ledge.
And his hand grabs my wrist, and I snap up short from my downward fall and dangle, feet on the ledge, hand suspended by a hand.
I hear the screams below me, but they are dulled, like a roaring in my ears, and everything up here is still and quiet and I can see the kid straining to hold me up, his body pressed against the wall, and his eyes locked on mine. I want to speak but my voice is gone and he answers my unasked question.
“I won’t let go.”
I feel him pulling, yanking me up through the air and my other hand reaches the ledge and I’m back, safe, holding onto solid instead of air, and ending reality looks different than it did before.
Then the substance I never wanted to use, abuse, never wanted to touch comes coursing without warning, and my tears are flooding out and I can’t stop. The kid doesn’t move, he doesn’t let go of my wrist, and we stand there, swaying gently in that tiny breeze.
“Hey man, it’s okay.”
We stand there as the people below scatter and the fire truck pulls up and the ladder ascends and a fireman climbs more swiftly than either of us, up the ladder to reach for us. He takes my other hand and only then does the kid let go. But I can’t walk, and the fireman carries me down the ladder, gently, like my dad never did, and the kid comes down behind us, silent and slow.
And on the ground the firemen question me and the police come and one of them slides a pair of handcuffs onto my wrists. I still can’t speak a word, and the tears won’t stop coming, and everyone is stern but gentle, and no one yells like my dad always did.
One of the policemen gets me into the patrol car, and then the kid steps forward and asks something. The policeman nods and the kid walks up to me. He takes my palm and scrawls onto it, then he steps back and the policemen gather, moving the crowd away, back to their own lives, but every eye is looking for me now, the phones forgotten.
The door shuts, and the car starts up, and we move away from the building where my life almost ended, where one person reached out and stopped me from giving up. The tears haven’t stopped yet and I wipe them away to look at my hand.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Ghost.” ~Romans 15:13
I look up and out the window, and I notice that my tears have stopped. I sit there, quiet, rereading the words on my palm, and I feel something inside me stirring, poking, beating through.
Hope.