Saturday Demons

I actually wrote this last Saturday but didn't get around to doing anything with it until now...

It’s Saturday, late in the afternoon, and I’m on my way to the hospital to see my mother. The highway is empty and the sky cloudy and gray. I cruise down the freeway and make my way on to the highway exit. I can see the hospital in the distance. I stop at a red light and spot a man in a black t-shirt pan handling at the intersection up ahead. From where I’m sitting, I can’t read the sign he’s holding very well but I see the word PTSD written in heavy black marker. I pull a wad of ones out of my wallet and roll the window down. I tap the horn of my car lightly to get attention. He sees me and comes over.

“Thank you! Thank you!” he tells me as I hand him the cash. He stares at me through blood shot blue eyes. He leans in close to me, but I don’t back away.  His energy is not malicious, but I can feel the loneliness and need for human contact.  He leans in a little closer and in about thirty seconds he proceeds word vomit his life story to me.  Strangers and people in general have a tendency to do this to me, so I’m used to it.  There is so much information he’s trying to get out at once that I can’t quite comprehend everything he’s saying, but I piece together some of his story.  Something about the military, the war, the Middle East, something about prisoners and camps. Something about not sleeping anymore and a divorce. He smiles at Maya through the window. “How old?” He asks.

“She’s two,” I reply.

 “I have a six year old daughter,” he tells me. “I’m trying to do right by her I promise you I’m trying,” he tells me. I can feel this guy’s sadness and his grief, he makes my stomach ache a little bit.  I hold my hand out to him through my window, palm up. He takes it immediately and squeezes it, the way I wish my mother would when I hold a hand out to her.  He goes to pull his hand away but I hold it tighter. He stares at me in surprise. His grip loosens for a moment but then he holds on tighter too. I can see the haunted soldier in his blue eyes, I can glimpse a bit of his demons, and he knows I can too.

“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time” I tell him.  It’s a phrase I use with my preschoolers, but it also seems to be effective with adults.  I don’t know what else to say to him, so for a few seconds we don’t say anything at all.

 Then the light turns green.  I release my grip.  I stare at this dirty jeans and holy black Misfits t-shirt and wish I had more than a few wrinkly one dollar bills to give him.

“I have to go,” I tell him.  He makes the sign of the cross and waves at Maya.  I step on the accelerator and we are out of each other’s lives as fast as we entered.