Just Trying to Help

It was a Sunday or Monday night. I don't remember which, exactly; they're getting harder and harder to tell apart. But it was one of the two, and I was tapping home from the subway.

Using the cane, I'll tell you, has lost some of its charm. It's grown, over the past few years, into a commonplace annoyance. Every night (and, during the winter, every morning too), I heave a sigh, drag it from my bag, let it flop

open, heave another sigh and begin tapping. Not much ever happens on the way home. The tip gets stuck in the cracks of the sidewalk, or stuck between the bars of someone's front gate, that's about it. Not much worth noting beyond a grunt and a whispered mild obscenity.

One thing I have discovered recently?something I thought was interesting, in that I hadn't discovered it earlier?is that if you're right-handed, making left turns with the cane (getting around corners and whatnot) is a real bitch. Don't know why that is?though maybe it's just me, and I normally make nothing but right turns.

Well, I thought it was interesting, anyway. It has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about here.

I was waiting patiently to cross the avenue a block away from my apartment on whatever night it was (Sunday or Monday). Once I heard that there was no more traffic approaching, I headed out into the street, scraping the cane in short arcs in front of me as I went. Same as every night.

Then, about a third of the way across the street, I noticed something was wrong. It always takes me a second to notice these things. A quick inventory revealed that there was a large hand clamped firmly around my left arm, and it was dragging me?I presumed?across the street. Whoever was attached to that hand had not said a word?just grabbed hold and started dragging. That wasn't right. I wasn't sure if I was being arrested, kidnapped or merely assisted along my bumpy way.

"Let go of my arm," I said, quietly, as I slowly lifted the cane in my right hand, preparing, if need be, to take a swing with it. Much to my surprise, the hand released me as abruptly as it had grabbed hold, and whoever it belonged to?from what I could tell (and I might be very wrong) it was a large, older man?vanished into the night. He didn't say a word, didn't make a sound of any kind during, or after, that brief encounter.

After he left, even before I reached the far corner, I felt an immediate flash of shame. I mean, I'm sure he was just trying to help (if he wasn't, I figured, he wouldn't've let go so quickly), and my immediate response was to growl at him and prepare to take a swing. That wasn't very nice, but it's the way I've been programmed to respond to unrequested help.

I was telling Morgan about the incident a short while later, and she reminded me about some of the mishaps I'd run into in the past, those few times I, myself, had tried to help the blind. Well, blinder.

There was the blind guy with cerebral palsy on 6th Ave. not too long ago. He'd actually been asking for help crossing the street?help no one else on that crowded corner seemed prepared or willing to offer. So I stepped in. And it wasn't 45 seconds later that he was screaming in terror.

Yeah, that was a rough afternoon.

Then there was the morning a few years back when I heard a blind Asian woman trying to cross 23rd St. who had obviously become disoriented, and was yelling, "Where's the curb? I can't find the curb!" as the panic swelled in her voice.

Hell, I was standing right there, I knew where the curb was, so I took a step toward her and said, "It's about three feet straight ahead." Never touched her, never did nothing more than say a few words. Very simple, I thought. Gave her all the information she needed to know. But I was wrong about everything, it seems.

"I know that," she turned on me like a spitting cobra. "Shut up! I know where it is!?and I don't need your fucking help!"

Okay then, I thought as I stepped back. I guess I could understand her frustration, but she should learn to talk to herself more quietly.

Back on my end of things, I've also run into the worst kind of do-gooders. Drunks and crackheads who've grabbed hold of me in the middle of the street and dragged me way off course, screaming at me the whole while because I wasn't moving fast enough. In comparison, I guess, this guy on Sunday or Monday night was a real prince, a veritable angel of mercy. He still shoulda asked first, though. Unless he was mute. (Cut here to the blind hermit scene from Bride of Frankenstein. Or, better yet, Young Frankenstein.)

Then there was this morning.

I'd overslept, which sent me out onto the damp predawn streets all discombobulated, my timing way off. The cane tip found every crack in the sidewalk, jolting me to a stop every few steps. Nevertheless, the foot traffic was light, and I made it to the subway platform just as my train was pulling in.

I was standing in front of the doors as they opened, and it took a moment for me to realize that there was someone standing inside the doors, waiting to get off. I made a move to step out of the way, but I wasn't fast enough. The short, round-faced woman slid her own red-and-white cane between my ankles and immediately began tapping.

I stepped back, trying to escape, but she drove onward. I tried to step to the left, over the cane, but she kept tapping, raising the cane high enough that I couldn't get my foot over it.

Backward she drove me, the two of us shuffling across the platform toward the opposite track, both of us trying to escape before it was too late, as the train filled and the doors threatened to close at any second. The people inside the car stared silently at the spectacle.

The more we struggled to separate, the more we became entangled. My own cane had already been packed away, though I considered briefly making a quick grab for it and challenging this woman to a duel. I was thankful, at least, that the tip of her cane hadn't yet found its way into the hole I'd worn in the cuff of my pant leg. There was still time for that, though. What the hell was I going to do? Push her down? Head-butt her? Grab the cane? Jesus, the train was about to vanish, and here I was wrestling with an old blind woman?

Finally?I don't know how it happened, who made the right move?but I was free. Free at last! The old woman made a sharp left turn (Is she trying to snare me again? I thought in a panic. Is this some kind of sick game to her?). I made a dive for the closing doors and squeezed inside. It was all really stupid.

When you get right down to it, I think the only lesson I've come away with from all of these varied encounters is that I should stay as far away from people as possible, and vice versa. It's just easier that way.