“Don’t stop. No car’s coming, go through.”
“And if a cop—”
“All the better. That’s who I’m looking for now.”
He goes through the light. “I hate going through red lights.” The older man’s leaning against a lamppost, two canes, not two crutches, at his feet. We stop, I roll down my window, “Excuse me, but were you just robbed?”
“You undercover? If you are—”
“We’re not. We thought—”
“Still, he ran up that sidestreet and you can still catch him but you’ll have to go against a one-way.”
“We don’t want to try to — either thing — and get hurt. We saw you from the uptown side and thought we could help with a honk and shout if he was still here, or help you in any way. You’re not hurt? Did he get anything?”
“My wallet. Fifteen dollars. That’s what you have to carry on you today in case you get robbed. My watch two other punks took last year, so I don’t wear the new one when I’m out.”
“What are you doing out alone so late?” Peter says. “This neighborhood’s deserted.”
“I like to walk. If I get that itch, I take it. There are just so many directions to go. Last night I went the other. But I don’t go far. My place is two blocks down.”
“Can we do anything?” I say. “Take you to a police station or wait with you till a patrol car passes?”
“It’s not worth it. Fill out a report, nothing happens. If I made a bundle it might be worth having that report as proof for a big loss on my taxes. I’ll go home.”
“We’ll drive you.”
“I don’t want to drive him,” Peter says.
“We have to. We came this far, let’s see it through.”
“No thanks,” the man says. “I can’t get hit twice in one night ten minutes apart. It doesn’t happen.”
“It’s disgraceful, someone stealing from anyone — but from you? I wish we’d stopped sooner.”
“Good thing you didn’t. He came out of nowhere, didn’t look playful, might have panicked and done something to me worse. Thanks,” and he picks up his canes and starts downtown.
“Some night,” Peter says, passing the man and signaling a left.
“Wait, back up to him.”
“What now?”
“Just back up — Mister, stop!” I open my bag. “I only have ten dollars,” I say to Peter. “Loan me a five.”
“Ten’s enough.”
“Please, I’m only borrowing it. You’ve nothing smaller than a ten, I’ll give you one of my fives.”
He gives me a five. “On me, no loan.”
“Here,” I say to the man. “Don’t ask questions. You went through too much tonight, you don’t want to be stopped by anyone without your fifteen, and we’ve plenty.” He takes the money. “Now can we drive you home?”
“I’ll make it.”
Peter drives off, makes the U. “That was very nice. I think a little excessive, but okay — nice.”
“As if it isn’t bad enough for him, and then to get robbed? But maybe I shouldn’t have said it to him like that.”
“How?”
‘“Disgraceful for someone to steal from you.’ But to be so deformed? Did you see the way he walked?”
“Saw.”
“It’s got to be so painful. Going every step like that. I’m not talking of only the threat of being robbed, but just getting up and down curbs and I’m sure falling every so often because of the canes in the street cracks and so on. And if you’re out of bread and want a loaf — what a chore.”
“He goes out nightly, so maybe he’s more mobile and not in as much pain as we think. But look at it this way. If you have an affliction like his you have to make adjustments and other arrangements. That’s what you have to do in life; that’s what everyone has to do.”
“You might be right. But so many people in the city and everywhere like that man. In my neighborhood especially, and which I can never quite get used to. Even someone who walks a three-legged dog. The dog does well — compensates — but he has three. But there’s a one-legged baby in a baby carriage and always on Broadway that destroys me every time I see her.”
“A three-legged dog, sad; a one-legged baby — that’s tragedy.”
“Sometimes when I’m feeling very sad about people and animals like that — which can last for minutes to hours after — I think, and usually soon after I felt that way, that I only felt this for myself somehow — but it’s not true or not most times.”
“Of course it isn’t. Probably never, or only rarely. Your response is authentically sympathetic rather than self-pitying.”
“And I’m not saying this to have anyone think better of me. But why can’t we feel these things for these people — forget the three-legged animals; what can I do for them? — and help them when we can? Not just what we did before, but sort of.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“If they need assistance across the street. Reaching for things for them in supermarkets they can’t reach. And I guess for dogs if they’re lost or starved no matter how many legs — feeding them or helping them find their way home.”
“No, those are good things to do. And if you mean sorry, pity—feeling those — sure, that’s what we have to do — fellow human beings, all that. Public spirits — because those words are still good words if accurately employed. And giving to charities — good charities if we can — ones that don’t squander all the given money to keep the administrators administrating them. Just as any public institution — museums as well as any — shouldn’t squander its money that way. Because it’s all given, that money, by individuals or some larger public or private institution. And the truth of it is that no institution or government or private company should squander its money, and museums should probably be the first ones to exclude themselves from that type of administrative abuse. I believe in that.”
“There, we discussed something interesting and stayed with it for once. We needed the robbery of an old crippled man to catalyze the discussion, and let’s face it, nothing that profound was said and maybe only a baby-step past knickknacks. But we could always bullshit well.”
“That wasn’t bullshit.”
“I know; just trying out something new for no reason: depreciating what I said if it made the littlest bit of sense.”
“That was real talk, real feelings. Maybe not the deepest, but this is only a car conversation to get us safely home. But I’ll tell you, a lot of what some people say sounds false to them isn’t. So it doesn’t mean you should hold your sentiments in check because of what they don’t feel. And we could do plenty else — plenty — besides bull and serious talk.”
“What besides what I think you’re thinking we used to be able to do well, which, all right, we did, but so what?”
“Oh that? We could still do it well — believe me — no sweat.”
“Let’s change the subject?”
“Or with lots of sweat. But let’s change it. Getting too grownup for me. Wait, that’s not the remark I wanted to make.”
“We used to cook compatibly together.”
“You’re referring to what else we used to do well together besides bullshit and serious talk and that other subject before we changed it?”
“Yup, cook. We complemented each other in the kitchen.”
“We did, and we were also great summer tourists in Europe together, with lots of European sweat. Real sweat, from the sun and lots of jaunting, not that changed subject. And when I had a motorcycle you were a great passenger behind me and then rider when I taught you how to ride it and I was the passenger, so we rode well together in various ways too. And what else well? Well, not do but attend and-or enjoy: opera, dance, occasionally the same book. And we once painted your living room together.”
“Not compatibly.”