Damsel in Distress

Last night I was getting gas (for only the 2nd time since I got the car!) at the Arco on Franklin and Gower, and I noticed, as I paid, a woman dialing for a taxi and asking the cashier what the address there was.  She misunderstood when he told her the cross street was Gower that the address was 6100 Gower, when I very much knew it to be 6100 Franklin.  I told the woman exactly that, and she realized of course that was the case, but she seemed very flustered at having to call the cab company back. I asked her if she was going far, and the address she told me was maybe a mile out of my way, so I offered her a ride.

In the 12 minutes or so that Kelly was in my car (she was early forties, a bit overweight, long brown hair, rather non-descript all around but pleasant-looking enough) she told me that "Mark" (ironically my name) had "pushed" her, so she got out of his  car when he pulled in to get gas. It was the second time in three years he'd been physical that way, and she didn't know why she didn't break up with him the first time, she should have known when his own mother had warned her to be "careful."   She said he'd never actually hit her, but he was very jealous and possesive, if she left the house without a bra he'd say things like "who're you going to fuck!"   She couldn't believe she was almost going to marry him, especially since she's awaiting a big workman's compensation settlement, and plus her daughter didn't like him and so on and so on.

You get the idea.  I said what I could  that I thought might be helpful, but much more important was the simple act of being a stranger who showed her a kindness. I was relieved to be just gay enough that she sensed getting into my car was not opening herself up to some nightmare scenario, but even more than that, I think she sensed the spirit of my Dad. My Dad was the ultimate "nice guy."  He would direct traffic at accidents, give young black men who were hitchiking rides, intervene to protect a woman being threatened.  This was how he was raised and this is how he raised me.  Of course this urge does battle with my streetwise sense that there are a lot of bad people out there who might take advantage of you, but between years of my own badboyosity and 10 months in prison, I pretty much trust my instinct in these matters. Kelly was harmless, if talkative.

What struck me more than anything was the sense that there are millions of Kellys out there. Single mothers with a high school education who don't know what else they can offer besides their looks, and as those fade, end up so fearful of being alone that they enter into relationships with insecure and possessive men who end up abusing or stalking them.  I also felt this was the kind of disengaged soul who is so precoccupied with the dramas of her personal life, that she either doesn't vote or votes based on irrational and anecdotal impressions, like seeing the New Yorker cover at a newstand and saying: "See, I thought he was an Arab!"

I hope Kelly makes the right choice, but I have a feeling she'll make up with "Mark," and he'll end up spending most of her workman's comp settlement.  She's going to be mad and broke, and have no one to blame but herself, just like the battered spouse that is America these days, my poor black-and-blue country that should have known better.

MCO 2008