Baked Scribe Flashback : Saving Strangers

 

At some point, you had to ask how much more you needed to do in order to help a person out of their troubles. Ronnie had been out walking the street since early afternoon. Crayson was supposed to have been home by now, but so far, nothing, and no answer on his cell phone either.

So, to hell with him. He could walk from here to the end of the Earth, if that’s what it took to amuse himself. He didn’t care. This would be fine for him. Nothing like a day-long walk through the cold and snow and mud and slush.

Then he had seen the guy lying on the bus stop bench.

The clothes hung off of him in the barest threads. He wore a jacket, but it looked like the kind you’d wear to the park in early autumn, not the dead of winter. His beard had grown to nearly unmanageable length, almost completely obscuring his face in a mass of scruffy fuzz. And the smell. Ronnie placed a hand over his mouth and nose to try to shut it out, but the assault of the odors of urine and feces was hard to ignore. When he looked at the guy’s pants he saw what looked like bloodstains.

Ronnie wasn’t even sure if the guy was breathing. He didn’t want to touch him, but it seemed vulgar to prod him with his foot. So, he knelt down into a crouch and placed a hand on the guy’s shoulder, shaking him slightly.

It took a while, but eventually the eyes slid open and focused in on him. Ronnie put on a smile and tried to look like this happened to him all the time.

“Hey buddy, what gives?”

The guy looked at their surroundings as if he was seeing for the first time. He didn’t seem sure how he had gotten here in the first place and Ronnie wondered how much he could’ve possibly drunk that day.

“I lost my ride.”

“Missed your ride, huh?” Ronnie nodded, looking around the park, “Yeah, that’s a drag. Anything I can do to help?”

“Missed my ride,” the guy said again, this time with a little bit more force behind his voice, “Think you can help me find a new one?”

“Well, guess that depends on where you’re going,” Ronnie responded. Deep down in places he didn’t like to let other people see, he was a little ashamed for wishing that he had never started this conversation.

“Got to get home,” the man said as he struggled to sit up. Ronnie helped him up into a sitting position and brushed off his coat as best he could. “Think you can help set me back on the right path?” he asked.

Ronnie sighed and looked around the park, wishing there was a cop or someone nearby he could ask for help. But since it appeared that he was on his own, and there was nothing else to do tonight, he might as well help the guy out. “Well wherever you’re going, you can’t show up looking like this,” he said. “Maybe we should get you somewhere where you can get a shower and shave.”

So they ended up at the YMCA, and while the guy took a shower, Ronnie walked across the street to the second hand store and bought him some clothes and a proper coat. The clothes would probably be too big, but at least he would be warmer.

When the guy walked out of the locker room, he looked like a completely different person. The beard wasn’t gone but it had been neatly trimmed. He was also wearing a pair of thin, wire rimmed glasses and the clothes that Ronnie had bought ended up fitting as if they had always been his.

“Can’t thank you enough for these,” he said as he walked up to him. “You’ll have to give me your address so I can reimburse you.”

Ronnie waved him off. “No problem. Not even worth the stamp.”

The guy nodded. “Well regardless, I’m in your debt.” He paused, looking down at the ground and Ronnie braced himself for the next request. “I hate to impose, but do you think I could trouble you for one last favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Well, my ride is likely going to be waiting for me a little ways outside of town. It would be a big help if you could drive me there.”

So they ended up in his car, driving north out of town. Was there a limit on the amount of favors that you could do for somebody? How much was enough?

“Here we go,” the man said. Ronnie looked up and glanced to the left where he was pointing.

“There’s nothing there, that’s just the forest.”

“I know it sounds a little crazy, but that’s where I need to go.”

Ronnie looked at him, over at the trees then back at him. “I can’t drive in there, I’d have to leave you off right here.”

The man smiled at the suggestion, “I know. You’ve done enough young man, I really do appreciate it.” Ronnie watched him open the door and step out onto the road. As he walked across and towards the woods, he turned back one more time to speak. “Just so you know, there is no limit to the extent of human kindness, so long as we let it take us where it leads. Thanks again, Ronnie.”

He sat back, speechless. Why would the guy say that unless he was reading his mind or something? Did he ever tell him his name? And what was he going to do out there, in the middle of the woods like that?

He was in a mental fog all the way back to his house. When he got there, and the car coughed to a halt, he looked up at the brand new Mustang that now sat in front of the house. It occurred to him that it was the exact same car that he had made a model of when he was younger. He shrugged it off and walked inside.

There was a set of keys on the table and he picked them up, staring at the Mustang logo on the key-chain, mouth hanging open. He saw a note on the table as well. It had been folded neatly in half and all he found on the inside was a little, hand-drawn smiley face with one word scrawled in a tight, neat hand.

Thanks.

He ran out front and looked at the car, apparently left behind for him by a person, or persons unknown. The events of the day ran through his head and as he looked up into the sky through the freshly falling snow, for the briefest second he could just make out the deepest, happiest laughter he had ever heard.

And the sound of sleigh bells.