26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

I got it out of the way early this year. I just literally helped an old lady cross the street.

I was just walking to my local over-priced gourmet grocery store when I noticed her wobbling out of a Chinese take out place with a tiny brown paper bag tucked under her arm. Let me take this moment to say that she is a million years old. I’m not having a laugh and I’m not making fun. She looks as if she could have been widowed by The War of 1812. My first thought was “This woman is going to fall and if I see it it’s going to fuck with me for weeks.” Yet despite that I couldn’t look away as she slowly walked towards me like a drunk guy on a sailboat during a storm. When she was a foot or two from me she had a moment of equilibrium loss over a bit of cracked up sidewalk. I motioned towards her but she was already upright. “Can I help you across?”

“Would you?” She asked as if I had a choice.

So let me say that I know a lot of you have this idea in your head that really old people like to take things nice and slow. Why rush? Right? Wrong. No sooner does she get her hand tucked around mine than she pulling me out into traffic. Traffic that was racing by like it was the fifth leg of the Cannonball Run. “Lots of traffic”, she said, figuring I wasn’t interested in testing the ‘everyone stops for old ladies’ theory.

“Yeah, busy night.” Yet still she was pulling me. I could tell from the side street that the light was getting ready to change. “Almost,” I said but she didn’t really care, we were halfway into the first lane of Seventh Avenue, lucky blocked by an errand SUV, double-parked.

Then came the break and we were off. To her credit she walked at a pretty good clip. She had the self-reliance of the World War One generation. She’s been taking care of herself of forty years, and that includes making it across Seventh Avenue.

One the other side she thanked me and smiled and I watched her walk into The Vermeer building.

I don’t consider myself to be the “good Samaritan” type. I’m pragmatic about when and how I help people in distress. For example: On countless occasions I have stopped to help a lone woman carry her stroller and child up or down a flight of stairs. Typically the subway. I’m always amazed at the grown men who simply walk by figuring ‘she got herself into this mess, she’ll have to get herself out’.

On the other hand, on the few occasions that I’ve passed a cyclist who has been struck and downed by a motorist I have never stopped. My logic is as follows: I have never been the first person on such a scene. Typically I’m the fourth. By the time I arrive the person is either sitting or standing up, an ambulance has been called and the bicycle has been recovered. There is little to do beside get in the way. First on the scene? Sure, you can make sure he’s alive, able to talk and see, you can call for help, any number of useful things. Fourth on the scene? You’re job to get in the way and tell passers-by what you think happened. The fourth guy on the scene is the first person the medical technicians tell to give them some room and he’s the last person who does so. I choice to not be the fourth person.

So by this logic I was more than happy to help this lady across the street. But if I didn’t, and she fell I would have kept walking. It’s good to know where you stand. Or don’t stand.