Alice07:22 May 20 2009
Times Read: 608
I tend to be a dreamer. Let me rephrase that, I’d like to be a dreamer, but reality and consequences always worm their way in, like a leaky faucet, loud and abrasive in my quiet world of fantasy. I can’t be the only day dreamer with a conscience. Jiminy Cricket has nothing on my nagging associate. I tend to look at the world through rose colored binoculars, a beautiful place…from a distance. The problem I have is the up close and personal. A child of the eighty’s able to dream of peace on earth and the Berlin wall coming down, but callous and educated enough to not pick-up hitchhikers (synonymous with serial killer) or leave my doors unlocked (any time or any place). Needless to say, this callous and educated (nay, worldly) woman was not in the least bit mentally equipped to do battle with the sweetness and light that came in the package of tattered and torn humanity known only as, Alice.
My day started out pleasant enough, shopping. I love any kind of shopping, January 14th, 1993, I happened to be shopping at a medical store. I was feeling superior and enlightened as I bought sutures, scalpels, gauze, etc. for my first aid kit. I wasn’t going to be caught off guard by some major catastrophe; I wasn’t going to be caught off guard by anything. Or so I thought. I walked out of the store into the brisk winter air, fumbling with my many bags, as I headed for my car. I jumped as I looked up from my purchases, startled by the sudden presence of a bent old woman standing in my path. Where had she come from? She was engulfed in an old blue coat and a yellow knit cap which was dotted liberally with white paint spots. She smiled, exposing a mouth almost devoid of teeth, except a few on the sides. Her snow white hair was pinned up in a loose and sloppy bun, but long strands were falling all around her stooped shoulders. She was holding approximately 30 lbs. of what looked to be used tile. I couldn’t help but think how she could have stepped from the yellowed pages of a dickens novel!
When she smiled, that toothless smile, at me, I smiled politely back, striding past her confidently. Then she quietly asked a question that tightened my stomach and teeth…”Do you have a car?” I considered, seriously considered, acting as if I hadn’t heard her. Instead I mumbled a “yes” as I picked up my pace towards my car.
“Could you give me a ride home?” Damn…I stopped and took a closer look at the burden she held clutched in her arms and I asked her what she was holding, I was stalling for time, hoping beyond hope that I could find a way to avoid her request; maybe she would forget she’d asked. She told me that the stack in her arms was old used tiles she had taken from a building being torn down, but I didn’t recall any buildings being demolished in that area.
“Could you please give me a ride home? I’ll pay for the gas,” she plead through pale, watery blue eyes. My heart sank. I told her I couldn’t, but that I was sorry. She looked me in the eyes and said “I understand”. Her voice and words bespoke her true understanding. Remember hitchhikers are synonymous with serial killers. I suggested the bus, but she said it was too hard for her to climb the steps. She took her cap off and showed me her white hair and said, “I’m no spring chicken.” I again told her I was sorry, and walked off to my car.
In the society we live in and being alone, it would have been sheer stupidity to give her a ride, it could have been a set-up, she could have been insane! I slumped down in my car seat; I gazed guiltily out the front window at the stooped old woman standing on the street in the intersection trying to catch a ride. Come to think of it, she wasn’t even trying to catch a ride, she was just standing there half in the middle of the intersection. I sat and stared at her for several minutes, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Cars just drove by her, and how could I blame them, hadn’t I just done the same thing, except on a more personal note?
I knew I shouldn’t pick-up a total stranger, everything logical told me not to. I also knew my husband wouldn’t be pleased; he would be concerned for my safety. But could I live with myself if I drove past her? I’m by no means a religious person, but all the sudden the thought occurred to me, that if I didn’t drive this old lady home, I was buying a one way ticket to hell! I thought how bad the world must have become, if some-one had to worry this much over driving an old lady home.
In a dream like state I pulled out into the intersection, stopped and unlocked the passenger door. Time stood still, the world slowed on its axis and quieted as she opened the door. It was a busy intersection and in the midst of it all n cars pulled in behind me, no-one honked, no-one yelled. With-out a pause she dropped into my passenger seat, tiles and all, looked straight at me and said, “I didn’t expect to see you again. God must have touched you.” A lump, the size of a softball rose up in my throat.
As I drove the five blocks to her house, she told me that she was a widow that her husband had died a few months ago and when she went home her house was empty. I didn’t ask if she meant literally or figuratively. I guess I didn’t hear a lot of what she said; it was a strange, almost detached, feeling. She said that she was 77 years old and that she told people that she was going to live to be 150, that people in other countries were doing it, so why couldn’t she? The drive took scant minutes but she spoke volumes. I never said a word, but neither she nor I were uncomfortable with my silence.
As we reached her house I pulled up to the sidewalk, a lanky teenage boy stood in front of the neighbor’s house absently tossing snowballs onto the roof. We both watched him a brief moment and she told me that he was the neighbor boy, that he wasn’t all there, but that he shoveled the snow off of the walks and that, that was nice. Great…My only witness was a teenage boy, who wasn’t all there.
She stepped out onto the curb and said, “My name is Alice, and I live here.”
I smiled and said, “My name is Ronni.”
The boy looked up and said, “Hi Alice, whatcha doing?”
“Catching rides with strangers,” she tossed over her shoulder as she closed the car door.
I pulled forward and looked in my rearview mirror to check that I was clear to make a U-turn. As I looked I realized that Alice was gone, no where to be seen. I started to cry. I don’t know why…I just did.
Driving away I felt terribly uncomfortable about the whole situation. I was sure I was going to see Alice in the obituaries and find out that she had died several days before. I asked myself if I had just given Jesus a ride home…and I idly wondered if Jesus had any bugs… When I got to the next store, I am somewhat ashamed to say, I cleaned the car on the passenger side. Well…you never know.
The rest of the day Alice haunted me, I was afraid she’d be in my car when I came out of each store, I was sure I’d see her outside my house, when the doorbell rang, I was certain it was her! I felt very uneasy! Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing evil about Alice, actually it was quite to the contrary…
Many of our most significant life experiences go unnoticed until years later, but Alice reached out and grabbed me. I’ll never forget that bent old woman looking me straight in the eye and saying “God must have touched you,” and “My name is Alice, and I live here.” Alice colors everything I do. She gave me new eyes to see the good in the world and through me she has touched all those I’ve touched since…with a kind word or a gift of a rose to a stranger…all in the memory of Alice.
Yes Alice, you live here…in my heart. And yes Alice, God may have touched me…but you touched me more. And I thank you!
By RonniLee
COMMENTS
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VAMPIREBONNIE
17:10 May 28 2009
Thats beautifull
littleimp
05:36 Jul 02 2009
this is so cool have added you to my fav