for 27 AUG 05: ANGELS AMONG US
"Hey, sweetie," said the middle-aged woman approaching me on the sidewalk. It was about 11:30 a.m. Friday, and I'd never seen this woman before. Isn't it a bit early in the day for prostitutes to be out?
But my thoughts about the woman adjusted a bit when she said: "Do you have any change? I'm trying to get something to drink." And you thought the Children's Miracle Network had an original idea with the "Change Bandit."
We were at Oakland Park Shopping Center, so I offered to buy the woman something to drink at one of the shops. "All I really need is some water," the woman said. That was fine with me - but apparently unlike many of this woman's friends, I don't carry empty cups around with me.
"I didn't get any sleep all night," the woman added. In this part of Columbus, there could be many reasons for that. Maybe a one-night stand, maybe late-night firing practice at Fort Benning....
"Where are we going?" the woman asked me a couple of times.
"I'm going to buy you some water."
"You shouldn't have to pay for water. We can go to the laundromat...." the one at the north end of the shopping center. But the vending machines there DO charge for bottled water - and the restroom in the back doesn't even have paper towels, much less paper cups.
Finally I walked the woman inside Millie's Corner. "I didn't know they had this."
"You didn't know this store was here?"
"I knew it was here." Apparently she has relatives who work at this grocery/restaurant - but a place like this selling bottled water?! She must have thought all Millie's had was fruits and vegetables many people can't pronounce.
We checked a drink case, but didn't see bottled water right away. Soda would not do for this woman. "I might develop dehydration...." she said. Come to think of it, maybe then she would sleep....
"Stand right here," I told the woman, "and I'll get you some bottled water." Based on the way she was talking, one more step could be her last -- and I could have walked a grocery store unwittingly into a big wrongful death suit.
The restaurant part of Millie's Corner is in the back, but the manager told me what the woman needed really was up front. "Tiene bottled water?" I asked a young woman behind the counter. Of all the dramatic moments to forget the Spanish word for bottle....
Thankfully, the young woman knew some Spanglish - and her words let us to the hidden part of the drink case where bottles of Nestle water were stashed. The dehydrating woman was become so desperate, she actually was willing to accept a bottle of lemonade as a last resort.
With this seeming life-or-death matter resolved, the woman explained more of her story. "I couldn't sleep last night because my truck was stolen by my ex-boyfriend. Now he's being chased by the police...." Not very quickly, apparently - because I heard no sirens in two hours at this shopping center.
The woman said she left her purse in the truck, and that's why she was out begging for a drink. She seemed to live in the Oakland Park area - but I didn't think to ask her she didn't get water from her tap. Columbus Water Works usually goes by 30-day billing.
But I did notice something curious when the woman said her purse was gone. "What's around your waist?"
"A fannypack."
"What's inside it?"
"Nothing" - which wasn't quite true, because the woman then pulled a driver's license out of it. With no truck, I guess it's worthless.
"Here, I'm legit," the woman said as she showed me her driver's license. From the picture on the license, this woman apparently spent all night blow-drying her flat hair as she attempted to fall asleep.
"I've got that and my inhaler," she said as she opened her fannypack before me inside the store. Inhaler? "I've got asthma." Yes, and something else in her hand.
"Are you supposed to smoke with asthma?" I asked pointing to a nearly-finished cigarette.
"No," she admitted. "I'm a little bit nervous." Nervous about what her ex-boyfriend might do to her truck, I suppose - or maybe the possibility that I was plain-clothes police.
With 92 cents paid for the bottle of water, the woman and I walked outside. "Where were you going?" she asked me.
"To Goodwill," I answered - going to the thrift store to browse for clothes while my laundry was in the dryer. "But your need is more important than my want."
"Well, go ahead, then," she said - but instead of walking south as I had before, I went north to check on my clothes. She filled my waiting time in a far more unusual way.
"What's your name? I didn't get your name," the woman asked as I walked away. I was walking faster than this nervous, nearly-dehydrated sleep-deprived asthmatic with a possible nicotine addiction. Perhaps that shouldn't have surprised me.
"Who I am isn't important," I told the woman (whose name I never learned, either).
"Yes, it is. Don't leave me like that."
"It doesn't matter." Then came a short pause.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I try to be."
COMING SUNDAY: E-mail about radar, dead and alive.... and we have a bunch of other stuff to update....
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