Trees are Immortal

Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly energized, I ask God for things I don’t deserve. For instance, I may ask to be a hero. The desire to make my mark by helping people is something that haunts me from time to time. You know the usual, foiling a robbery at a local convenient store. Not to be on the evening news. No, it’s different than that. In fact, I usually see myself stopping the robber (who probably also has a slew of bodies hidden away in the crawl space beneath his hovel), but being caught by a stray bullet. EMTs would rush to the scene, though tragically not be able to get to me in time. Maybe its residue left over from a prior life, I’d like to be able to think so anyway. The thought romanticizes my yearnings.

                Because I am a thirty something white male that lives in an upper middle class neighborhood, seeing people loitering outside a Circle K automatically makes me assume the worst about them. So when I stopped to gas up last night, and saw two teenagers bickering next to the Redbox machine, I guessed they were nothing but trouble.

                As I pumped my gas, the arguing between the two of them escalated to shouting, tears. Ultimately, a girl perhaps 16, stormed off in fit, leaving her tall, thin male counterpart standing alone. I continued to watch, as though this kid was part of some low budget reality show.

 He was half-bathed in the fluorescents pouring from the convenient store’s front. He seemed to be made ill by the light touching him, and slowly shuffled further from its reach. A cigarette hung from his lips. In that moment, as unknown people whizzed by on the street, as a few other gas station customers milled to and from the entrance, I recognized the fact that this kid needed help.

The gas pump clicked, signifying it was done and after I replaced the gas cap and locked my car. I headed towards the store. Now I knew that I was going to speak to this kid, or rather I knew this kid was going to speak to me. The unknown was what would be said. Internally, I heard him asking me for money, or to buy him smokes. And also in my head I answered him by telling him to go have sexual relations with himself.

Nearing the entrance, I stepped past the kid. He spoke, “Trees are immortal.” Two successive smokes rings flowed from his mouth like punctuation.

I was in no hurry, so I weighed the statement and sized him up. He leaned lazily against the outside of the store. At this distance, I didn’t need to wonder if he was holding up the building, or vice versa. His clothes didn’t make me guess he was homeless or a runaway; wrinkled but not dirty jeans and a t-shirt. Over the t-shirt he wore a cheap pleather jacket. Hemp sandals completed his relatively normal outfit. 

His cigarette was done so he mashed it out beside him, then slid down the wall on his ass. He looked to me for a response to his statement.

“Is that a fact?” the air of facetiousness that came with the question was too powerful.

The kid nodded, a large shock of curly brown hair nodded with him. “Ya think about it trees aren’t extinct. They are self perpetuating.” The kid’s speech wasn’t exactly slurred, but it was labored. His eyes were glassy, lips pale and dry.

“Ya but they do die- everything’s eventual.” On the inside I chuckled at my ridiculousness, and how it was lost on this kid. “Anyway, you know that right?” My answer was followed by my immediate effort to figure out what exactly this kid was on. Been drunk and seen drunk and he didn’t look it.

“What I know is I’m glad you’re talking to me.” The kid looked at me like I was his big brother. What a moment ago were glassy eyes now looked tear filled.

All of the sudden it became too real to me. “I’m goin’ to head inside kid. Take it easy.” Not waiting for a reply, I walked on.

Inside, the store was bright, bland and manufactured. I grabbed as many energy drinks as I could carry and dumped them on the counter.

“Have you had the time to speak with the strung out kid in front of your store, or was I alone it that pleasure?”

He laughed heartily, “Well, you’re definitely not alone. But I haven’t had the pleasure myself no. Matter of fact, I was considering if I should let him be or call the cops.”

“Any idea what he’s comin’ down from?” I asked, not expecting a real answer.

“Nah, truth be told I dunno if he’s even in the coming down stage yet.”

I nodded and paid for my drinks. “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” the clerk said, “good luck on your way out.”

“Thanks pal.”

Back outside, I headed back towards my car, but the kid called out to me. I saw he had taken off his sandals. One was thrown just in front of him behind a parking block. The other he twirled on one finger by its strap. “Hey, hey are you leaving?”

“Ya buddy. I gotta get going. You take care of yourself.”

The kid seemed excited; he stood again but didn’t walk towards me. “I’ll be here for awhile if you come back.”

“You’re just going to hang out here? Until when?”

“Until I can drive home.” The kid said this as though it was the most obvious answer.

“You have a car?”

The slow, steady laugh that only the drug induced can create echoed through the night air. “No man, my bike.” He cocked his thumb to the side of the store.

There in the dark next to the air machine was the outline of a silver bicycle.

“Right,” for some odd reason I felt silly for assuming he was driving. “What’re you going to do ‘til then?”

The kid smiled brightly, “I’m going to sit here and take my clothes off until God comes.”

I was sure I had heard him perfectly.

Thinking about what the clerk had said, I tried to warn him in a way that I thought might not induce panic or extreme behavior. “Let me just go on record and say that is not a good idea. Besides, who’s to say you have the kind of body that’s going to get God’s attention?”

Seriously contemplating this, the kid nodded. “Good point man thanks for lookin’ out.” He ceased twirling the sandal and slipped it back on his foot. He began to look around for the other.

“It’s by the parking block.”

Smiling again, “Thanks man.”

I got in my car after reminding the kid to be safe. The words, as well as my actions seemed hollow and ineffectual.

As I pulled out from the store, I ended up sitting at a light only a few yards away. Looking over, I saw the kid. He had managed to restore the sandal to his other foot. He was lighting another cigarette. I smiled, hoping he’d smile back. I did this only because I wanted to take it as a sign that he would be okay.

There was no wave goodbye, the kid hadn’t seen me.

The disappointment I felt as the light changed was both heavy and odd. Perhaps next time when I ask to be a hero I need to be better prepared when it comes. Not everyone can stop a robbery, or rescue a bus full of flaming orphans. Sometimes being a hero can be as simple as doing something out of the ordinary rather than doing the extraordinary.