compassion:
a feeling of pity that makes one want to help or show mercy.
When I woke up, I was completely disoriented. I heard water dripping and thought it was the coffeemaker at home. I smelled the must of mold and imagined I was on the wrestling mat.
I’d been dreaming about my aunt. I was walking down a pier. At the end of it were Margarite and Joey. They were holding poles that dangled colorful ribbons, beads, and ceramic animals. They were something Margarite carried in her shop. Dream catchers, she called them.
Joey turned toward me. Only instead of the blank, robotic expression he usually had, his face was lit up and smiling. “Adam!” He embraced me.
“He’s cured!” I exclaimed to Margarite. “He can love.”
“That’s right.” She turned to me, her expression blank, her voice mechanical. “I’ve changed places with him.”
I lay there a minute with my eyes closed, remembering the first time I met Margarite and Joey. We’d gone to visit her in South Carolina, on one of our few vacations. Joey was little, maybe two or three, but already you could tell there was something wrong. He didn’t talk or make sounds. When Mom tried to hug him, he ducked her.
We’d brought him a big red fire truck. He took it off into a corner, but instead of playing with it, he turned it over, spun the wheels, and watched.
When it was time for dinner, Margarite pried him from the wheels, but he hardly ate a bite. Instead, he moved his food around on the plate, peas in a row, pieces of meat to the edges. “He doesn’t like the foods to touch,” Margarite mused. “Isn’t that funny? But he’s such an easy boy.”
Mom said, “Yes. Very easy.” But she looked really worried.
Margarite’s husband was still with her then. His name was Chuck, and that’s what Mom would say about him, in a whisper, to Dad. “He’s a real Chuck, all right.”
Chuck drank a lot of beer and watched TV. He was in the military and had one of those haircuts that looked like someone had driven a lawn mower over his head. He showed up to the table at meals, and Dad politely made conversation about sports while Mom and Margarite fussed over Joey.
I opened my eyes and slowly got to my feet. In the morning light, the birds seemed friendlier, less like they were going to peck out my eyes.
The things I had taken for granted my whole life, a toothbrush, a cup of coffee, a comb, a meal, a shower, were nowhere to be found. I smoothed out my clothes as best as I could. I drank as much water from the faucet as I could handle, then headed out.
The ease with which I’d found the first couple of rides didn’t last. Even with relatively clean clothes and hair, the cars sped past me like I was nothing.
Finally, a woman in a Mercedes stopped. Although she had dark hair, something about her reminded me of Mira’s mom. Maybe it was just wealth: the giant ring on her hand, her diamond earrings. Or maybe it was the way she waved me to the backseat, dismissing me without even asking me where I was heading.
She was talking on a cell phone, one hand loosely on the wheel, as if she thought the car would drive itself.
I’ve never been a fan of cell phones. I have a hunch that people walk around with them glued to their ears just to give evidence that they have friends. Nobody in my family had one.
“Okay,” she was saying into the phone, “maybe you should write this down. First, get a free-range duck. It has to be free-range. Of course they cost money. Free-range means they get to run around while they’re alive, rather than being locked in a little pen always stepping in their own poop. Because it tastes better. Maybe it’s the exercise. It sends flavor to the muscles or something. Whatever. What? No, that was the car door slamming. I just stopped to pick up a hitchhiker.”
I could hear the male voice on the other side yelling.
“Calm down. Calm down.” She peered at me in the rearview mirror. “He looks fine. He’s just a teenager. Of course he’s not armed. Are you armed?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
“See, he says he’s not armed. No. No. He’s fine. He was just standing on the road. What was I supposed to do? It’s boiling out there. He’d have fried up like an egg on the sidewalk. It’s a figure of speech. Right? I know they don’t really fry. No. Look! My therapist said I should do more good deeds, give more, so I’ll feel better about myself. Let’s go back to the duck. Okay? I want it to be l’orange, so you need to get—no. No. Okay, I’ll ask him. How far you going?”
I shrugged.
“He doesn’t know. Not everybody is so focused on destination the way you are. Some are just there for the journey. I’ll just drop him when I exit. He’s fine. Well, he’s tall, about six foot something. Blond hair in a ponytail. A ponytail! I don’t know. Yes, he has long hair. I didn’t notice until he got in and I saw the ponytail!” She was getting irritated. Picking me up was clearly causing her some major trouble. “Yeah. Actually, he is good-looking. Very handsome, although a little grubby. Maybe he’s a college kid. Calm down. I’m old enough to be his mother. Stop! Okay. Okay. Just listen. Get some oranges, but make sure they’re navel oranges. I don’t want to have to pick out all the little seeds. And marsala. That’s wine! Marsala is wine. Baby asparagus. You invited her? No, just that she’s unbearable. Do you remember how she went on about Yoko Ono being the preeminent artist of the twentieth century. Absurd. No. He’s just sitting there looking out the window. He doesn’t seem to talk. Maybe he’s foreign. Like, Swedish. Look, stop obsessing about the hitchhiker already.” She clicked the phone off. “He is being so … difficult!”
A minute later, the phone rang. It rang to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth. Boy, did that fry my mom, that classical works of genius were being turned into ringer tunes. She also hated to see famous artwork in advertising or images of Einstein on T-shirts. “Is there anything that Americans won’t commodify?” she’d gripe.
After the third call from her boyfriend or husband, the woman pulled onto the shoulder. “Sorry,” she said, “he’s gonna drive me crazy until I let you off. Really, he thinks you’re an axe murderer. I guess it’s sweet that he cares.”
I nodded sympathetically. As I got out, she shoved a twenty at me. I had a feeling she probably solved a lot of her problems that way, with money. But that was cool with me; it was the first time I’d been paid in a while.