Post date: Aug 04, 2018 12:53:22 PM
It was starting to rain the other day when I found my car in the strip mall lot. It was still a light rain, so I sat to enjoy it for a moment with the window down. That's when a man approached me -- hesitantly, like someone trespassing a social boundary, and with the sort of polite deference of one who wanted to ask for something.
"Excuse me, do you know where the Walgreen's is? I'm not from around here." I had already suspected that. It seemed like a white neighborhood, the kind where people drove, not walked.
I didn't know either. I often visit this town but was in an unfamiliar part of it. He thanked me and started to move on. It didn't look like he had any option but to continue down the street looking. But I realized then that I had options. I got out and caught up with him.
"Wait, I've got a phone, I'll see if I can look it up." It turned out the Walgreen's was not too far away, but he had been walking the wrong direction. I offered him a ride, but he politely refused.
As I walked to my car, the rain started coming down harder. "Are you sure?" I called back to him. He accepted this time.
He apologized for drinking when he got in the car. I wouldn't have noticed the smell of alcohol otherwise. He seemed uncomfortable and thanked me again for giving a stranger a ride.
"No worries," I said, and smiled, "you don't look scary."
"Well, some people just see the tattoos, you know..."
That gave me an opportunity, so I asked him about the tattoo on his neck.
"It's my son's name," he explained.
"No, I meant on the other side," I said.
"Oh, that," he said, "I'm Lakota."
"I'm Oneida," I said. He smiled. The barriers were down. We were both comfortable now. It turned out he was visiting from out of state, from Pine Ridge. His car broke down and he was looking for a friend's house, near the Walgreen's and the funeral home.