Douglas Lucas

The Samaritan

Page 2

The jawing ranted: Can’t you? Can’t you take her shoes, ugly?
           

I tightened my grip on the stuff sack’s string, raised my arms above my head; the heavy stuff sack hung behind my back like a giant billyclub. She was grunting, still facedown, twitching a little. That foot, that shoe, the one trapped underneath the other leg, wasn’t moving. She lifted her eyes to mine.
           

She had in her gaze that dull blankness I know must be in my own, as if she’d forgotten what she’d wanted to say. She had bright skin, midnight hair in a ponytail. The deadened eyes and the beauty gave her the look of a porcelain doll. Yet she was grunting. I looked at that unmoving shoe and I realized I wouldn’t have to hit her with my stuff sack.
           

I dropped it. Her pained eyes! She had a sprained ankle, perhaps. She raised her arm, wanting a hand up—from me! My breath came out ragged, like I had dirt in my throat. I tried to cock a fist back, but it swung around like a haywire ceiling fan. Her eyes sparked to life, darted around in terror until she steadied them, simply regarding me with, I thought, fatality, with serenity, with understanding.
           

The jawing stopped—all from her expression and her hand waiting there, like a question.
           

“Do you see me?” I blurted. I hadn’t heard my voice in days. It rasped.
           

Instead she sort of smiled—grimaced—and said nothing. I looked at her shoe, her hand, her lips curved up and crooked. Her hand waited.
           

I seized it and pulled. Not to lift her up. To take her with me—I don’t know where. I have nowhere.
           

I was pulling as hard as I could, stepping backward.
           

“No!” she screamed.
           

Her ankle, I thought. I crouched and clasped my hands around her waist to pick her up. I stroked her skin to calm her.
           

“No!”
           

I turned my head to smile at her, huge, so she could see I meant no harm. Still she reached into her pocket, pulled out pepper spray.
           

I ran and ran.
           

Later I went back for my stuff sack. Someone had stolen it. My feet burned. I imagined I could still see her there, smiling up at me—if that’s what she’d done.
           

The jawing keeps taunting me. Do you see me? Do you see me? Do you see me?