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Strange encounter today.
Walking along, I see a man trying to move a couple of large pieces of wood. He is having trouble with the job, but it looks like he simply needs to get the two large slabs positioned on a push-cart.
Any time he tries to move them these two large slabs of wood just slide back onto the street, nearly blocking a fairly busy intersection.
Contemplating the world of hurt I could be walking into, I instead thought “This could be interesting.”
I asked “Do you need some help?”
His first words to me were “Are you an American?” I said yeah. He said “OK, then, I need to get these home. Are you an American?” I repeated my answer, then asked “Are you?” He said yes, “Proud of it, born and raised here.”
He was drunk in the middle of the day, but he seemed amiable and goofy enough that I could find no reason to suspect his motives.
We tried to get these two giant and very heavy slabs of wood onto the pushcart. We failed, and after a few tries I told him that this was impossible. “You’re not gonna get them on there. They’re too heavy, the cart’s not big enough.”
These were not just any old slabs of wood. They looked expensive, what you might use as a headboard for a nice bed or some kind of cabinet. While his energies seemed excessive I understood why he made the effort to plunder these treasures from wherever he found them.
With my help we only succeeded at moving these blocks of wood further into the intersection and into the path of oncoming vehicles. I laughed out loud when I looked up and met the eyes of a livery cab driver staring at us like we, with our giant slabs of traffic-interrupting wood, were the Borough of Queens’ Assholes of the Week.
Before I could say anything he said “Well, you tried, and I thank you.” We shook hands and he followed me to the other side of the street. Asking if I had a cell phone, I called the number of his nearby place of work. He wanted to see if his boss would come help haul these things. No answer, but his gratitude to me was unending.
Shaking my right hand he gallantly slapped my shoulder with his left hand.
Then I noticed it: My arm was completely covered with blood. For an instant I thought I was bleeding, and I looked him in the eye and said “This is gettin’ kinda weird.” He asked again and I responded: “Yes, I am an American.”
He was the one bleeding. For as much blood as landed on me he did not appear seriously wounded. He was profusely apologetic. I asked him “Are you sick?” He said no, “Married for five years, totally clean.” The question seems stupid now but my thinking at that moment was not clinical. The blood of a stranger, thickening on my arm, seemed to demand obvious questions.
It felt disgusting. Blood is viscous. Blood is heavy and it thickens fast. I tried scrubbing it off with a dollar bill, joking that “This is what money’s for,” but the blood just stuck and smeared. I later spent that dollar at a pizza place. SLice of pepperoni.
He invited me to stop by his deli. “I’ll buy you lunch.” In the course of the conversation he told me where he worked, the phone number, his name. I kinda hate to say it but I looked it up when I got home. It all checked out.
Gesturing at the giant slabs of wood we left on the street he said “I wanted to impress my wife.”
I deadpanned “Oh, she’ll be impressed.” I don’t think he heard me, but I was pleased with my wit.
He again invited me to stop by his deli so he could tell me how it goes with his wife and these blocks of wood.
For some reason the “Are you an American?” thing did not register with me until later. Why did he ask so often? Would he have refused my help if I was Polish or Scandinavian? I might have said “I was born in Washington D.C., how much more American does it get?” Thinking this, my mind rattled with a line from the movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” Then the nasal sound of Bruce Springsteen yelling “Booooorn in the U.S.A.” filled a previously tranquil corner of my mind.
I do not come face-to-face with full-bore racism very often, but I know the real thing when I encounter it. He was drunk so I have no confidence that he meant what he said, or that he fancied himself anything but witty and clever.
I threw up my arms (demonstratively) and left him and his blocks of wood at the intersection. “This is weird, I’ll see you soon,” I shouted, referring to his offer for free lunch at his deli.
I walked two long blocks with the sodden feeling of a stranger’s blood on my arm. At a bodega I bought a small bottle of water. I took a lot of napkins. Stepping outside I poured the water over my arm and wiped the blood off with the napkins. The bloodstained napkins are on the shelf in my kitchen right now. The white shirt I wore today is sitting across the room with large blood stains on the right sleeve.
When I got home I scrubbed my hands and arms with Lava soap, placing myself into scenes from M*A*S*H and feeling like a surgeon headed into the operating room.