I had ten minutes to pay for parking, walk to the platform, and catch a train. You pay by shoving money--in this case, four dollars--into a slot in a big metal box that has slots that correspond to each parking space.
A man came up to me. I'm used to this. The parking and train situation is a bit confusing, and everyone from the town of Framingham to the MBTA haven't gone out of their way to explain it. So people are always stopping others to ask questions. But today this man wanted to know if I had jumper cables. His car wouldn't start.
"It's a new car," he said, "and I don't know why it won't start."
He pointed in a general direction, but I didn't see anything that looked like a new car. Maybe he bought it used, but it was new to him. I felt bad for him. I wish I could have helped him out. We've all been in tight spots, where things aren't going right, and a helpful hand is always a relief. I would have liked to have been that relief to that man.
I thought for a second, then said, "No, sorry." I could feel his letdown, so I said, "I know they open at 8:00," pointing to the gas station across street.
"They do?"
"Yeah. Good luck," I said, and headed to the train platform.
The thing is, I do have jumper cables. I just didn't have time to help him and catch my train at the same time. It's only later I wished I had just reached inside the truck and given him my cables. Are you thinking that that is going too far in helping a stranger?
No, you see, those cables were given to me by, well, I don't know who she was; she wasn't a girlfriend. I'm still not sure what she was, but she gave them to me for a Christmas present, and the moment she handed them to me I realized they were an obligation present. You know the kind: One not given from the heart, but given only out of a social obligation. Her manner, her faked concern that it was the wrong gift told everything. And I remember sitting on the floor of her living room feigning delight, but inside knowing she couldn't have cared less. Just one more way she lied. Some might say the cables were even Freudian, an attempt to jumpstart a dead relationship. Or a symbol of the dead relationship itself. But I don't think so. Frankly, I don't have use for symbols in my life any more, Freudian or otherwise.
I've thrown away everything she ever gave me. It's the most cleansing feeling in the world, so freeing to purge the things associated with a person who caused so much pain in your life and was cruel for no other reason except for her own selfishness. To destroy not all memory because that is impossible, but as much rememberance as I can. To strain and push back time to a point where she wasn't in my life. When these things didn't exist, when I did not own them, or they me.
But this morning I realized I still had one more thing she had given me: the jumper cables shoved and forgotten behind the seat of my truck. It would have meant nothing to me to give them to that stranded man this morning, no more than it meant to that woman on that Christmas morning. And my action might have changed a bad memory into a good one. My action could have made two people feel better--the stranger and me. But I wasn't thinking. Like that woman, I was too intent on my own selfishness to do anything good or kind. And I missed my chance.
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