Friday, August 30, 2002
Yesterday, two swallows into my first cup of coffee, a friend called to ask if I could drive across town to take her to the doctor's office. She'd sprained her ankle on Monday-still a good bit of pain and swelling. I was glad to be able to do it, especially since she's moving away. I knew it could be a bit difficult since I had a poetry group meeting at my house at 3:00, and the place looked like I had staged a burglary in it. So I threw myself together and took off, proud for knowing a back way that might save time.

There were a couple of minor problems: I'd forgotten about the ragweed pollen and by the time I hit the second stop sign, I found it had rendered my contacts almost useless. Even the outlines of trees were blurry. Turn back? Of course not. I'm driving on feel, hoping I'll recognize intersections as I come to them by shapes of buildings if nothing else. Never been to her house before. Trying to read a map on the passenger seat. Amy Rigby loud from the speakers. Surreal, man. One other thing: my husband had let the insurance lapse on my car.

Hey, I got there. She was sitting on the front steps waiting. Should have pulled the contacts out but didn't. I figured the clinic would be nearby. But she's filed a workmen's comp. claim, so we've got quite a few more miles to go yet. I'm trying not to let her know I'm driving blind while keeping up a cheerful conversation about her injury and still letting her know my pain that she's going away. I think I pulled it off.

We sat in the waiting room the requisite hour and a half. As soon as she went back into the offices, I tore out to the car and tore the contacts out-my eyes already past red. But with my glasses I could see. Huge sigh of relief. Turns out her ankle is broken. At 1:30 I'm starting to panic. No public restroom, either. X-rays, temporary cast, pharmacy, all done-got her home about 2:00, mentally listing what I can possibly do in the fifteen minutes I might have before my guests arrived.

Her house is at the top of a hill and built against a slope. The driveway is as steep as the roof and quite wet. I'm clumsy at best, holding all her x-rays and shoes and papers, and she's trying to manage crutches. When we make it to her front door, I feel as I've conquered Everest.

"Bye-e-e." I'm heading down the steps.

"Bye. "Oh, no, I don't have my house key."

By now, I'm screaming inside. I'd said I'd be home all day. I see people at my door turning away, puzzled or angry, and the meeting it had taken me weeks to set up all for nothing.

I'm getting my cell phone from the car, tiptoeing through the water (I've fallen half a dozen times the past year) when my friend remembers that her husband may have left on a pole underneath one end or other of the back deck. "You'll have to climb over a few hay bales," she says.

I laughed, but she was right. That's not all. Her husband hides keys well. I'm climbing through bushes and flower gardens in yellow linen slacks. There are many poles under the deck, on both sides. To search them, I have to get down on hands and knees in the mud. No key on this side. Bales, bushes, flower bed, mud, poles: none I can find on the other either. Oil stains all over the back of the slacks. But by then my friend has managed for herself with the old credit card trick.

If you're thinking what an idiot I am, you're right. Some of it's funny now, but some of it's not. There I was taking pride in my Good Samaritan act while really not giving much at all, my mind consumed with myself, my own plans. How many more days will I have with this friend? What have I lost in this one? I remember now how great she was, trying to make a cup-half-full list all the way home, while she'd have to cope for weeks to come with trying to get a house ready to sell, managing work here and planning for a new job in another state, all with a broken ankle. All I had to do was get on my knees a couple of times and make a few phone calls of apology.

It reminds me of another recent day. I was hurrying into the drug store when I saw a woman perched on the brick fence outside. I'd seen her before, once or twice, one of the women who rides buses around town, I think, but I'd never seen her in Green Hills. She spoke as I went in, complimenting my dress. That pricked my shame in my affluence a bit. Of course the prescription took forever and I had to get to the post office before it closed. Of course. But you know already, don't you? When I came out, she approached me, and I said I was sorry. I didn't have time.

Angels everywhere and I kick them into ditches. I hate this part of myself. I have some problems with old St. Paul, but this he said so well: What I would not do is exactly what I do.



posted by Sandy at 8:39 AM