Stranger, Cash, And Magic

 12/23/13

        It was cold, it was dark, and my porch light was off.  I’d just pulled the bulb earlier to replace it with some color more “Christmasy.”  (I was thinking red, but was swayed against it by a male friend…)  So the knock at the front door took me aback when I answered and couldn’t clearly see who was there.  I knew enough that it wasn’t a familiar face. 

“Hi.  I hate to bother you.  I’m a new neighbor, and I just locked my keys in my car. I’m waiting to get a locksmith, but he wants $65 cash, and all I have is $52.  Can you help me out?  This is really embarrassing.”

        Do you see where this is going?  If you do, you’re way ahead of where I was.  My antennae were certainly up, and I’ve given money to enough panhandlers with a line to know one when I hear it, but I went with it anyway.  (I have since recognized, and asked to be relieved of, my tendency to not want to seem distrusting of anyone – even when I have every reason to be!!)

        I had no cash on me, honestly, and told him so.  You won’t believe what came next…

        “Well, can you go to an ATM and get some?  I can wait.”

        Wow.  And you won’t believe what came next.  I said OK!!!! 

I don’t use ATM’s, so said I could run up to the grocery store, use my debit card, and get cash back.  (This is embarrassing as I write this.  I must have really been caught off guard!)  I had him come inside out of the cold, while I got my coat, keys, etc.  He then rode with me to the store, at which time he told me who all he’d bought gifts for (2 nieces in New Orleans, a sister, and, ‘of course,’ his wife), how long he’d been married, which house he lived in, where he worked, his occupation, and how much it rained in Jacksonville, where he’d just moved from. 

At the store, I asked if he wanted or needed anything. 

        “Cigarettes would be great.”  (Um, I don’t THINK so!)

        “Um, I don’t THINK so.  I’m already giving you money and extra for gas.  You can buy your own cigarettes.  I meant food.”

        So I got a juice for myself and $20, and back home we headed.  More information on the ride home.  How much their rent was, with a roommate, his wife’s former job, and where his parents lived.  Oh, and his name.  “Steve.”

        “So you want to call the locksmith now, so he’ll be there and you won’t have to wait in the cold?’

        “No, I’ll call him when we get back.  Thanks.”

        I went to drop him off at the house he said he rented (3 doors down from me), but he needed to get his bike first, which was parked in my next-door neighbor’s driveway….  Hmmm…..

        (Gads!  This is so pathetic.  I just get mad as I’m writing this.  How did I miss all this?!  Well, I didn’t, really.  I noticed it all, took it all in, and just didn’t think or choose to ask the questions, afraid that he would think that I “didn’t trust” him.)

        I dropped him off, made sure he’d be OK and said goodbye; he reached across and gave me the hugest hug before he got out of the car.  Where he headed after that, I didn’t see.  I went back to my house feeling, well, odd, at best.  Knowing, though, that I’d helped someone in need.  “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

        I called a friend (the one who’d suggested I not use a red light out front), told him what had happened, and that I thought I might have just been scammed. 

        “You WHAT?!?  You LET HIM IN YOUR HOUSE!???”

        He was all over the safety issue. 

        “It’s not what he might have taken, but what could have happened to YOU!”

Yikes.  Quite frankly, I myself am baffled at how much I put myself in harm’s way, and yet got out of it only conversation, a sense of good will, and a genuinely appreciative hug. 

        Turns out, where he said he lived was the home of Betty, an older woman who knew nothing about a Steve, but who had been approached the same night, much later, by a man with the same story.  She’d slipped $15 through the screen door, feeling, like I had, sorry for him on such a cold night, right before Christmas. 

        There’s a sucker born every minute, I suppose.  And though I clearly fell into that category, from that situation I was able to identify and release a really unhealthy belief/behavior, meet and befriend a new neighbor (who is a TRIP!!!  She came to the door at noon in bright pink zebra-print fuzzy pajamas, cat-eye glasses, and a big hairdo!), and trust in my heart that “Steve” was an angel of some sort, allowing me to safely let my love outweigh my fear.

  I often wonder if Jesus was perceived by some to be a panhandler with a good line, and can’t help but think that I am sometimes being either tested, or offered an opportunity to give, no matter how it looks.  Maybe that’s why I overlooked all the signs of a con, and went, instead, with a hope and a feeling that gifts given that night were mutual and appreciated.  It was, after all, Christmas Eve Eve.