I had two encounters yesterday—random occurrences but related thematically. In the morning, I pulled into the parking lot at the auto parts store where I’d gone to get a new battery installed in my vehicle. As I approached the entrance, a man came out of the store and approached me. He apologized for bothering me and said he hated to ask, but he was short three dollars for a part he needed and wondered if I could help him out.
It’s always a tricky situation fraught with complex feelings when a stranger approaches and asks for money. Is it a scam? Should I be suspicious? Is there a potential threat?
I stalled and asked an innocuous question along the lines of “You need a part for your car?”
He mentioned some part I’d never heard of, but this gave me a few seconds to decide that this man and his need were real: He’d just come out of the auto parts store. In his hand he held not a knife but a bank or credit card of some type. He looked about my age but was probably much younger, as if the school of hard knocks had taught him a few tough lessons along his journey. He was stooped and wore a ratty jacket. His eyes were desperate and ashamed, his face long and lined, and his teeth leaning like a pile of toppled tombstones.
This guy needed a few bucks. I pulled out my wallet and handed him a five I happened to have. He thanked me and went back into the store. I followed in and got the attention of an employee to help me with the battery. Then I saw the man who I’d given the money. He came up to me again, this time to hand me my change and offer profuse thanks.
Then at the end of the day, I pulled up and parked on South Swan Street in Albany, in a quiet, dark stretch a couple of blocks off the main drag. When I got out of my car, a woman in a wheelchair across the street called out to me. She said she was looking for a homeless shelter called Safe Haven on Sheridan Avenue. Someone had told her it was in this direction.
Of course I’d never heard of it. I took out my phone and looked it up. I found the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless (formerly Safe Haven), and I reported to her the good news it was only a couple of blocks away. The neighborhood wasn’t great. I offered to escort her and she readily accepted.
She started off in her battery-powered wheelchair and I walked alongside her. We went half a block and then I realized the only way to Sheridan Avenue, and the most direct route to the shelter, was down a long series of staircases that navigated a steep decline. Impossible for a wheelchair. We would have to walk up to the next cross street, down, and then turn right on Sheridan and come all the way back. On my map it looked close to a mile.
I told her this and we started out. She was worried her battery might not last. She traveled in the street because she said the sidewalk is too bumpy and requires too much battery power. Her name was Wanda. I asked where she’d come from, how she ended up here in her wheelchair looking for the shelter.
She said she came from Troy.
“But how did you get here, in downtown Albany?”
“In my chair.”
She’d somehow ridden her chair from Troy, crossing the Hudson River in Cohoes, traveling almost ten miles on her own. She said her daughter lived in Troy, and that’s where Wanda had been visiting, but she couldn’t stay with her daughter, which was why she needed the homeless shelter.
I was trying to process how all of this was possible when I realized Wanda had gotten ahead of me. I couldn’t keep up with her wheelchair unless I jogged alongside her. She was quite the expert—and fearless—operator. She didn’t stay close to the curb but rode well into the traffic lane, not a reflector or light on her or the chair. I suggested she move over to the right a bit. She shrugged me off.
We made the first turn on Lark Street and she zoomed down the hill. I shouted for her to make the next right on Sheridan, then I ran to catch up. We passed two pedestrians and Wanda asked if this was the way to Safe Haven. They were confused until they realized she meant the Interfaith Partnership. They said to keep going down this block.
We eventually got there, with me having to jog the whole way. The chair battery lasted. She asked me for a dollar. I gave her a larger bill. I escorted her up to the door of the shelter and we said goodbye.
The staircase back up to Swan was almost right in front of me. I counted the steps as I climbed—more than 150.
I’d missed half of the English class at the Cathedral of All Saints where I was scheduled to volunteer, but I showed up, slightly out of breath, and took my place among a group of adult students served by the RISSE organization and I began a halting chat with people trying to learn English. My group included refugees and immigrants from Guinea, Haiti, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico. It’s something I used to do before the pandemic and I’d just started again.
The election earlier this month really threw me into a black dungeon of the spirit. I’m burdened with heavy anger, disappointment, and frustration towards people and our country. I’m looking for a secret stairway to climb out of the hole. I’m searching for things I can do to combat a situation I cannot control. Yesterday helped. I need more days like that.
