A Walk Oct 2nd 2019
Again, I take a walk down to the police station. It has been less than a week since I last walked here. My police clearance arrived and I must pick it up. Again I encounter the school students utilizing their break time to pop into the convience store across the road. This time, I run into Angel and Iris, members if our weekly youth group. They still are reserved when I talk to them, carefully deciding if they can and should trust me. Today however, they greet me before I see them and even crack a joke with me. It fills my steps with hope as I continue my journey.
At the same traffic light where I last wrote that the atmosphere changes for the worse as you get there, I see a female. I say “female” because she could be either 12 or 26. Her hair is made up in a childlike ponytail but she wears the kind if leatherish outfit no girl should or want to put on. She looks slightly pregnant but it is hard to say for sure. She looks short but she walks with such a strange limp that it is hard to tell if she is actually short or just crippled. She is heavily make upped. She looks like she could be quite beautiful but the makeup is so thick that it hard to tell.
As you might have already gathered, this woman or girl is a walking parable, the picture of somebody that doesn’t know who she is or how she would like to present herself. She completes this crescendo of identity crisises, when she reaches into her large silver Hollywoodish handbag and takes out a rubber ball. She now playfully bounces the ball with one hand with the enormous handbag slung over the opposite shoulder. It is like the girl and the woman in her is having a tug of war. She can barely walk straight and is clearly in a drug induced haze but now with her bouncing the ball playfully, she is an accident waiting to happen.
I hold my breath as she wanders off into the crossing without the signal allowing her to do so safely. Instinctively I shout to her to watch out. This makes her catch the ball, turn around and unleash a set of curses on me that trumps the worst things anybody has ever said to me. She carries on, again bouncing the ball and at times swaying into the street next to her. I feel I dare not leave her, so I try to stay near her, just out of her eyesight. She however, becomes aware of my presence and starts cursing me. I stand still trying to figure out how I could protect her without making her feel threatened. She stares at me and then says something that makes my blood stall: “I know what guys your age like, you like it rough. You like to slap, eh?”
I cringe. I decide that I should carry on and leave her as there is no meaningful way to help her. Especially after what her last statement gave away about how she perceives me. She seems to decide the same thing as she turns around and walk the other way but I was only three steps away when I heard cars slamming on their brakes and horns. She walked straight out in front of oncoming traffic and only by a miracle didn’t get hit! I try to help her across but I am met with the same verbal attacks when I approach. She reaches the other side and dissapeared in a side street, still bouncing the damn ball.
I fetch my clearance and head out. I enter an obscure restaurant that advertise African cuisine. When I enter it feels like I just opened a porthole that lead straight to somewhere in Malawi or Nigeria. A typical shebeen style hang-out greets me. I look through the menu and see the main dish, spicy Tilapia is 14 Cad, way more than a quick snack at Tim Hortons would cost. I aim to leave but a friendly black African woman says: “Pleae stay! Our food is really good”.
I stayed. And the Talapia was great. Presented professionally cooked with head and all. I thought of how Jesus ate fish with Peter after His resurrection and how it must have looked just like this. Best 14 CAD I spent all month.
I also think about the strange parable girl-woman, the walking identity dilemma. What could I have done to help her? What can I do in future to help her? I don’t know but I am staying. Maybe in time she and many others like her will get to taste that God is good. If we just stay.