T^e Laby on
t^e
Corner
">^h, come on light! Turn green.
\Jto
be
at this
comer
Please."
I
don't think I can stand
for another second, not with her waiting
wish I could do something to help, but more than that I want the light to turn green so I can drive away. I hasn't exactly been a stellar day so far, and spending my over therein the
rain.
I
week combing the labyrinthine downtown book that apparently doesn't exist hasn't done much to improve my outlook on life. Having finally given up hope, I search for an exit and finally emerge from the library's dark recesses, only only free afternoon this library for a
to find the flat, gray
sky pouring down rain.
Soaking wet from my sprint to the car, I pull out of my hard-
won parking spot into the agonizing mess we affectionately refer to as rush hour.
Still in
a foul
mood,
notice the needle sinking merrily
I
glance
at
my
gas gauge and
down past the "You're a moron for
not getting gas" red area into the "Five minutes until you're
standing by the side of the road waiting for the next Ted
Bundy
to
your rescue" black zone. I snap my attention back to the highway only to watch helplessly as the last exit for really cheap gas whizzes by. Great. Poor college student that I am, I decide to get off at the next exit, turn around and go back. Coasting down the ramp to the light,
come
I
to
try to figure out the shortest
way to get to the gas station.
It's
then
on the curb. Dirty blonde
hair
that I see her.
She's huddles in a
little
ball
down her face and over excruciatingly thin shoulders draped with one of those old, torn imitation leather jackets. She appears to be about thirty years old and desperately in need of a shower. It drips
looks like she's trying, with a marginal degree of success, to stay dry
by covering herself with the jacket. rest
of her clothing, but
I
It's
big enough the disguise the
sincerely doubt
her fi-om the insistent rain.
Her head
much to protect
it's
doing
is
resting
on her knees,
keeping her face hidden.
"Oh, no." I'm so surprised that
I
say
it
alone in the
to see her sitting there in the rain
out loud, oblivious for the car.
I
moment to
the fact that I'm
had forgotten that there are almost always people
comer, begging for a handout instead of getting a job. After a while, you leam to look the other way. I've never seen them like her at this
out in the rain, though.
