overpass

2003-01-21 - 1:41 p.m.

I was sitting at the red light, singing along to Weatherman, applying the lyrics to too many people in my life, including myself. Then I saw him up the hill, by the guardrail near the overpass.

He skirted the line of the rumble-strip shoulder and the tan, dry crunchy grass at the edge, zigzagging grass to pavement to grass, looking like he was trying to make up his mind, as long-haulers screamed by too close, far too close on the turnpike.

I watched while the light was red and looked all around me. Nobody else to see him. Nobody else to care. Shit. Here we go again. I turned off my turnsignal. No more insistent click click click.

When the light turned green, I pulled straight ahead into a parking lot and drove as close as I could get to the bottom of the steep hill. I was wondering how I was going to climb up, in my high-heeled boots, until I got out of the car and saw the high fence between me and him. It extended out to both sides and all the way up the hill so there was no way I could climb over.

He turned, took me in, and edged only a little closer to the grass. I called out to him, but he refused to come down. Instead he sat on the frozen ground and stared to me. I tried talking to him, asked him to come down and talk to me. He stared blankly at me, looking away only when a truck racing by came particularly close to his back.

There was no reasoning with him. I don't think death was the choice he really wanted to make. But I do think it was important for him that he had the power to choose. Not me.

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