blind leading blind

yesterday morning i was driving to work, late already, stopped at the red light at the northbound i-35 access road and 15th street, cars in front of me, behind me, and to the sides.

i noticed a young black man with a white cane trying to--i couldn't tell if he was trying to cross the access road or 14th street. he wasn't in the right place to do either and was wandering into a lane of traffic. he'd go back and try again, facing a different direction.

i rolled down my passenger window and yelled, "what are you trying to do?" he came over and said he couldn't understand me, so i rephrased my question, "where are you trying to go?"

he said he was trying to get to the school for the blind. that's on 45th, quite a distance.

"hop in," i said, mindful of cars waiting behind me and the green light and a long difficult journey for him ahead.

tried to call my boss and tell her i'd be late, but my cell phone had run down. oh, well, nothing is pressing.

nathaniel was his name, and he was from up north by his speech, not a texas accent. indiana, he said.

he said he had lost his cane, and sure enough, i noticed he was using a length of white PVC pipe as a cane. he said he'd been up all night. he said he got disability payments but had to have an annual review, and his check was being held until the paperwork on that was completed. sounded plausible.

he had green eyes that either looked straight ahead or were closed.

he was going to the school for the blind to get a new cane and also see if he could get a few bucks until his check came through. he lived in an eastside rooming house that cost $12 per night, and he had no money. he was hungry and tired.

with a reframe of the problem, i ended up giving him $15, telling him it was a ten and 5 ones. he asked me not to give him the money in front of people near his rooming house. he asked which bill was on top.

he asked me to take him back to his rooming house. he said he could call the school for the blind and they'd mail him a cane, which would arrive tomorrow. he told me to turn on MLK, which we were approaching.

i asked him how he'd gotten in this situation. he repeated the story about the disability check being late. i meant in a broader sense... and then we got to 13th and chicon where he had asked me to take him. another young black man was there who spoke to him after he got out of the car. it's a "hangout" area, the core of the old black community in austin.

so my $15 got him a place to stay for 2 nights and $3 to eat with. he could sleep, eat, and solve the other immediate problem, the cane.

OR...(and this has happened before with "out-of-place people" on the east side with fantastic stories all ending with a desire for me to give them money) i got scammed.

if the latter, he went to a lot of trouble, and i'm a fool.

i decided i'd rather be a fool than ignore a blind person wandering through traffic.

when i let him out, he said he'd see me again in heaven.