Somewhere in the last few weeks I decided I was Robin Hood. Not the stealing part- I just like the bow, the green tights, the general silhouette of a man who has decided, on purpose, to make strangers his problem. So I gave myself a quest: one day, go find people who need help, and help them. Keep a tally like it’s XP.
The day ended. The bit did not (that’s part 1). I’m now around, well exactly, $355 in, with nothing to show for it but a string of encounters I cannot fully explain to my wife.
This is really just entropy with a costume. Do random things. Run in a neighborhood that isn’t yours. Let the day mutate. The rounded grooves of a normal life are exactly where nothing ever happens to you, and I have spent real effort making the opposite mistake.
It’s how you end up in a smoke shop with a monkey, beating a jail sentence on what amounts to a D20 charisma roll, escaping a sauna sex ring at the local gym- other stories, other days, all three real. And this morning I’m driving back from Sheetz the most roundabout way that you can. Entropy. I’m in the neighborhood, my second Summer-edition Red Bull already sweating in the cupholder, when a black dude on the sidewalk starts waving both arms and yelling at me. Not today. I am not going to be the white guy who keeps driving. I’m just fucking not. Robin Hood baby.
Windows already down, I used the WRX’s short wheelbase to high-rev a tight little U-turn back to him, which I’m sure read as very heroic and not at all like a man having a midlife event in a sedan.
“What’s up my man?” Fist bump, instant. He needed a ride to Sheetz. The Sheetz I had just left. Robin Hood does not ask questions when someone is in need- he helps them. Hop in.
On the way I told him I’d pull him some cash once we got there, and that was all it took. He talked the rest of the way, and I promise I am not improving a word of it.
“Man- this is a cool ass car- damn man- you know- no one has money on them but I appreciate you figuring out how to help me. So many white people man ‘I don’t have any money on me!’ Man I know you guys got cards and money man- just no one wants to help!”
I nodded, deeply sympathetic, while privately noting that my backseat looks like a crime scene at a daycare: two car seats fossilized in dried juice and ground-in cheez-it, a shade not found in nature.
“Man where are you from? Like what’s your nationality? Don’t say white ain’t nobody white. Ain’t nobody American. Look at you man- blond hair and blue eyes man- hair all up in a bun- ok boy- all types out here man all types.”
“Um, I think my mom’s family is from Germany and Northern Europe? My name is Dustin by the way.” I stuck out my hand. He shook it with real feeling, like we’d survived something together. I’ll be honest, I loved it.
“I’m Chicago. That’s where I’m from so people just call me Chicago. You ever been? Lots of hotties up there man.”
On cue, Ellen’s face lit up the big iPad they bolt into every car now. I hit ignore.
“Oh that’s your girl? Pretty girl man. Damn man. Man- if I was married and had kids I would want to be just like you man. Man I would have done things so different man.”
For a second he wasn’t performing. It wasn’t flattery. It was a guy looking at the life he didn’t get, wishing somebody would hand him a do-over.
“Haha, but I guess you couldn’t mess with these hotties in Chicago though, because you got your girl. It’s a shame though, because they would like you too, boy. Wooo. Pretty white boy like you, riding around with all this big ding ding, I mean bling bling, I mean, you do probably have a big ding ding too, man. I bet your dick is way bigger than mine. Shit, I’m mad, mine is small. I’m going to cut yours off and attach it to mine. Haha, that’s a good one.”
He’s right. It is a good one. There is no available response to a man calmly proposing to harvest and graft your genitals, so I clutched us into a parking spot and said nothing, the way you hold still for a bee.
Here is where Robin Hood earns his stupid tights. Chicago followed me inside, right at my shoulder, grinning, still going, and at the ATM I hit the fast cash button without really deciding to. Five twenties. A hundred bucks. I was, by this point, no longer forming complete thoughts, which is the only honest way to describe a man who has just had his genitals itemized.
I turned and handed him the five twenties.
He went quiet for the first time all morning. Looked at the cash, looked at me, said “that’s my daddy,” and pulled me into a hug like it actually meant something. And here’s the thing- it did. He was grateful and he was kind, and underneath all the cutting-off-and-reattaching he was just a guy having a good morning because somebody finally stopped.
“Take care of yourself,” I said. Which, I realized as I said it, is what you say to a coworker leaving for a marginally better job. It was all I had. I got in the car.
$455 and counting. No XP bar. No glowing respect meter. Just me, driving home for the second time today, Red Bull gone warm, a little holier (I guess?) and a lot weirder than when I left.
lol. Nobody said being Robin Hood was gonna be easy.