A Dollar Bill

It was a hot day for the beginning of October. Over eighty, I think. The sky was a cloudless, crisp blue, and the noonish sun was making heat ripples rise from the asphalt. I don't remember much of a breeze, but the air had the taut, clear scent you expect in the fall in the midwest.

I looked into the rear view mirror of my Nissan Pathfinder and saw all of the cars behind me doing exactly what I had done. They kept driving right past. We all just drove straight on by the haggard, unkempt, grey-haired lady trudging along the dirty gravel shoulder of the 55-mile-per-hour highway.

My first thought -- and I like to believe, or at least try to convince myself, that the other drivers' thoughts were the same -- was to stop and see if she needed a ride. She certainly looked like she was struggling in the heat as her gait rocked back and forth. And the cars speeding by weren't helping her situation. My notion to stop was instantly replaced, almost as if it had never existed, by the What Ifs. What if she's a vagrant? What if she's psychotic? What if I couldn't get her out of my truck? What if? What if? The story of many people's lives.

The What Ifs diminished as I watched her become smaller in the distance and saw the other cars behind me continue rushing past. The What Ifs almost stopped when I made a U-turn to go back and see if she needed a ride. For all I knew, she could be sick and about to pass out on the side of the road. Whatever the case, she was certainly worse off than I was, and I convinced myself that it wasn't going to hurt to pull up next to her and ask if she was all right.

After the U-turn, I pulled back onto the road with my decision firmly cemented in my mind. Now, the What Ifs became Hell, Maybe.... Hell, maybe she's like Howard Hughes, and she's going to give me a million dollars for giving her a ride. I quickly squelched all except a tiny portion of the underhanded thought. The small part that did remain kept me company and gave me, although I hate to admit it, a tiny bit of impetus as I drove back past her, watched the cars continue to barrel by, turned around and finally pulled up alongside her.

"Excuse me," I said, leaning toward the passenger-side window. "Are you okay? Can I give you a ride somewhere?"

I didn't even finish my question when it was answered by her reach for the door handle. Her weary face with eyes that had seen more misery than a single lifetime should endure, looked at me briefly as if saying, "You'll do." She smiled. It wasn't really a smile, though. It was more a grin of approval that showed off her yellowed teeth, stained black around the edges from decay. Her eyes met mine, and she opened the door. It was a struggle for her to hoist her worn-down body and dirty canvas bag, filled, probably, with her most treasured belongings, up into the truck. She sighed from tobacco-blackened lungs as she sat down, and with a shallow grunt pulled the door shut.

The What Ifs returned with a vengeance, and the Hell, Maybe was gone for good. This was no Ms. Howard Hughes that had stepped into my truck. I looked at her, wondered what I had gotten myself into, and eased the Pathfinder back onto the road.

"I wasn't sure if you needed a ride?" I said. "Or if you were okay? It's a hot day for the beginning of October. Hot to be walking down a road like this, at least."

"Yeah. It is," she said in a pressured, cracked voice that made me think she was indeed schizophrenic.

"How far are you going?" I asked.

"Just up to the gas station," she replied quickly. She waved her hand at the windshield, towards the left side of the road.

"The 76 station right up here?"

"Yeah."

The gas station was a truck stop about a half mile up the road from where I had picked her up. We made the usual small-talk about the weather during the 90-second ride. I don't remember exactly what we said. Yet in the brief instant that our lives intersected, an eternity passed for me as a strange connection between her and me formed then dissolved as quickly as it had materialized. I understood, uncomfortably in a way, that the only difference between her and me were the circumstances that the power that rules our lives had placed in front of us.

"Anyplace will do," she said as we approached the truck stop. "Don't bother yourself with turning across the road. Just pull over here." She nodded to the right.

"You're sure?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I pulled over.

Without quite as much struggle as she had climbing in, she stepped out of the truck and back onto the dusty gravel shoulder of the road.

"Thanks for the lift."

"You're welcome," I said. I was still so taken in by her careworn face and the strange emotion she had stirred up in me that I hardly noticed her hand reaching into the pocket of her stained white pants.

"You a little short?" she asked.

"What?" I started to say.

"Here," she said as her hand came out of her pocket clutching a crumpled-up dollar bill. It looked as worn and as tattered as she did. She tossed the bill onto the seat she had just left. "For gas," she finished, and began shutting the door.

"Wait!" I shouted. I leaned over and reached out to keep her from closing the door. Then I picked up the bill and held it out to her.

"No. Really," I said. "Take this. It was my pleasure."

"For gas," she said again in her pressure-voice.

"No," I said. "It's yours."

"Thanks." She shrugged her shoulders and took the bill. "See ya." She shut the door and walked behind the truck.

I pulled out onto the highway and again watched her disappear in my mirror. This time, though, as her image faded from my view but not my mind, it was with a tender, comfortable sensation of gratitude for what she had given me. Without knowing it, that sweet, worn-down, haggard, no-named lady had given me a million dollars. She gave me a fortune's worth of knowledge along with the experience, that Spirit speaks to us every second of our lives, in ways incomprehensible to us. Yet all we have to do to hear, to open our hearts, let our instincts guide us, remove ourselves from what we have been taught is reasonable, and simply, listen.