RSS 2.0 FeedThe Good Samaritan
I’ve got to tell you about this man I met on the subway today when I was heading downtown to start my Christmas shopping. I’d just got myself settled when I saw this skinny guy heading right towards me. He had a top hat and a thick black beard and one of those long black jackets called morning coats for some reason. His top half looked like Abraham Lincoln, but that’s as far as it went. Below he was just wearing ratty jeans and running shoes. Anyway, he stopped right in front of me and bowed, lifting his hat and swinging it way out to the side. People looked to see if maybe I was the Queen of England! When I realized he was planning to sit down beside me, I thought I’d better hitch over to make room. Vern’s always saying I take up more than my share, but this man, he just said, “Don’t worry your pretty head, madam. This portion is more than sufficient.” Imagine!
Just then the lights flickered, and a voice came on to say there was a problem on the tracks down at Bloor Street. People started groaning and cursing, but the man just smiled at me and said he was in no hurry. I told him I wasn’t neither because shopping is like going to the dentist ─ avoid it when you can. He agreed. Then I told him I knew from his accent that he was from Down East just like my husband.
Before I knew it, we were talking away; and I was telling him all kinds of things, like how His Nibs never likes the presents I buy him, and that I’m a bit of a scatterbrain, not to mention a spendthrift, and I’m too fat, and all I’ve done with my life is make a million meals and wash ten million dishes. Then he said, “My dear! Who’s been saying such terrible things to you? You are a gem! A veritable jewel!” Well of course I didn’t know what to say to that!
Then he said, “Some people say leave ’em lay where Jesus flang ’em. Those people, they just turn and cross to the other side, but not me. I connect.” Then he looked me right in the eye and said, “When I look at you, I see sadness.”
I really didn’t know what to say, and I felt tears prickling behind my eyes. I’m not sure he noticed as he was busy reaching inside his coat for a flask and two tiny plastic cups. I deserved a toast, he said, and so didn’t we just have a little drink right there on the darkened, humming subway car. It’s probably against some Ontario law or another! Anyway, all I had to offer was some chocolate, but they went real good together. So we sat there chatting away and sipping rum.
He was like a priest or at least like an old friend ’cause I talked on and on. I told him about Vern’s bad moods, and about our choirmaster who drives me nuts, and about all kinds of other things, too. He never interrupted me once. He made me laugh, too, telling me about the peculiar people he lives with, like the woman who claims the only safe food to eat is turnips and the man who keeps seeing the face of George W. Bush in tree trunks and thinks he should have got himself on Oprah before she quit her show. The strange thing was that I felt completely happy just sitting there on a stalled subway train drinking rum with this stranger at ten in the morning.
After fifteen or twenty minutes, the lights brightened, and the engines started up again, and we got going. My friend ─ that’s what I have to call him ’cause I never even got his name ─ got off at the next stop. But before he did, he turned back, tipped his hat again, and said ─ I’ll never forget ─ “Remember, madam, God wants us to be happy.”
I know he’s probably crazy, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. I was still thinking about him when I got home, and, wouldn’t you know it, Vern got off early on the one day I was running late. Right away he was all cross that I was wasting money leaving the porch light on. I’ve tried but it’s no use explaining that I worry about him falling ’cause of his bifocals on these rainy nights. Then when he found out supper wasn’t ready, he started on about how the house was cold even though he likes me not to run the furnace too high during the day, and why was I wearing this old blue sweater with a hole in the elbow instead of looking proper when he got home. I should have told him my royal robes were in the wash, but all I said was, “Never mind my clothes. I want to tell you about this man I met on the subway.”
I should have known. Of course Vern said, “What man? What man did you go and talk to on the subway?”
So I told him how the train broke down for a little while, and how this man and I got talking ─ I left out the rum part ─ and of course Vern said the man was crazy and I was even crazier for taking such a risk with a complete stranger. I asked him what could possibly happen to me in the middle of a crowded subway car in the middle of the morning, but he just kept saying, “You can’t be too careful.” I didn’t bother to argue, but he’s wrong on that one. I wanted to tell Vern what the man had said, but Vern cut me off, saying only an idiot would listen to an idiot.
Next thing he was complaining about the smell of the fish I was cooking. So I said, “But, Vern, we’re having salmon pie! You love salmon pie ─ don’t you? Years ago you said salmon pie reminded you of flipper pie from back home.”
But you know what he said? He said, “I don’t remember saying that, and I’ve always been surprised that someone from Ontario would make salmon pie.” Then he started telling me he likes other pies just fine: apple, blueberry, rhubarb, cherry, lemon ─ I told him I understood pie! ─ but he never much liked flipper pie, and didn’t want to be reminded of life in Newfoundland quite so often! I was floored.
Normally I don’t crave hearing what Vern thinks about anything, but I had to ask him about my meat loaf and my butter tarts, so I said, “Don’t you like them neither? Have I been making them for nothing, too?” He said, no, he liked a good butter tart, though he didn’t actually come out and say he liked mine.
Now supper’s done, and the dishes are done, and I’m still all riled up. I keep thinking about my new friend and, for once, I really don’t care what Vern says. It’s sorta like when I had my first taste of this dessert called cream-brulay. It’s French so that’s probably not how you spell it, but my niece learned how to make it from a magazine, and after just one bite, I knew I had to have a second one and a third, and I wasn’t ever going to go a month without cream-brulay ─ unless I find the strength to give it up for Lent. Once you get a glimpse of greener pastures, there’s no being happy with thistles and stones.
Mary J. Breen is a writer, editor, and teacher. She was raised in southern Ontario, taught in Malaysia, lived in BC, and now lives in Ontario again. She has written two books about women’s health; her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in national newspapers, essay collections, travel magazines, health journals, and literary magazines, and one of her plays has appeared on stage. She lives and works in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, where she teaches creative non-fiction and memoir writing. Her e-mail address: Mary J. Breen