Waiting for Change
I have been waiting at this light for thirty seconds. I am on my way to my biannual dentist appointment. The other drivers who have also been waiting thirty seconds for this green are wondering the same thing as me, which is if the couple begging on the off ramp will come over to their car. The man has taken the left side and the woman is here, on the right.
I wonder why the woman chose this lane. She’s just like me: skinny arms, graphic tee, ponytail. The man is a mystery. He is a jeff cap bobbing up and down on the left side. He could have no eyebrows or nose or hands for all I can see.
The car has decided that I will listen to NPR. NPR has decided that I will listen to folk music. This song reminds me of rolling fields, black bean soup heated in a tin can, and a mother with callouses wearing a checkered apron. I listen to it while looking at a soiled baby diaper laying on the asphalt.
The begging woman holds a piece of cardboard that says HOMELESS ANYTHING HELPS PRAISE GOD THANK YOU in permanent marker. There are colorful hearts and flowers that she has doodled in the corners of the cardboard. She is an artist.
The driver in front of me—who has also been waiting two minutes for the green—is smoking. He rolls his passenger window up as the woman walks by, even though she is looking at him. She bops her sign from side to side while making eye contact. If I were her, I would stick my tongue out and give the man the finger. Perhaps she knows something I don’t about the begging business.
The woman slowly approaches my car. She has a weeping, gangrenous scrape on her leg. It makes her limp, but I would never have known it just by looking at her face. Her gaze is directed straight at me, as if I am the most important person in the world. It makes me want to do better. Be more. Try harder.
The song on NPR smells of hay. It feels like dried flowers in a vase, sitting under a yellow kitchen light. I wonder if anyone even enjoys folk music like this, or if they just want something that feels like fall to fill the void inside their cars.
I look around for something to give the woman. I dig through my purse, in the back, and under my seat, but I find only fifteen cents in change and my pumpkin whoopie pie. I had placed the whoopie in my cup holder before I left the house. I was planning to eat it in the parking lot right before my dentist appointment, as a way of punishing Dr. Natalie. She claims that I need to take better care of my teeth, even though I already brush in the morning, and at night, and before and after lunch.
I hold the whoopie pie and debate giving it to the woman. Once I gave a seltzer to a man sitting on a median and he threw it back at me, yelling “CASH ONLY.” The woman stands at my open window and looks pointedly inward.
“Here,” I call to her, holding out my hand. She reaches in, balancing on the door.
“You’re an angel,” she says with a broad smile. Her four front teeth have been ground down to nubs. She looks like a friendly, grateful vampire.
“No, thank you,” I tell her. She wiggles out of the window, then limps back the way she came.
I have been waiting at this light for three minutes. It may have been the longest I have waited at any intersection ever, but I have no idea, because I have never timed it before now. I may never wait this long ever again. Or I may have to wait this long again later today.
At three minutes and five seconds, the light changes to green. It is time for a break on NPR. I listen to an advertisement about a local business that is turning fish scales, bones, and heads into fertilizer. This fertilizer could help my mums survive the first frost. It could help them live until Pearl Harbor Day, if I use enough of it.
As I drive by the woman, she waves with her hand clutching the whoopie pie. The artistic sign hangs at her side and I can see that she is pregnant. She is not about to burst, but I am sure that she cannot lay on her stomach anymore.
I wave back, frowning. I wonder if the woman likes being pregnant; if she likes pumpkin; if she likes whoopie pies. I wonder how she will chew the whoopie pie with her nubby, vampire teeth. I wonder how much Dr. Natalie will bully me. I wonder if I will have to get the gel coating this time. Maybe I will be lucky, and receive only a scolding.
I pass under the light, and NPR resumes the folk music.
Madison Ellingsworth likes walking. Her writing is forthcoming in several publications, including FRiGG and Apple Valley Review. Links to Madison’s other work can be found at madisonellingsworth.com.