Last night I stopped at 7-Eleven. I stop at 7-Eleven all the time: for lotto tickets, soda, ice, something to satisfy my sweet tooth in the middle of the night, the occasional guilty cigarette when stress seems overwhelming. Last night, however, my trip to the corner store changed my outlook, and may well have changed my life for good.
I pulled in, as I always do, frustrated to death with the traffic, people loitering in the parking lot, the woman blindly opening her door into my car. I took a few minutes to count the bills I had left in my wallet to make sure I would have enough to purchase soda and a couple of lottery tickets, grabbed my purse, and pushed my way inside.
The first thing I noticed is that they didn’t have the kind of pop I like. So I grabbed an alternative, mumbling under my breath how this was just one more thing I was going to have to deal with today. (Can I bring the melodrama, or can I bring it?) Walked past a couple of loud teenagers, and got in line behind a dozen people, all with special issues. I always seem to find myself in line behind every Tom, Dick and Harriet trying to buy a money order with pennies from their change jar. (Have you ever seen someone count out more than $2 in pennies????) It didn’t help that the person at the head of the line had a combination of coins and was apparently mathematically challenged. There was, as always, one girl working the register. She looked like she was having a day worse than mine. I half expected her to grab change-man by his scruffy hair and start shoving nickels down his throat. We were going to be there for a while.
At one point the line actually started moving backwards, as some kids up front decided to let all of their friends cut in front. Aside from the assortment of groans and mumbles, and a quiet “oh no you didn’t” from the woman behind me, no one confronted these kids. At the end of a long day, it hardly seemed worth the effort.
Eventually I got to the register. The exasperated cashier behind the counter had already sullenly rung up my soda, and gave me a total when I remembered my lottery tickets. I thought her head might explode from the look she gave me. I’ve had her job (or one very similar) and I hated every minute of it. I pushed my own grumpiness aside and joked that if I won millions, I would buy her a new tattoo. She gave me a “yeah, right” look, printed out my tickets and gave me my change. I had just enough left over for a cup of coffee in the morning to help make my long commute bearable.
A side note on the lottery; normally I am not a gambler. Ok, I will indulge in a nickel slot or two when I am in Las Vegas, and I have been known to play a hand of poker when the opportunity arises, however, I have never really gone out of my way to seek out gambling as a form of entertainment. I will, however, drop a dollar on a lotto ticket, especially when there is a huge jackpot. I, like most of us, want to believe that some day the gods of good fortune will smile down upon me and allow me to hit all five numbers, plus the power ball. I want to believe that some instant jackpot will take me away from my working world (cube-hell), away from my sub-suburban apartment (ghetto), away from my car payment (Compact PT Cruiser with no frills), away from everything that causes stress in my life. I want to believe that I deserve to run away to an island in the South Pacific and lay on a beach all day. I want to dream of a life where making the bills isn’t an issue, credit isn’t an issue, and rent is but a distant memory. When I buy that quick-pick ticket, I am putting down a dollar that allows me to dream of a better life. I never win, of course, but as my mother always says, it never hurts to try.
So these are the thoughts that are running through my head as I walk out of the door, glancing down at the lucky numbers in my hand, vainly looking for some pattern that will tell me if these are the lucky tickets that will change my life. I was lost in my own musings when I heard the door of the 7-Eleven give its tell-tale chime, and collided with him.
I looked up, annoyed, and came face to face with a grungy fellow, who smelled to high heaven, and looked like he hadn’t bathed in months, if ever. I stepped around him and walked back toward my car. I really just wanted to go home.
As I was getting in, I looked back at the man, just standing in front of the 7-Eleven. As I watched him, I noticed that he didn’t stop a single person to ask for money, didn’t shove, and didn’t bother to go in, didn’t harass or otherwise harangue any of the patrons of the convenience store. He just stood there in the growing shadow of night, silent.
And he was watching me back.
I looked directly into this man’s eyes and I saw something I have never seen before. I saw a man haunted, whether by demons real or imaginary, I couldn’t venture to guess. I saw a man hungry, for food yes, but also for human contact. I saw a man totally isolated and alone. I saw a man drained and devastated. I don’t know what brought him to that place, but he was there, watching me with his quiet eyes.
For the briefest of moments, I stood there looking over the top of my car door at that man. For a miniscule time, we were the only two people in that parking lot. I heard nothing but the distant roar of traffic from the highway in the distance. I felt nothing but the cool feel of my car door in my hand. I saw nothing but the deep pools of his eyes. It seemed to me, for that moment, that whatever was left of him was trapped and scared. I saw straight into the heart of that man’s soul.
A car horn snapped me back into time, and the moment was lost. The man put his head down and slowly walked away. I reached into my pocket and felt the two dollars I had left. The two dollars that would buy me a cup of coffee that I thought would make my drive in to work tolerable. Suddenly, a cup of coffee seemed such a small thing. I rushed up to the man who was walking away. He stopped before I reached him and turned, his sad eyes locked with mine one final moment. I took the two dollars out of my pocket, opened his hand and put them in. I didn’t say a word, but turned around, walked back to my car, went home, and hugged my fiancé with every ounce of strength I had left.
I saw something inside those eyes that will remain with me for the rest of my life. I don’t know what circumstances lead that man to be so utterly lost and completely alone. I don’t know why I noticed him when everyone else seemed able to ignore him completely. I don’t know why, during a busy moment, when I felt rushed all day, I stopped to watch him. I don’t know why but I do know that something in his eyes resonated in the core of my being – something so deep and profound that I am still struggling to find the words to match the feeling. That man was so lost, it brought me up short. I realized that when I say “I feel lost” or “I feel hopeless” or “I feel sad” that I don’t understand the true meaning or depths of those words. No matter how lost or hopeless or sad I may feel, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. What I saw in that man was someone for whom the light long since went out.
Even now, as I think about him, I wonder about the person he was before the darkness took him. I wonder about his childhood and his mother and his life before. I wonder what path he took that lead him to that place. I wonder if he will ever find his way out of the depths of despair and back into the realm of hope. I wonder if anyone will ever be able to comfort his soul again.
I hope so.
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