Where I am Going There are Empty Couches

Its almost three am on an early Thursday by the time I am getting off work. Normally I would have no objection to this. I'm used to working long/odd hours ranging between way too early and way too late and since I am kind of a night crawler anyway it doesn't really phase me. Tonight though I got stuck at work against my will and had a paper to write before nine o'clock the next morning which I had yet to do the reading for.

The majority of the shift was spent standing around wiping bottles and letting occasional pleasantly drunk people come up to the bar and order things. There was Mary, the incredibly fit Sam Adamsrep who as the night progressed went from telling her co-workers about her career ambitions to leaving her notebook for work and purse sitting on the bench to stumble off from the bar and after being brought back again telling everyone her and her identical twin sisters were cheerleaders in high school.

There was Tom and Bob who gave me there business card for it I was ever in Northern Kentucky and in need of a taxi. And some guy whose name I don't remember who tipped me too much on three different shots he let me make up which he bought for both of us.

It was a slow night and as it dragged on I became increasingly irritated that I was here and not actively working towards being in all the magical places I want to see in my life and all the ambitious things I want to do as long as I can focus.

Two-something eventually hit and I ended the night after spending extra time getting ready for healthy inspection in the morning by getting a ride home from my friend Mike who had been patiently waiting for me at the bar stool to make sure that I got back safely. I was very tired and as we headed home I sat in the passanger seat trying to proccess the next set of responsibilties I would be up against in the coming days. Finish application, show up for internship, do wash for community center dinner tonight, find time to run to get ready for marathon...its a lot and has been for the past several years of my life; an endless series of deadlines one leading to another climbing higher and higher till some undefined time when I feel as though I have reached success.

We stopped as one of the traffic lights turned from yellow to a useless red which shown alone with the lights on our car on the empty city streets. There, on a bench just outside the window to me, sat an old women on a bench sitting up and sleeping. Her skin was a ruddy wrinkled white and she sat with a knitted cap tied tightly around her aging chin. Little wifts and tufts of gray frizz came spraying in various directions out of the edges of this hat as they were blown by the wind and she her hands were clutched tightly around her waste to prepare for the cold of sleeping outside sitting up without so much as a blanket.

Surrounding here were what looked to be most of the belongings that someone who take with them from a wardrobe. A few plastic bags of shirts and a paper bag overflowing with unpolished looking shoes.

At first I just wanted to take a picture of the sad looking fierceness of her as she sat with her eyes shut tight, her belongings blocking her from the wind as her frail body sat up ridgigly, primarly defenseless, against anyone who could be so cruel to take one of these bags from her. Yet then I realized that where I am going there are empty couches. There is even a sleeping bag that I keep under my bed for when friends visit or I want to go on a camping trip.

Should I nudge her awake and ask her if she'd like to come sleep in the couch in the little parlour at the front of my house? There is no one who uses it, and even if the fear that all homeless people, including skinny looking grandma ones, are violent thefty maniacs was true, there is nothing in the little parlour worth stealing and she wouldn't have access to anything else in the house. Would she feel threatened or confronted if me, a total stranger at three in the morning,woke her up from her hard won sleep to tell her she is welcome to come home with me?

And if not that, I mean I do have homework to do, perhaps I ought to give her some of the money thats in my pocket. I made more than i'll need to feed myself and stay on top of the few bills i'm responsible for at this point in my life. Perhaps I could just offer her a few dollars for some warm coffee in the morning or a blanket?

But as the light on the other side of the road starts to turn yellow I realize that instead of getting out to do anything I am just going to keep heading back down the road to my house. I'm going to try to forget this guilty feeling instead change my focus and look ahead.

Is this where is starts? I have homework to do, I have life plans to work on, I have things I need to save for because I want to be someone important. I work hard and I feel like i've won some sort of right in my life to look out for whats best for myself. Yet is this the beginning of a deeply innate human sin of a growing seperation between the will to power and the will to do what is good? Is this the beginning of a removal from empathy, or simply a blunt revealing of the truth about what drives most human actions?

Where I am going there are empty couches, there are important people to shake hands with at the other ends of long flights and serious meetings to sit in on about environmental blah blah blah and multi-cultural yada yada. There are thesis papers to write on social abandonment on little lap tops and long conversations about socitial responsibility over cups of expensive coffee to be had.

Where I am going there is mobility. This is my senior year and for the first time i feel like i've got it all right in front of me, the options I want to do what I want when I want to. There is a full life ahead of me and several volunteer experiences that might look good on a resume behind. Where I am going there is future, there is history to witness and in some small way help direct and motorcyles to be purchased. Where I am going, I think in a brief second as the light turns green and our car putters off, there are frozen vegetables in the freezer to eat while writing my paper about feminism and headphones with which to listen to music while I try not to fall asleep as I work on steadily improving my gpa. There is a lot of work to do and many more long, tiring nights of working too long to be fought through.

Where I am headed I will be looking out for this women. I will be making the important decisions that will directly effect her life and because I'm "trying to do whats right" and i'll be sure to make the ones that will help instead of ignore or harm her. I'll personally put an end to whatever corporate evils have left her homeless and ensure that people feel a responsibility to stop and do something when they drive past someone like her at night.