Ask Wednesday: What would you do?

By Morris Dean

You've just filled up your gas tank at a service station. As you tear off your receipt to leave, you hear someone say, "Can you help us?"
    The driver of the sedan that has just pulled up to the nozzles beyond has lowered his window. He continues:
    "We're down here without enough money to get back home. What happened is, we came down here for me to meet my wife's parents."
    You bend down so you can see his wife. She sits impassively beside him and turns briefly from looking straight ahead to acknowledge that you are looking at her.
    "As you can see," he says, "we're a mixed-race marriage. And my wife hadn't told her parents that I'm black. Well, my wife's father told us that he didn't want to have anything to do with me and would we please leave right now."
    You are rapt at attention. You know that this sort of thing has happened many times, but this is the first time you've ever been told a first-hand account.
    "Well, what could we do?" he says. "We left. Unfortunately, I'd taken my coat off when we arrived , and I forgot to get it before we left."
    It's starting to make sense why they might need help.
    "When I realized that I'd left my wallet at my father-in-law's, we went back but he wouldn't let us in, and he wouldn't give me my coat back."
    Wow, this is a doozy.
    "I decided to call the sheriff and see whether a deputy could go back with me and try to get my coat. They said they'd send someone out. When he arrived, we all went up to the door, but my father-in-law still wouldn't give my coat back. And the deputy said that he was within his rights. I'd have to file a complaint at the courthouse and go through legal channels. That was going to take time, of course. And we needed to get back home."
    Here he pauses – you guess to assess whether you seem willing to help. You think you must still be in a state of mild shock at hearing his story. He is a very well-spoken man, he looks clean, they're driving a nice car. The only thing is that his wife seems somehow detached, maybe even sort of bored.
    He says, "I'm a college graduate, I served in the Marines, and I'll repay whatever you give us to help us get back home."
    In fact, he is wearing a cap with what looks like a college or university insignia on the front. Somehow, though, you aren't sure that you want to give this man your mailing address....

What would you do at this point?

Well, what I did was take my wallet back out of my pocket and fish out a five-dollar bill. I handed it over and said, "I'm going to give you $5, just for telling me such a good story. It's worth that much just to be able to tell my friends."
    I said, "Five dollars won't get you all the way home, but at least it'll get you to another service station where you can tell your story again to the next person."
    Still in character – and it might genuinely have been his character – he took the bill, and thanked me very much for my help, he appreciated it. He even said, "God bless you."
    I got back in my car, and as I drove off, I could see that he was now at the dispensing station seeming to be about to purchase some gas.

That was about five months ago. Last week, as I was coming out of Lowes Foods and about to get in my car, the man drove up again. Again a woman sat next to him and, again, I bent down to look across his arms on the steering wheel. It could have been the same woman. I think it was; she still seemed to be off somewhere else. The car seemed different, however, but I couldn't be sure about that – and so what anyway?
    He said: "Can you help us? We're looking for the Regency motel. Do you know where it is?"
    I'd never heard of a "Regency" motel in this area, and I told him so. And I said, "Didn't I give you $5 a few months ago? Are you trying to visit your in-laws again?"
    Still in character, he didn't skip a beat. He said, "I'm afraid that you must be confusing me with someone else."
    It's possible that I was. But I don't think so. In any case, his story was still worth $5.

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean