The Plano Walmart Supercenter is located at 6000 Coit Road in Plano, TX.
Around 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday night, I was walking out of the Walmart with a random assortment of groceries. As I neared my car, an older woman approached me and started to give me the standard, “I’m sorry for bothering you, but…” routine. I usually try to stop and listen to people’s tales of woe, and I often end up giving them something. It’s not because I’m a good person or anything, because I really don’t think I am. It’s instead because of an overwhelming amount of guilt over having been born into the world of middle-class white people.
The lady stood in front of me while I searched my pockets and wallet for any cash at all. When I came up empty handed, I apologized, wished them luck, and got in my car and drove away.
I was on automatic for the entire conversation. She was someone who needed help for whatever reason, and she decided to wander the parking lot of a Walmart at 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday night asking people for money. I’ve had many people approach me on the street, and I feel like I’ve been desensitized to their plights. The anxiety I feel as they’re asking me for money is terribly difficult for me, so I try to listen to them while I quickly search for money, because money will make them go away and end the awkward, panicky encounter. For me, at least. Yes, I do feel despicable about that.
The Plano Walmart Supercenter is located at 6000 Coit Road in Plano, TX. That’s not far at all from my mom’s house, and I was near my neighborhood when I saw, for the first time, what had just happened in the parking lot.
The older woman was wearing dark framed glasses and a thin red sweatshirt, and her face was fraught with worry. She had curly gray hair and was roughly 5’4″, or about a foot shorter than me. As we spoke, we stood to the left of my car, a blue Ford Focus, and in front of her car, a maroon Dodge Durango. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to get my son to Parkland, and we could use some money for gas,” she said.
When we were standing there in the parking lot, that’s what she said. But “Hey, I need money,” is what I heard.
Parkland Hospital is located at 5201 Harry Hines in Dallas, TX. That’s 23.1 miles away from the Plano Walmart Supercenter. The Dodge Durango gets up to 16 miles per gallon in the city, and this maroon one didn’t look like it was in very good shape. After I searched my wallet for cash the first time, I feel like I just got in the car and drove away. But as I drove into my neighborhood, I remembered seeing a young man in the passenger seat of the Dodge Durango. He had a blank, pained stare on his face, and had his head propped up against the glass of the passenger window.
“If this guy is so sick, why don’t they just call an ambulance? Why does he have to go to Parkland? There are a bunch of other hospitals closer that could help him if he’s actually in some type of medical trouble,” the bitterly pragmatic and pessimistic voice in my head asked.
And that’s when it happened.
Images of the inside of the psych ward started flying through my mind. I saw the faces of patients with blank, pained stares, and the memory of my mother’s face, fraught with worry while visiting me in the psych ward, brought itself to the top of my mind and refused to leave.
I turned around and made it back to the Walmart parking lot and stopped the older woman in the thin red sweatshirt. I asked her to sit in her Dodge Durango with her son, and told her I’d be right back.
I went to the Plano Walmart Supercenter ATM and got a little bit of gas money. I handed it to the woman, and she reached out to shake my hand. “God bless you, son,” she said with a firm and shaky grip on my hand. I wished them a good night, got back in my car, and drove home.
I have no idea what happened to them. I will never see them again, and I have no way of knowing if they actually went to Parkland or if they actually needed the money, and to be totally honest, I don’t want to know.
I just hope they made it. 23.1 miles can be a long way to go at 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday night.
Rogue Group Writing 