2:30, early Saturday morning. The air smelled like fall. I was walking (not inebriated), and I saw a woman sitting on the curb, staring blankly at the street. Her hair was highlighted by streaks of gray shining in the streetlight, and she sat hunched over and weary like an exhausted hiker. Her jacket was light gray, matching the street, and her shoes were scuffed and white. No one else was there; nothing made a sound except the thud of my feet hitting the sidewalk and the soundtrack of high-pitched, drunken laughter in the background. I had no reason to stop for this woman, or otherwise acknowledge her presence, except that she spun her head and looked at me, and watched me as I approached. I slowed and stopped inside the halo of stained-urine streetlight as she continued to look intently, as if she expected something or wanted something from me. I stood momentarily, looking at her. Finally I said, "Are you O.K.?"
She didn't say anything. Just looked. I squatted, about 15 feet away from her. I half-expected her to either pounce on me like a rabid mountain lion or burst into tears. "Are you all right?" I repeated.
"Yes," she answered. Her voice was very clear and sharp, as if I was hearing it in a big, cavernous room, and her demeanor was very assured, as if she knew she possessed something very important and powerful that I couldn't take away from her. I felt uneasy, like I'd done my job by asking if she was all right and now I had no business being there. She was clearly alert, and rational. I stood up. "O.K., then," I sort of stuttered, about to leave.
"Are you O.K.?" she asked me. I shrugged, thought about it for a second. "Yeah, I'm O.K.," I answered. "When's the last time you felt for somebody other than yourself?" she asked, very seriously.
I ran my hand through my hair. I felt like I was being tested by some sort of spiritual guru. I thought. I told her about two guys I knew from my high school. They were a year younger than me, seniors, and the previous night " Thursday -- they'd been drinking and driving and had crashed into a tree and died. I'd found out that morning -- Friday morning -- and I'd felt for them, I told her. That was probably truly the last time.
She shook her head. "You didn't feel for them; you felt for yourself. You felt for your loss." No, that's not true, I answered. I didn't know them that well. I felt for them because I knew enough to know that they were good people, and that they didn't deserve an ending like that, and I felt for the people who knew them better because those people were going to suffer their loss. She watched me as I talked, smiling bemusedly the way you smile at a little kid who doesn't know any better, not patronizing or condescending, but patient and accepting.
"No, you felt for yourself. You didn't feel for them or anyone else; you felt for yourself because it's a threat, a reminder that your life could be ripped away like theirs. One day you'll tire of feeling threatened and you'll forget until something like it happens again, and until you forget you'll feel dazed and defensive and self-conscious without really knowing why. And you'll do it under the pretext of feeling for them."
"Do you really think that?"
"Of course."
"Everyone does this, I take it?"
"Yes."
"Nobody feels for anyone else?"
"Hardly anyone."
"Hardly anyone?"
"Maybe one or two."
"Ever?"
"No, in this country."
"I see."
"What little sympathy you have is dwarfed by pity for yourself. Their death is very pertinent to you. You will let yourself wallow in it until you grow tired of it, and then you will forget."
"Do you feel for other people?" I asked, sort of smiling.
"No, I don't," she said. "I only feel for myself, because one day I'm going to die."
"Don't you think there's better things to concern yourself with in life besides your own upcoming death?" I asked.
She smiled again. "Why? What for?"
"Why do we live then?"
Smiling.
"I have to go," I told her. "I'm feeling for my tiredness." I didn't feel threatened, but uneasy and guarded talking to this glowing guru shining in the streetlight on the curb at two o'clock in the morning.
I walked by, into the shadows as her eyes trailed behind me, into my back. She did not move. I didn't look back as I turned the corner out of sight. I went home and fell asleep.
