May 5
Once, a while ago, I was talking with a friend about what it means to live in a community. What it means to be a PART of a community, and what, exactly our responsibilities are towards the community in which we live. At a really basic level, I think we all owe our communities very little. Why should I deal with anything? There are other people around, you know? There's always going to be some aging liberal hippy type person to plant flowers in the park so that it looks nice in the spring. There's always going to be a concerned neighbor who watches over your house when you go away for the weekend and moves your garbage pails off the street so they don't get flattened by cars. There's always going to be the store down the street where they charge like 8 times more than the local Stop and Shop charges, but they know you by name and you go there because they'll run a tab. There are all kinds of ways and things and people who make a neighborhood successful or not so much so.
About 3 years ago, I was driving down Whalley Avenue and I came to a red light. As I looked around, I saw a youngish black guy, bleeding profusely from an unknown facial injury. People walked past him, averting their eyes. He stopped in front of a barber shop filled with guys (and lest you think this was simply racism, it's a barber shop owned and operated by black guys, too). He held his hands weakly up to the windows, walked a few feet and hit the ground. You know who on the street stopped to help him? You know who came out of the store to give him a hand or to call the cops? No one.
I pulled my car over and got out. I gave him water and talked to him. I called the police and an ambulance, and I stayed with him until they showed up, and I WAS THE ONLY ONE. This isn't a story about how swell I am for stopping, but it IS about how it isn't the first time that's happened to me (not quite so dramatically, though) and how surpised I always am when people don't bother to stop.
I don't think I'm an awesome neighbor, to be totally honest. I hate the people who live across the street from me. I don't always offer to help out when it's snowing, but you know, if I had a snow blower (as many of my neighbors DO), I would. I would plow you and your sidewalk and your driveway. I'm sure that that doesn't mean anything--good intentions usually don't. Are you the kind of person who sees a lost child in a mall, frightened and crying, and just walks past? Are you the kind of person that watches an old person trip and fall across the street from you who has no reaction other than "Someone else will take care of that?"
You know, I'm not always a nice person. I've been told many times that I'm out and out mean and I'm almost always a little stupified by that accusation, not because I haven't done my share of shitty things but because I'm the kind of mean person who gives a shit about my community. I'm the kind of mean person who will ALWAYS stop the car when an old person goes down. I can amass enough bad karma with the stuff I don't do. With the times I've driven past a car accident without seeing whether or not the people inside were allright. With my apathy towards politics. With laughing at people in SUVs speeding down the highway getting pulled over.
In all of those ways, I can and often will fail my community, but I will never fail it by walking past another human being in need because that, to me, is inexusable and far worse than sometimes being a bad person.