The Accidental Hero

The smile means I found tennis courts near my place.

I have made it my practice, since arriving in the Seattle area, to take walks as a way to clear my mind from having too many ideas, and as an aid to understanding humanity. It also help me write effective dialogue. Human beings are like an ever changing amusement park venue. If you pay attention you will be astounded.

These walks, regardless of the weather, have become an essential daily routine. Because I inevitably end up interacting with people it feeds my idea factory. But things in the real world, unlike things in the world of imagination are out of my control. Exhibit A: Two days ago, after discovering that Spring had sprung without the bone chilling wind I've gotten accustomed to, I ended up making a two mile walk. On the return leg I stopped at Goodwill, a place I've found to be a good cross section of America. Within thirty seconds of entering Goodwill I was drawn into one of those uncontrollable dramas real life throws at us. An agitated thirty-something year old Hispanic woman came in right after me and pleaded for someone to do something about a child that had been left in a car, in the Goodwill parking lot. The nearest clerk, Pamela, threw up her hands and begged me to confirm what the woman was saying. I felt like Dustin Hoffman in Accidental Hero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOA5UzlIwZM

The Hispanic woman led me to the parking lot and pointed to a car parked at the end of a row of cars, and said, "It's that silver white one down there." I assumed the woman would accompany me to the car, but when I turned to ask her questions off the top of my head, such as: 1. How is it she saw the baby in the car? 2. Her name. 3. What she thought about Trump's wall.  4. Whether the cold wind ever completely stops blowing around here.  5. If she'd ever seen the movie, Accidental Hero. But alas, the woman had disappeared. It was a Las Vegas magic act that would never be booked.

I've seen this sort of thing before. I call them angels. More than once I've met people who looked like human beings who vanished without a trace. If you live you life with this understanding, things often are miraculous and laden with humor. You only have to stop and pay attention. I was paying attention at that moment. I walked like Clint Eastwood to the car, which turned out to be a late model silver Mercedes-Benz. The first thing I noticed was all the windows of the car were rolled halfway down. And, sure enough, true to the testimony of the Hispanic angel lady, a little girl who appeared to be about two years old, was fast asleep in a carseat, in the back seat. Beside the sleeping girl, squatted down on the floor, and wedged beside the door, was a girl I estimated to be about four years old. Her black eyes were gigantic owing to the glasses she wore that indicated extreme farsightedness. Those eyes told me everything, and what they were telling me then was she was scared to death, and maybe not just because a stranger was staring at her. Maybe, even at her young age she realized it was wrong for two children to be left in a car in a parking lot regularly traversed by drug addicts and drunkards. I immediately turned and began to walk swiftly to the Goodwill entrance to have someone phone the police. Normally I carry my iPhone with me, but not that day. As I walked a slow moving low rider appeared and cruised past me, its open windows blasting rap music. It slowly passed the Mercedes, and it was obvious that anyone could abduct the children in under a minute, including the lovers of rap music who just passed me at one mile an hour.

Ten seconds later I was asking Pamela, or the other clerk I know there, Linda, if they could please phone the police. They were both busy. Too busy to save two endangered children? Maybe. But my serious tone prompted Linda to phone her manager, whose name is Sheila. I expected the manager to come flying out of her office, maybe on an electric bike or golf cart, and save the day. I was soon disappointed. I was still playing the role of Dustin Hoffman in the film, Accidental Hero.

Sheila moved at under one mile an hour. I was jabbering about the situation, but Sheila was apparently due for an operation to implant a heart, and probably overdue for the drug that made Scarlett Johansson so smart in the film, Lucy. Sheila's brain was operating on less than ten percent of its capacity. Five minutes later we arrived near the Mercedes. Sheila stopped to help a young athletic looking couple donate two cardboard boxes that weighed about five pounds each. At this point I wanted to know if I could be caught if I verbally assaulted a lethargic Goodwill manager. Then we were went to the car. I asked Sheila if she'd brought her cell phone, and if she had a piece of paper for me to write down the license plate number. My back to back questions made logical sense but in Sheila's world they were like people trying to understand Sheldon Cooper explaining Shrodinger's Cat  in The Big Bang Theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFBrRKnJMq4

So I memorized the license plate and we returned to the store. I borrowed note paper from Linda, and wrote the license plate down. I was pretty sure Sheila had no interest in doing anything, since she immediately went in her office and bolted the door. I was by this time worried about the children, so I went out to the parking lot again. Two Hispanic women walked past and went to the car. One was about thirty, and the other about fifty years of age. They got in the car and off they went. Had I been fluent in Spanish (I'd heard them speaking) I'd theoretically been able to detain them. Maybe I would have asked to use their cell phone to report child endangerment. But instead, I threw up my hands and walked home. As soon as I arrived I phoned the police. I soon found myself speaking to another apathetic person. The policeman said something akin to they received innumerable phone calls and they couldn't be bothered with saving two children left unattended, nay - abandoned in a car,(in any parking lot in the city.) I had by that time given the policeman the license plate number. I asked, "Um, okay. Well, couldn't you find the address of the two women from the Mercedes. The 1. Kidnappers. 2. The negligent mother and grandmother. He said, apathetically, he supposed someone could. How about you? I asked. He replied it was possible.

Not satisfied by the apathy of all concerned I sat down and wrote a logical, non-accusatory letter to the Chief of Police. At the top was a license plate icon and model of the car I'd found in less than fifteen seconds after I hung up from speaking with the policeman. I tucked the two page letter in an envelope and walked the two blocks to the police station (yes, I'd mentioned the incident happened two blocks from the police station).

What am I to make of this experience? Well, for one, human beings generally don't make time to deal with emergencies unless they have to. I was the Accidental Hero, the one the universe decided was the man for the job. It's not easy being a hero. But somebody needs to be in this crazy messed up world.