It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood…

Here’s a little known fact about me.

I was born with a weirdo magnet.

What’s this you say?

Allow me to elaborte.

For some reason, life’s more colourful characters are drawn to me like a moth to the flame.  Put me in a crowd of 500 people and the lone weirdo will find me. They will seek me out. They will engage in conversation with me.

 

Don’t believe me? Ask those who tend to spend a lot of time with me. They’ll confirm this.

Like the time the man friend and I were on a #1 bus so crowded that we stopped picking new people up. Miraculously a seat opened up right in front of me. I sat down and ended up sitting next to a lady who was looking for my advice on whether or not she should break up with her boyfriend based on the fact that she found another woman’s umbrella sitting on the back of her boyfriend’s toilet.

 

I can’t make this shit up.

It certainly makes for some interesting stories and strange encounters.

So it really should not have come as much surprise when this morning, I was awoken at 7:45am by somebody frantically pounding on my door and screaming.

 

Let me first take a step back.

I have, for quite some time, had my suspicions that I lived in close proximity to a deeply covert women’s shelter of some sort.  That in itself is totally cool, I can honestly think of worse people to share a neighbourhood with. I live in the downtown area of a busy city and I mind my own business, so really, who lives near me doesn’t really matter a whole lot.

So back to this morning. I stumble out of bed, grab a sweater and open the door. There is a young girl pacing in my hallway, crying and looking incredibly strung out and disheveled. She asks to use my phone and I say yes.

Her story starts to come out through tears and through her phone conversation. She has escaped an abusive relationship, but spent the night in the hospital and has been thrown out of the shelter she was staying at. She has no money, no home, nowhere to go and an abusive boyfriend who will hurt her if he finds her.

Finally, not knowing what else to do I invited her into my apartment. I help her phone some shelters and one agrees to take her in. She asks me if I can take her there and she tells me that she’s really scared. I agree to walk her to the shelter. She asks me for money. I have none. I offer her an apple instead.

I throw on a pair of jeans and my coat and off we go. She hugs me. I help her carry her belongings which consist of what she can fit in her backpack and some assorted contents in a tattered garbage bag. The garbage bag rips further on our walk and I set it down on the muddy sidewalk in an attempt to readjust. We both pick it up and get covered in mud. She is wearing slippers and hospital pants.

A Narcotics Anonymous book falls out of the garbage bag and onto the sidewalk. I pick it up for her and keep walking. She tells me that I’m going to make a good wife for somebody someday. She wants to know if she can come by if she needs somebody to talk to. I tell her I’m not sure how helpful I would be.

We get to the shelter. I ring the buzzer. She disappears inside. I wish her good luck.

I walk home in the early morning sun. It’s warm for March and the city is the kind of quiet that comes with early Sunday mornings.

I sure hope that girl gets the help she needs.