Sunday night truly took a turn. Henry and I had a really great time at the haunt we went to in West Virginia, but we had to take a detour on the way home because of major traffic on the usual route. This was fine, but it put us on some gnarly rural backroads during a lightning storm which was cool but also…not cool? We were even warned by the super townie clerk of a gas station to BE CAREFUL OUT THERE as we were checking out.

Then Henry, the Profesh Driver, got us lost-ish! He tried to play it off like he knew the whole time. “I shouldn’t have turned by that Circle K…” OK save it for your memoir, Henry.

Anyway, this, in addition to an impromptu pit stop at Walmart (ugh) set us back a good 45 minutes. And maybe you don’t believe in things happening for a reason, but I do. If none of this had happened, we wouldn’t have been on Potomac Avenue at the exact moment a woman was stumbling along the sidewalk, using storefronts as a crutch to hold herself up. Henry and I both groaned at the same time, because OH BOY public intoxication. But then I shook my head and said, “No, we should stop and help her. It’s not good for an incapacitated woman to be out here at night, alone.” Henry didn’t stop though because Henry doesn’t care about women. So, now we were at the red light at the end of Potomac, and he was like, “No, I am being a good Samaritan by watching her in the rear view mirror, you see” and OK cool? But now she was fucking ON THE GROUND, you guys, like she literally couldn’t even walk without the support of a wall.

“You have to turn around,” I said as the light turned green, and I could tell this was the last thing he wanted to do, being literally ONE MINUTE away from our house. But, he turned around and pulled to the side of Potomac just in time for us to see her fall again, while a couple crossed the street to get away from her.

I thought Henry was going to come with me, but he stayed in the car because he “didn’t want to scare her,” OK whatever you say big guy.

When I approached her, she had just made it to the restaurant formerly known as MeKong (please reference below map) and was teetering on the curb, about to cross in front of a car at a stop sign.

“Excuse me, are you OK?” I asked her, tentatively approaching. From the car, I thought she was a woman in her 60s but now I could see that she was much younger – late 20s perhaps. She had that 1990s Kerrie Strug gymnastic hair cut which made her look like an old lady from afar.

Hearing my voice made her abruptly veer toward me and when I say I almost screamed and ran…..her face was bloody, which I was NOT expecting, and she reached out her arms and started shambling toward to me like a zombie. She fell against me and Inner Erin was shrieking “HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT” but Present Erin was like STAY CALM, DO NOT FREAK THIS BROAD OUT.

I asked her where she was trying to go and she said Albert’s, which is a bar at the top of Potomac (past Molly’s, across the trolley tracks, and across the street). This is not a far walk by any means, but this girl was FUCKED UP, you guys. And it didn’t take me long to realize that it was not alcohol, and maybe not even drugs. She looked like she had been beaten, and very recently.

I got her safely across one street to the next block, where she fell again. I am not a strong person. I kept looking around frantically for Henry, who was continuing to do his civic duty by sitting in the car and supervising, I don’t even know but allow me to be a wimpy woman for a second and say that a man’s muscles would have been helpful in this moment.

I was able to pull her up and get her to a bench across from Jmart. I deposited her on the bench and knelt down in front of her, trying to get her to help me understand what was happening.

First, I told her that I wanted to call 911 but she FREAKED OUT. She was like, “No! No no no, I don’t want to embarrass myself, please don’t call.”

Then, I asked if there was anyone I could call for her to help her. I really didn’t think taking her to a bar in her condition was a good idea?! She had said there were friends there that she was meeting, but then she said she DIDN’T have any friends here, that she moved her from Southern California, she had gotten in a fight with her “man.”

THERE IT IS.

“Did he do this to you??” I asked.

She said no, she did it to herself. That she tries so hard to be perfect, and it doesn’t matter. She is so stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

I’m not a big people-y person but this was breaking my fucking heart. She was sitting on this wet bench, her tears mixing with the blood on her face, me trying to throw up at the sight of blood while trying to fill her head with affirmations of her worth.

“I can’t leave him. I’m not from here. I don’t know anyone,” she cried, knocking her glasses off onto the ground. When I picked them up for her, I noticed she was wearing two different boots.

:(

I asked her again if her boyfriend did that to her face. She firmly said no.

But she admitted that he was the one she was trying to get to at Albert’s.

Now I REALLY didn’t want to take her there!!! But she wouldn’t tell me where she lived. And I’m sorry, I wanted to do the right thing here, but taking her back to my house was not an option. I am a fucking sponge for people in need. I try to act like I don’t give a shit about people (and honestly, animals over people every day of the week) but the fact is, I am a goddamn bleeding heart. I was literally one bad decision away from this stranger living in Chooch’s vacant bedroom.

“What is your name?” I asked her, trying to get her to stay with me because now that was seated and not focused on walking, it seemed like she was about to spiral out.

“Stephanie,” she cried in a slurred baby voice. I introduced myself to her and she said, “Erinnnnnnnn. Thank you for your compassion.”

I couldn’t leave this girl sitting on a bench, I didn’t know where she lived, she was refusing potential assistance from paramedics/police. So, our only choice was to get up and keep walking to Albert’s. At the very least, she would be off the streets. That was my main concern at this point.

Meanwhile, there were people walking by here and there, and did any of them stop to ask if we were OK? ONE person. And when I said, “No!” and made pleading eyes, he just kept walking!

Stephanie was now opening up to me about a brain surgery she had had.  I am not sure if this was recent, but she said it was why she was having trouble walking (“Vertigo.”) but I am going go ahead and assume that she was concussed. She could barely walk a few feet without crumbling to the ground and nearly taking me with her every time.

I was taking everything with a grain of salt. I try not to be gullible. But what is the point in lying about a brain surgery? Was it even necessary to try and get further sympathy from me when I was already committed to helping her? She even tried to show me the scar on her scalp and I was like burping back my disgust while saying, “NO THAT’S OK I BELIEVE YOU.” When I say that I have spent ALL WEEK replaying this and dwelling on everything she said to me….

Anyway, now Henry is parked further up the street, across from where I am now tandem-shambling with Stephanie, like the worst So You Think You Can Dance audition. I made eye contact with him and mouthed, “A LITTLE HELP, PLZ!” but he claimed later that he “did not realize” I “needed help.” And that it looked like I “had everything under control.”

OMFG. FUCK OFF.

Yeah, I had everything under control until we got to the trolley tracks and she FUCKING FELL ON THE TRACKS. One trolley had JUST gone past and we were on that side of the tracks so I wasn’t too panicked but also UM YOU ARE ON THE TROLLEY TRACKS, PLEASE GET UP.

Henry saw this but was now back in motion, trying to find a new place to park the car. I truly don’t understand why he didn’t just leave the car in one of the other street spots he was sitting at and just walk!?  I DON’T UNDERSTAND HIM SOMETIMES but phew was I angry about this later on in the week when the adrenaline was wearing off and I was starting to QUESTION THINGS.

WHY ARE MEN SUCH ASSHOLES.

SPEAKING OF MEN BEING ASSHOLES. There were NUMEROUS men who had walked down from the trolley platform. Most walked right past us with nary a glance. One big man asked if I needed help and I said, “YES! PLEASE!”

BUT HE KEPT ON WALKING.

What the actual fuck??

And then these angel babies, the beautiful goddamn humans – a guy and a girl couple – stopped and said, “OMG do you need help??”

“Yes, please,” I said, near-tears. They both grabbed one arm each and gently pulled Stephanie back up on her feet. I thanked them profusely and said that I was trying to get her to Albert’s, which was now blessedly RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. I could have left, I could have walked away, but I had to see this through to the end. I know she wasn’t my responsibility but at this point, I had begun to care about her and just needed to make sure she got off the street.

The man part of the couple walked Stephanie to the open door of Albert’s, which I could immediately tell was populated by Yinzer men shouting at “the game.”

“Anyone here friends with her?” the guy called out into the bar, while I filled in his girlfriend about the night’s events.

“Oh, shit! You don’t KNOW her?” she exclaimed.

“No, I* was driving past and saw her stumbling and wanted to make sure she was OK,” I said, explaining that I hadn’t found her on the trolley tracks (thank God) but way further down the street.

*(hey Henry, you wrote yourself out of the narrative by not getting your ass out of the car!)

“And you walked her all the way up here! That was very kind of you,” she said, and I needed to hear that because I wasn’t sure if this was stupid or not.

Now, some – forgive me – effeminate and small-statured man was walking to the door of the bar. He looked like a young The State–era Thomas Lennon and not intimidating at all. Did I get woman-beater vibes from him? No. But people show different sides behind closed doors…

He approached Stephanie slowly, with a look of shock, totally surprised to, what? See her in that state? Or see her in general? I heard him whisper, “What happened to you??” as he hugged her, and then they just stood there on the sidewalk in a weird half-embrace, staring at each other but not talking.

I….I don’t know. I don’t know what my gut was telling me here. “Don’t get involved”? “Knee him in the nuts”?

I did try to ask him if he did that to her, but they were in some bizarre zone and it was like no one existed on that sidewalk but the two of them. I stood off to the side with the couple, watching this, and they also looked skeptical. At first, it sounded like the boyfriend was going to take Stephanie home, but then they walked back into the bar together.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good place for her,” the man part of the couple said, and I agreed. I considered going inside too but the girl part of the couple was like, “Look, you did all you could do. You got her off the street.”

And I guess so. There is a line, you know? There’s being a good person and then there’s being fucking stupid and putting your own self in danger. One of my co-workers was telling me all the things she would have done and making me feel like I let down all of womankind but not, what? Fighting him? Risking getting shot, stabbed, punched out? Potentially bringing future violence to my home?! You just don’t know. Yes, I wish I had called the police but like Henry the Worthless Bystander said  – the police won’t do anything if she says that nothing happened.

I don’t have the full story. She said that they fought. That doesn’t mean it was physical (though – a fight is a fight and even if it’s “just verbal,” that doesn’t discount it from being abuse). Maybe she really had done that to her face herself. I mean, she fell numerous times while she was holding onto me for support, and we had seen her falling from the car when we first drove past. So, who is to say that those weren’t cuts and scrapes and a busted lip from her repeatedly hitting the pavement?? Henry asked me if I looked at the boyfriend’s knuckles and I can’t say that I did. Maybe if Henry had been there AND NOT CRUISING AROUND LIKE A PUSSY, he could have put his armchair detective skills to use.

Other things to consider: why would he take her inside the bar looking like that if he had done that to her, right? And also, I would hope that the bartender’s red flag would be raised and they would keep an eye on the sitch?!

When I say I tossed and turned that night.

Dammit.

I hope she is ok. I hope this isn’t really an abusive relationship scenario. I think of my own past abusive relationship and how things could have turned out so differently for me if we had stayed together. How there were numerous times when he would stop in the middle of the road and make me get out of the car and I would either have to walk home or find a payphone and call someone. It makes me so mad to personally witness so many people stepping around her, not lending a hand. That could have been me.

(Also, I love that the day before this, some old lady in the Giant Eagle parking lot asked us if we would get her a shopping cart and Henry practically pushed me into a ditch so that he could be the hero. Funny how he’s always the hero when I’m the one out there doing THE REAL WORK.)

Did I help her or did I deliver her to the lion’s den? I think I’ll wonder about this for the rest of my life.

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