A Face in the Crowd, Part II

A swell photo, taken by me.
(Maybe 'swell' is a bit of a stretch...it's an okay photo.)

Friday evening, and as usual, Rob and I were out walking about the neighborhood. I don't know if either of us mentioned to the other, or not, but, I was wondering if we would see William. From about a block away, our unspoken question was answered: He was sitting at his bus stop bench.

The sidewalk is narrow there in front of the bench, and the traffic -- both by pedestrians and vehicles -- is heavy. William was just resting on his bench, maybe waiting. But, I don't know.

As we approached, Rob let me walk first and as I passed, I smiled and said, "Hello," to William, who seemed happy to see us. He acknowledged me, and greeted Rob, too. Then unexpectedly, he asked Rob, "Could I get a dollar from you, to buy some food?"

Rob said something like, "Sure, you've never asked for anything before," and reached into his pocket and pulled out exactly one dollar. Now, sadly, one dollar isn't enough to buy much, but, it was all of the cash that we had on us, as we make it a general rule not to carry money. And we do not give money to panhandlers. But, William is different. William is not a panhandler.

In my last post, I wrote that William will never ask me for anything, and I still believe that this is the case. He could have asked me for money, instead of asking Rob, but, he did not. I've tossed about all sorts of theories as to why he spoke to the man, rather than to me, but, then, I've decided not to over-analyze his motivations. I simply don't know what he was thinking.

But we were glad that he had asked, and we wished that we had more for him.

After exchanging the usual, 'have a good day' type of chit-chat, Rob, said, "Take care, Brother." And William replied, "Yeah, see you tomorrow!"

But we didn't.

And we're not worried, because William is, now, more than a face in the crowd.