Racoon City

Last night, while driving home in the rain, three things happened in rapid succession near to the street by my house. First, someone began honking frantically on their horn while I drove though a green light at the speed limit, making me look back in the mirror and wonder what the hell someone’s problem was. Two seconds later, I had to brake and slow down because four teenagers were jay-walking the five lane road while wearing dark clothes. At night. Several feet later, after accelerating back to normal speed, I immediately had to brake again as I saw a racoon dart across the road in front of me and directly under the rear wheel of the car in the lane beside me. The car kept going, likely because it never saw the racoon, but the driver probably wondered at the bump they just hit. They slowed a little, then kept going. Meanwhile, I looked out the side of my window to see a tail twitching. There was a car directly behind me, and nowhere to pull over. I kept driving, but wondered if I should stop and see how it was. Then I remembered I knew nothing about first aid for wild animals. It’s not as if I could take it to the vet, where they would immediately put it down and throw it out like last week’s leftovers, then advise me to get a series of rabies shots to my spine. Even if I were to get out and move it to the side of the road I could be hit by a car in the dark, rainy night, or be scratched and bitten by a diseased, half-dead animal. This is what I told myself as I finished the drive home to make myself feel better.

It was Canadian Thanksgiving, which in a way is also the same as Homeless Day. No one gives a crap about the homeless or less fortunate on any other day of the year besides Christmas. I certainly don’t. People are supposed to donate canned food for the Salvation Army, and help out at the homeless shelters. I certainly don’t do any of that. I’m barely scraping by as it is, and it’s going to get worse for me in the coming months. That’s why I’m so unsympathetic in general, because I’m lower-class already. Also, it helps if they didn’t rummage around in my garbage all day every day, for years on end.

I went out later that night to closest liquor store to buy a Pumpkin Ale the lady in the store told me they didn’t have, and wasn’t even available in Canada, despite the fact I saw it in another local store. I was too lazy to drive the extra few blocks, so I bought the cheapest beer they had. By the front door coming in was the same homeless man I had seen a day earlier while trying to park my car at the grocery store. He was walking down the middle of the lane directly towards my car, so I had to physically brake and wait for him to shuffle past just so I could keep moving forward. That was enough to piss me off, or anyone for that matter. Roads and right-away are very simple concepts. Jaywalking is one thing: walking in the direction opposite to traffic in the middle of traffic is another. He sat outside the store’s Starbucks and watched me enter and leave intently, but I kept a wide berth. He looked newish. It’s not that big of a town and you usually have an idea who the homeless people are.

In the liquor store that night, he was arguing with the counter lady about the returns he was trying to trade in. As I said, this was Thanksgiving, and he could have been visiting any shelter to get a hot, free meal, and take the day off being a bum. The lady wasn’t having any of it, and told him to speak to her manager, who wasn’t there, and wouldn’t be available until the next day, which is a roundabout way of saying, “Get the fuck out.”

We both left the store at the same time, and as I was buckling into my car, he was tapping on my car window. I waved him off, and he kept tapping. Then I told him to, “Fuck off.” He kept tapping, so I said, “Fuck off,” again. If I’m in my car, I don’t want you near me. There could have been a thousand things he could have wanted: either he wanted money, he wanted a ride, or he wanted to sell me drugs or something he stole, or all of the above. I didn’t want any of it. I drove off, angry. I didn’t feel bad, though. Sure, it’s Thanksgiving, and I’m told to care about this kind of shit by a half-assed society, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to care. That night, I wasn’t visited by the Ghosts of Thanksgiving, so I think I’m good. I have real responsibilities, and the imaginary ones I’m supposed to be engaging in as part of being a Good Samaritan don’t really solve any problems.