From the archive: 2013, West Hollywood. A short piece about a moment I almost walked past. Lightly edited for language; the moment is exactly as it happened.
It’s impossible to truly see the impact of a moment before it happens.
You could be eating a burger when you get an email from an editor saying he wants to publish your book. You could be driving through an intersection when somebody runs a red light and t-bones you. Or you could just be walking into a bathroom at a grocery store. When that moment hits you and shocks you to your core, most likely you will never have seen it coming.
Let me explain.
I was driving back from playing music in West Hollywood when my wife asked me to stop for groceries. Of course I obliged — happy wife, happy life — but I had to go so badly. So I went to the bathroom in the grocery store. I walked through the double doors into the back room, past all the inventory, and down a flight of stairs.
It was sketchy. No one was around. Boxes of produce were stacked like the stones climbers leave to mark the places they reached. As a writer, I seek out these moments, and my imagination began to wander. Could this be the set for a scary movie, an adventure story, a Murphy’s-law comedy?
When I opened the door to the bathroom, a young guy in suspenders, a checkered shirt, and a fedora was trying to button his fly in front of the sink. I thought I heard someone in the stall. He looked at me and said: “Can you help?”
Here’s where things get surprising. I was sure he was messing with me. He was so well put together, and I thought I heard someone moving around in the back stall — so I read the whole scene as a joke at my expense, and I wanted no part of it.
“I think you can figure it out on your own,” I said.
He was frustrated. He kept trying to fasten his belt, which was actually a seat belt. It seemed like both his hands were working.
“I had a stroke,” he said.
I flushed, wondering if he was for real. Then he clipped the seat belt together, and it seemed like he figured out his belt, and I decided the stroke line was just something he threw in.
“For real?” I asked.
I started to wash my hands, and he walked out of the bathroom. I didn’t think any more of him. So I finished up and went about my day.
Then what I saw nearly broke my heart.
He was standing outside the double doors to the back room, and his pants weren’t fully pulled up. His pants were so tight and his buckle so jammed that he couldn’t manage it. He was talking to two older women. I would guess it was his mother and grandmother.
“Listen, man,” I said, “I can help you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“I don’t mind. Let’s go back to the bathroom.”
“He had a stroke,” the older woman said. “He doesn’t have the use of half his body.”
I could tell he was embarrassed. He kept trying to pull his pants up, but his motor skills were just too slow.
“Let’s go back downstairs to the bathroom,” I said.
“I have problems walking up stairs, too,” he said.
That’s when I realized what a journey he had been on. Just walking up and down those stairs to get to the bathroom, for him, was like walking across the Mojave Desert. And what would it be like to actually ask for help? And then be denied?
“Let’s just go back into the room,” I said.
“No worries,” he said.
“I want to help.”
We walked back into the back room, and I told him to stand against a metal beam. I helped him with his pants, which took some work because they were so tight, and then I zipped his fly. I buckled his belt — literally some stylish version of a converted seat belt. It took a moment.
“I had a stroke,” he said. “I’m withdrawing from alcohol.”
I looked back at him. I could have missed all of this. I could have walked on by thinking vain thoughts. I could have missed a moment.
“My name is Joe,” I said. I shook his hand.
He smiled. “So is mine.”
“You need a better belt, man,” I said. “And to be more upfront. I thought you were messing with me.”
I walked out, and the mother and grandmother thanked me profusely. Then I went about buying groceries for my wife.
When I think about this moment after the fact, I’m almost sick to my stomach. Not because I feel bad for this guy, but because I almost didn’t help — because I almost didn’t realize why I was in a moment. I could have missed something so important to someone else. A simple, human gesture.
I almost missed it.
— Joe
