you people

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

not too long ago, i was waiting by my car for my boyfriend to show up for our dinner date. i'm not used to having to wait for him - it's usually the other way around – so i left our meeting place to see what his hold up was. as i was walking along the sidewalk, a car careened through the 4-way intersection and crashed into a telephone pole/back of a van 20 feet in front of me. had i left, say, 10 seconds earlier, i would have been crushed. but luckily, no one was in his path.

people rushed over to his car to find the driver having a seizure. we undid his seat belt and waited for the ambulance. a woman threw herself on the man and wailed, "don't die! oh please don't die." someone peeled her off of him and said, "he's not going to die."

my boyfriend still had not shown up after all this hubbub. i walked over to his place and collected him. "there's a huge accident!" i proclaimed.

as we walked back to my car and past the driver of the car being loaded into the ambulance, i saw someone poking his finger into the chest of another man and saying, "you people should learn how to drive."

and by "you people", this tiny ignoramus was referring to hasidic jews. i think my neighborhood has the third largest population, outside of israel and brooklyn.

without thinking, i grabbed this man's arm and jerked him to look at me. "excuse me. he had a seizure! a SEIZURE! he didn't do this on purpose!"

he turned away from me. i jerked him arm again and repeated what i had just said. i was so angry that i was stammering and stuttering my words.

the foolish man spoke again, "well, i was hit once – by one of them when i was on my bike. i just assumed..."

"i think you owe this man an apology." i released his arm.

he turned to the man he just horribly slandered and said he was sorry.

i was reading million little pieces at the time, in which the author talks about people's eyes: the emptiness of a hopelessly drunkenly drug-addicted person’s eyes, the truth in a genuine person's eyes...

i turned to the hasidic man, who hadn't said a single word during this whole exchange. even though i'm not a big believer in apologizing on someone's behalf, i said that i was sorry.

as i did so, i looked straight into his eyes. they were icy blue. big, icy blue, receiving eyes.