Today, I was driving to Ballet Austin for my regular ballet class. I was on Lake Austin Blvd, headed downtown, stopped at the traffic light before the road splits into Caesar Chavez and 5th Street. There were a few cars surrounding me as we waited for the light to turn green.
I noticed several things at once—a man on the traffic median, the appearance of homelessness with a thick build, a full, dirty white-stranded beard and pale weathered skin on an aged face, shoddy clothing—and the fact that his crinkled cardboard sign was tucked under an arm, and he was facing directly toward the road instead of down the line of cars—and the white pickup truck stopped next to him, window rolled down. Through the rear window, I could barely make out the the driver, a man with cropped hair, gesturing calmly as he spoke. I focused on the man on the median instead, watching his eyebrows narrow and chin nod in serious attention, his eyes widen, his body laugh briefly, his cheeks stretch and old eyes crinkle with a pure, easy contentment as he replied. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, trying to somehow interpret the details of their exchange. It looked just as if they were two friends catching up (maybe they were): the man in the truck seemed to speak again, rapidly, head nodding quickly.
This went on for nearly another minute or so before the light turned green. A tanned arm extended out the window. Instead of dropping change, it clasped the easily raised hand of the median man with a brotherly warmth, and shook. The median man smiled familiarly at the truck, now pulling forward, and they exchanged a few finals words before it accelerated down towards 5th Street. He swung his cardboard sign out from his armpit and stepped a little along the onrush of cars, the hint of a smile on his face as I drove by.
Although you didn’t know it, thank you both for bringing a little humanity into my day.