Tony, The Reluctant Hitch Hiker

On my way home from work,
I see a middle aged to older man
on the side of the road
near the M-139 True Value Hardware
on the edge of the country
and a few miles outside of town.
He's walking with a cane,
but he stops to turn around
and half-heartedly displays a thumb.
Some sort of reluctant hitch-hiker,
I suppose.

Something is out of sorts
about this African American
thumbing for a ride
with only country houses
in between where he stands
and small town Berrien Springs,
5 or 7 miles further ahead.

I guess I don't have much time
to think about it.
So, I pull over into the small
strip of stores near where he stands
and stop to offer a ride.
He hesitantly accepts
telling me later:
"You never know when someone
may pull a gun or something."
That is after all maybe what
black men think of white men
driving pick up trucks:
gun toting? red necks?

I ask him where he is headed:
"Niles" some 25 miles away,
and I say, I'll give you a ride.
But then he cries.
This grown man,
about my age, mid-50s
cries.

That's when I notice
the wrist band and the papers
he carries.
He's just been released
from the hospital in St. Joe
having started his adventure
at the casino in New Buffalo
where he apparently suffered
a mild stroke.

In the confusion,
he ends up in the St. Joe hospital
maybe because his wife was born
in Benton Harbor?
Or maybe just through a comedy of errors,
he is taken to the hospital 30 or more miles
away from his home:
South Bend.

He tells me he has been unable
to reach any family members
in the past couple days.
Thus, when the hospital discharges him
he has to beg for money to get a cab.
(My blood boils as
I am still trying to understand
why a hospital discharges a patient
who is walking with a cane and
without any money in his pockets
who lives more than 30 miles away
without any means to get home.)

So, with only $10 in proceeds
from his hour or more of asking of people
outside the hospital doors
who mostly say:
"Sorry, I don't have any money"
or worse yet ignore him,
the cabbie will only take him
to the True Value Hardware
where I find him outside of town
reluctantly hitching a ride.

Tony is his name.
He lives in South Bend.
He tells me the house I drop him at
is his sisters
in a run down neighborhood
in a mostly Black and Hispanic area
on South Bend's near west side.

Departing,
we shake hands for a second time
and Tony says he'll say a prayer for me
and I say "God Bless you."

God are you listening?
Can you bless Tony
and his sister too.
It looks like their house
needs a coat of paint,
some tuck pointing,
new windows,
maybe a roof
and a whole lot more.
Oh yeah,
help her help him
find Tony's car in the parking lot
somewhere at Four Winds Casino.

Tony says he ain't gambling
anymore.
I'm not so sure.

So God, if Tony buys a few
plays on the slots,
could you let him hit one,
just one,
maybe a jackpot
enough to fix something
in his home?