Member-only story
Pioneer Square Vignette № 3.
While walking Friedrich, Will and I saw a woman in distress fall in a crosswalk and stopped to help her. Monday April 11, 2022.
I’ve never been in the 7-Eleven at the corner of First and Cherry, but there are always people milling outside of it: talking, exchanging, arguing, smoking, laughing, yelling. Wheeling, dealing. Coming, going, loafing, waiting.
That night, the light from the door spilled across the sidewalk onto the dark street, forming a backlit halo around a Black woman’s head as she lifted it from the asphalt, dangerously close to the wheels of a Subaru. Feet shuffled and cars passed on First where she lay in the cross walk, chest down, head up, crying like a baby who was trying desperately to crawl but couldn’t.
“Hep me! Hep me!” She slurred her words, her eyes wide like a spooked horse’s.
I ran into the cross walk to help her, motioning for the car to stop. The guy we’d passed earlier on our evening walk took Friedrich’s leash so Will could help me get her out of the middle of the road. She struggled to stand, feet bent awkwardly beneath her like a toddler’s. We walked past the 7-Eleven door, cannabis and urine the main notes of the urban perfume. I also smelled rubber from tires and salt evaporating off of Puget Sound.
“Get my wallet!” she yelled.
We stumbled but I managed to hold her up while she pointed to her wallet on the ground next to the store window. I reached down and picked it up. She was 5'10"-ish, maybe 10 pounds on either side of 200, her short hair extending straight up from her forehead like a wall of wool. She wore gray Converse high-tops, unlaced to make room for swollen ankles. Sweatpants and a red tie-dyed t-shirt under soft flannel.
“And that! That!” She pointed to a bottle of orange juice a few inches away, wobbling as I handed it to her, the weight of her body heavy against mine, but soft…
