Adventures on 2 Street

Living on 2 Street, you get pretty used to drunks. The weekends are particularly bad-- when the bars let out there is all manner of fighting, crying, screaming and general carrying on. Deb and I have seen countless fist fights between inebriated, testosterone-laden males and screaming matches between soggy, hysterical females. Sometimes there's even a couple fight-- usually the girl is yelling, chasing after her boyfriend, calling him names. We've called the cops many times.

However, nothing prepared us for last night. Having consumed a few adult beverages ourselves, we opted for a cab ride home from Center City. As the cab pulled up to our cross street, I noticed a woman literally lying in the gutter. Her face was planted against a storm grate, and the rest of her prone body was sprawled out on the sidewalk. At first I thought she was dead, but then from inside the cab we could hear her yelling and moaning.

I hopped out of the cab and ran towards her, while Deb settled up the fare. (Side note: in a tribute to our cab driver, he made sure Deb had a cell phone and offered to call the cops for her. After we got out of the cab, he circled around the block to check on us again. Thanks, man.) As I approached, I could see that she was a relatively young woman (we would later find out she was 29) and that she was dressed like your average Philadelphia hipster, complete with oversized purse, skinny jeans and chucks. I asked her if she was all right, to which she replied that she was very cold. I looked up and down the street for her friends, but the street was deserted. How did she get here?

At this point Deb had joined me, and together we managed to lift the girl off the pavement and learn her name-- I'll call her Jess. Her face was covered with scratches and cuts and the side of her lip was already starting to swell. Jess' hands had the same scratches and cuts as her face.

She could barely stand. Every time we let go of her, she would sway and start to fall back down again. We asked her where she had come from, and she gave the name of a bar about a block away. When asked where she lived, she gave the number of a house just a block away from ours. Not too far. Deb and I decided without communicating that we would take her home.

It was much easier said than done. Although Jess' legs were having trouble working, her mouth certainly wasn't. Deb was talking to her, making sure that she was staying awake, and although Jess was able to answer a few of Deb's questions, she really wanted to talk about Deb. Specifically the fact that Deb was black. And that Deb "looked like a boy". And the fact that we were lesbians. Together. Did she mention that Deb "was a boy"? And Deb was black. And we were lesbians! And Deb looked like a boy.

Man, oh, man, it was tempting to drop this silly bitch on the street again and go about our business. But really, no matter what was coming out of her drunk mouth, there was no way we could leave her like this. Our neighborhood is full of people with bad intentions. She could be really hurt, or worse.

After some confused drunken wandering (she kept insisting that we were on the wrong street when we clearly weren't) we got her to the address she provided. Jess looked up at the house and said in a tone that clearly implied we should have known this all along: "This isn't my house! This is my parent's house!"

"All right", I said "Where's your house?"

She gave another address, just a few doors down. As we got her up the steps, she continued talking to Deb about her race, gender and sexuality. Deb and I did the best we could to deflect these questions lightly-- asked by a sober person, these questions would have made us angry and offended. Asked by this pathetic specimen, we just felt a little sad.

After an extensive dig for her keys in the vastness of her fashionable purse, Jess managed to locate them and unlock the door. She stumbled inside her dark house and the door shut behind her. Deb and I stared after her for a second, unsure of our next move. Just as we took the first few steps back towards our house, we heard her yelling from inside the house. We quickly walked back.

Her cat was trapped between the screen door and the front door and was clawing frantically to be set free. We opened up the screen door and scooped up the panicked kitty, and then Deb carefully opened the front door of the house, saying loudly to Jess "I'm coming inside, okay? I have your cat. She almost got out. Is it okay if I come inside?"

Jess slurred to the affirmative, so we stepped inside and carefully set down the cat. Jess was lying face first on the floor, moaning like she did on the street.

"Should we try to get her to a bed?" Deb asked me.

"No" I replied "She's inside, she's safe, let's just leave her here to sleep it off. We'll lock the door behind her. We don't know her-- I'm not comfortable trying to get her into bed."

We said goodbye, told her to be careful, and left, locking the door behind us. As we walked down the street, we both felt very uneasy about leaving her. She really was in a very bad state. The state she was in and the way she was talking to us we didn't feel comfortable spending too much time in her house. Who knows what she would try to accuse us of in the morning light? But still, she was out of her mind. Possibly worse.

What could we do? We could call 911, or...

In my own tipsy state, I acted with great clarity. I knew what to do. I walked back to the house Jess had indicated was her parent's house, and rapped on the door. Deb stood back, afraid that her race may cause some issue with the occupants of this house. Sigh.

It was by this point around 2:30 in the morning, so I had to knock a couple of times, but eventually I heard stirring in the house. An older man answered the door, peering at me with great suspicion.

"I'm so sorry to bother you" I said "Do you have a daughter named Jess?"

I saw fear and resignation in his eyes. "Yes."

"We were getting out of a cab at an intersection and we found her lying on the sidewalk. We got her into her house, but she is in a bad way. I think you should check on her."

"Thank you" was all he said.

Absurdly, as I walked down the steps and he began to close the door, Deb added "Merry Christmas."

And that was that. We walked home and went to bed. This morning I wrote Jess a note asking if she was okay, letting her know what had happened last night, and also letting her know that we lived close by if she ever needed help. I slipped it through her mail slot on my way to work, wondering if she was still on the living room floor.

The note served two purposes for me-- first, I do want to know if she's okay. And I also want her to know what happened last night. What we did. I doubt her memory of the evening is going to be all that clear, so when she woke up on her living room floor with cuts and bruises and soggy memories of a black lesbian, I wanted her to know exactly what this black lesbian did for her.

Jess, I hope you're okay. And I hope that whoever left you on that street or let you leave that bar in the state you were in gets their ass kicked some day. And I hope that you take some time to examine your prejudices, especially against people who help your drunk ass get safely home.