Don’t Shoot Me

Don’t Shoot Me

At our local Texaco connivance store I was stooped over cleaning out my car before putting the required 75 cents into the car-vacuum when I heard this voice behind me say, “Don’t shoot me”. I turned around to see a slim black man in his middle 30’s, with drawn facial features, carrying a small blue back pack by one strap slung over his right shoulder, looking at me with a mixture of fear, hope, and expectation.


I ask, “What did you say?” I must have had a quizzical look on my face because I’m not used to strangers walking up and asking me not to shoot them.

He stepped back a couple of steps and said “Don’t shoot me.” I continued to look at him with that “I-don’t-believe-you-said-that-look” and he continued:

“I don’t drink, and I don’t do drugs. I have a little money but I need four or five dollars to get me back to Phoenix …”

I could tell by his expression that he was not the professional wino panhandling for drink money. I also knew that I did not know what he might do with the money he was asking for. He may be going back to Phoenix, or home to a family in Tucson, or off to get something to fill his empty stomach, or he may go and buy himself a drink. I also know the empty and sometimes angry feeling of being broke, surrounded by opulence on every side, needing some help, and getting nothing.

By the dictionary definition we are all beggars in eternal matters. We cannot pay for the perfection that God demands. We must accept the gift (death) of His Son before we can live with Him eternally. Because of what God has given to us the Bible says:

“If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing, and you say to him, ‘Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat hearty,’ and then don't give him clothes or food, what good does that do?” (James 2:15-16 TLB)

I knew it was not for me to judge what he might do with the money, he had asked and it was up to me to give or withhold.

Some years back I stopped carrying a wallet because sitting on the curled edge of my pickup seat with a wallet in my back pocket hurt my hip. I switched to carrying my driver’s license, a credit card or two and any folding money I may have in my shirt pocket. I usually don’t carry cash preferring to do all my business on a credit card that gives a few airline miles with each purchase. As he continued to talk about his need for money I glanced into my shirt pocket and saw the corner of a five dollar bill sticking out from among the credit cards and purchase receipts that always hang around in my shirt pocket.

When I handed him that five dollar bill he stopped talking and looked at me in sheer unbelief. He looked at the money, then he looked up at me, and then back at the money and the worried expression on his face began to fade away. I watched as he put the bill in his left hand, made a fist with his right hand and moved in toward me.

He expected me to make a fist with my right hand and then bump knuckles as is the habit of a younger generation. I’ve watched the Mexican men, and others, bump knuckles as a way of showing acceptance and mutual friendship or gratitude for a favor. Those exchanges produce an empty feeling in me as I watch them give each other that show of affection and friendship. The hand shake I am familiar with does not impart that same feeling and we don’t have any acceptable way to touch each other to show our feelings.

This black man, full of emotions of joy, could tell that I was inept in his culture so he switched to an out stretched hand for a traditional Caucasian hand shake. I accepted his firm grip and looked into his grateful eyes and he repeated, “Thank you, thank you …” Then he grabbed me with his left hand, put his head on my shoulder and sobbed as we stood in the Texaco drive way hugging each other while his body shook with joy.

Then he released me, backed off a few steps, and with a sparkle in his eye said,
”Thank you” and turned to walk away. He turned back over his shoulder and kissed the first two fingers of his right hand and then turned them my way and waved with a big two fingered V sign. He walked away with a spring in his step and lightness in his heart that he’d not felt for a long time.

That night as I shared the experience with my wife I told her, “That is the best five dollars I have spent in a long time!”