To The Aid

It is not where you want to be. I think the crazies there are just cognizant enough to actually do...I don't know, something.
So there I am waiting for the bus at 16th and Mission in the middle of the night.
And this woman is hobbling up to me. So I prep myself, toughen myself up, to say, 'No.'
As she gets close, I act as though she is invisible, and of course she asks, "Do you have a band-aid?"
I was taken aback.
I said, "Uhhhh, actually...I do."
And I reached into my bag and produced a bandage.
She smiled a gummy smile and went to speak again.
'Oh, here we go,' I thought.
"Do you have two band-aids," she asked.
"Actually, I do," I said, pulling the second bandage from my purse.
You see, if you are a woman, well equipped with a rack, you understand the pain of an under wire from your bra slipping out and slicing into your flesh while you try to carry on a conversation at dinner and act as though you are not being stabbed in the chest with a ninja ice pick.
That evening I had thrown my torn bra on the sewing machine and stitched it up, but just in case it came undone, I threw two bandages in my purse. And that, that, is exactly what she needed.
She thanked me graciously as she applied the bandages to what appeared to be some sort of serious warts on her hands. She continued with the shower of gratitude, telling me that she could now wait until the morning to go to the hospital.
We talked as I waited. She told me that she lost her teeth because of smoking and she always understood the repercussions, but she was going to smoke anyway.
My heart has grown so callous. This city is so fucked up and I don't even see it.
I was prepared to tell her, 'No!' before I even knew what this other human was going to ask me for.

-miss watson