I just got back from running late errands and I’m feeling bad. Here’s what happened.

Going out the door, absorbed in checking my purse for keys and money, I heard a voice yelling, looked up. A large man approached from the other side of the street, moving fast. He carried a one-gallon gas can.

“Nee setty fie fuh gay,” he yelled at me. Partly, I was nervous because of his appearance. I couldn’t see his face, hidden way back inside the hood of a huge sweatshirt. The rest of him looked like a homeless person.

Although I didn‘t understand him, I concluded that he was trying to greet me in some way. I smiled and nodded, but stayed by my door on the porch.

He yelled the same thing again. Then he was at the foot of my porch steps. I began to panic. “Nee setty fie fuh gay!” he roared as though I were deaf.

I shouted back, “So sorry, I don’t understand.”

In tones of thunder he howled at me, “NEE. SETTY. FIE. FUH. GAY!!”

My mind whirled. Was he speaking a foreign language? Was this some deep south dialect? Did he have a speech impediment? What the hell was he saying?

Then, looking him over, I got it. He was telling me that he needed seventy-five cents for gasoline. Did I have the change? Yes. But I was afraid to give it to him.

I looked at him and thought, “Is this one of the more theatrically slick winos in my neighborhood?” Did he carry that gas can and demand a small amount from each patron so that after a while he’d be in a position to purchase a sack of forties?

Seeing me stand there like a dummy, he went his way toward the neighborhood gas station/ party store. Relieved, I went down the stairs and got into my car. A few minutes later, driving away, I felt remorseful to see him with his can at the gas pumps. He actually was getting gas…in spite of the fact that seventy-fi9ve cents wouldn’t buy more than a quick spurt from the pumps.

Coming home from my errands, feeling more and more like a mean person, I decided to track him down and give him enough for his next gallon of fossil fuel.

So there I was on a fool’s tour of Park Place in very late twilight. Up and down each street. I looked for that man. Was he pouring his one, small increment of gasoline into the tank of a car? Well, not that I saw.

So. I came home. I shouldn’t have been so distrustful. I should have believed him when I finally understood that he needed gasoline.