What Sticks to Strangers

I said it without thinking,

the kind of joke you make

to someone you'll never see again:

"You'd forget your head

if it wasn't attached."

The wallet was in my hands.

Their ID was showing—

face, name, the proof

that they were someone,

that they had a life

to lose.

They smiled weakly.

The smile didn't reach.

They took the wallet back

and the moment closed,

and they walked out of the coffee shop

and I never saw them again.

But I think about it.

I think about how that smile

didn't work, how my joke

landed like a small stone

in still water,

how the ripples of it

probably reached them later,

probably at home,

in the privacy of being known

by no one who'd said something cruel

in passing.

I was trying to be helpful.

I was trying to be light.

I was trying to make

the small moment easier

by making them smaller,

by saying the kind of thing

you say to people

you're doing a favor for,

the kind of thing that says:

this is nothing, you're nothing,

your mistake is so small

I can make fun of it

while still being kind.

Except I wasn't kind.

I was condescending.

I was doing that thing people do

when they want credit for helping

but also want to feel

superior to the person

they're helping.

And they felt it.

I know they did.

That smile that didn't reach

their eyes—

that was them realizing

that the person who'd picked up

their wallet

was someone who'd also just

made them feel stupid.

Now I think about them

when my hands are busy,

when I'm washing dishes,

when I'm waiting in line,

when I'm standing in the coffee shop

where it happened.

I think about how they probably

remember me.

How I'm probably the person

who helped them and hurt them

in the same moment,

the person they think about

the way I think about them,

except they think about me

with anger or shame or regret

at having smiled that weak smile,

at having let me get away with it.

I was trying to help.

But what I did was remind them

that helping comes with

a cost,

that kindness can be

a weapon,

that sometimes the people

who save you

are also the ones

who make you feel

like you needed saving

because you—