As they walked out of the coffee house, Al suggested that they head towards a nearby park. The traffic filled with the blaring horns, an occasional squeal of brakes, and a truck whose exhaust reached to the sky with a grey blue smoke. Their eyes and ears were buffeted by the busy world around them.
The streets were crowded and they were silent as they walked. A mother with two young children came in their direction. One of the children, in an attempt to elude the grasp of his sister, darted in front of them. The mother looked anxious and spoke rapidly to her children in Spanish, cautioning them to keep close and not to cause other people problems. Accustomed to strangers not speaking their language, the boy retorted that other people shouldn’t cause him problems either.
Carla grinned and said, “Am I causing you problems, niño?
The boy was startled at first and then grinned. “No, Senorita, tu eres tan belleza para hacer problema para me.”
“Gracias, hijito, pero debe obedezcer tu mama.”
Al chuckled as they walked. They passed a man who wore a Turban and a mark on his forehead. An Oriental couple were chattering in a tongue that neither of them recognized. Four Caucasian teenagers were loudly debating who had the nerve to ask a certain girl to the prom. A homeless man approached and asked them for money. As Al took a bill from his wallet, he asked the man his name and where he was from. They chatted briefly and then they moved on.
“That was nice,” said Carla. “You treated him like a human being.”
“To be honest, sometimes I’m in too much of a rush to want to be bothered, but I occasionally wonder how I would behave if I were homeless and hungry. I think it would make me angry to be treated as if I were invisible.”
“It gets tricky,” said Carla. “That Hispanic mother back there may want to be invisible because she is afraid she’ll be deported. Our homeless friend wants to be visible so that you will have pity and give him some money.”
“In different ways,” said Al, “they experience a harsh world. What they want, what all people want, is for the world to hear their cry.”
