After taking her hand again, they started to walk along streets that fronted plazas filled with every imaginable convenience: from ethnic grocery stores to little shack-like structures that advertised key duplication or film processing. You could always find a hamburger, taco, or pizza place, as well as upscale cafes and restaurants that featured everything from haute California cuisine to more traditional fare. No one seemed to mind, or perhaps they just accepted the fact that they were forced to operate side-by-side in a city this size. But it was an odd contrast, with suits and t-shirts and colorful red-jacketed valets all vying for space on grimy sidewalks and dusty street corners.
As they turned a corner, they couldn’t help noticing a man sprawled on the shadowy sidewalk a few feet away from them, clutching the dirty wheel of a battered shopping cart that was stuffed to the brim with big, black garbage bags and ragged odds and ends.
“Got any change, mister?”
His gravelly voice was flat and unemotional, and his insolent gaze flickered over them with a hostility born of countless days and nights of living without dignity or purpose.
Noah was curt and dismissive. “No.”
“C’mon, man, I haven’t had nothin’ to eat all day.”
Ariel could see just how little the man felt he had to lose by his whining drawl and aggressive behavior.
“Noah—”
“Stay out of this, Ariel. There are shelters and programs for the homeless. If he wants help, he knows where he can find it. If he doesn’t, he’ll continue to con the misguided and the gullible, along with the guilt ridden, into handing over their hard-earned cash to someone who obviously doesn’t possess a scrap of integrity or self-respect.”
Ariel angrily tore her hand from Noah’s grasp and then spun around to face him as she unconsciously placed her hands on her hips in a combative stance. Her stormy green eyes flashed with righteous indignation on behalf of the man she was protectively sheltering behind her back.
The quicksilver change in her took Noah by surprise, even though he couldn’t help admiring the fiery picture she presented with her chin jutting out obstinately, and her impassioned gaze challenging him to a battle that he sensed wouldn’t end without spilling some verbal blood.
All in defense of a duplicitous vagrant, whose only interest was self-serving.
“There is not one person on this earth who does not inherently possess both self-respect and integrity, Noah. I don’t know where this man has been, what he’s done or not done, or what hell he’s had to face to come to this place in his life, but I do know that salvation and damnation aren’t mutually exclusive. They don’t begin or end by what society chooses to define as the right side of morality or by attaining a collective pedigree. It begins with you and me and every other person who walks by here tonight. If you choose not to give him money that’s fine, but don’t condemn him for living a life that makes you uncomfortable, or demean the best part of each of us that lives in him. And yes, Noah, it does exist, whether or not he recognizes it and despite the fact that you refuse to acknowledge it.”
Ariel trembled with the force of her convictions and her instinctive need to help Noah accept the compassion and understanding that she knew he was capable of.
Noah stepped so close to Ariel that he was practically on top of her. And he was beyond furious. He had been on a collision course with volatile emotions all night, and he could no more stop the anger from spilling out now than he could understand his desperate need to contain it before. He had felt defenseless then, but now he had an outlet for the emotional vulnerability that was foreign to him and made about as much sense as the drivel she was spouting about some sidewalk criminal that he damn well knew preyed on the guileless without a pang of remorse. There were men and woman on these streets that were incapacitated and couldn’t help themselves, but this man wasn’t one of them.
The homeless man sat back on his heels with a look of astonishment on his grubby dirt-streaked face. And for once he forgot all about the handout he was after. He could honestly say that after seeing just about everything there was to see in this stinking world, he was well and truly shocked by the incredibly beautiful woman’s passionate defense of him.
He sat up a little straighter when his well-honed instincts for survival clamored for attention. That was when he got a good look at the man who appeared capable of swatting her aside like some bothersome gnat. She didn’t seem afraid though, but that big guy … he shifted more towards the light … Jesus … it was Noah Stanton. He had seen his picture numerous times in the hundreds of newspapers that had been discarded along with apple cores and fast food wrappings. He swallowed hard and then hurriedly scooted behind the somewhat dubious safety of his buggy while he watched in curious fascination. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had shown this much interest in something.
Ariel was too enraged to back down or step away from the violent glint in Noah’s eyes or the savage look on his face. This was not some trivial disagreement between them that could be brushed aside or made light of, but when Noah finally spoke his voice was terrible.
“How dare you try to defend that shiftless miscreant? Just what the hell do you think he does all day? Pray for the salvation that you claim he deserves, while he steals and cheats his way through life? Is no one to be held accountable, Ariel? Why not just hand him the keys to the city and tell him to take whatever he wants while the rest of the poor beggars who go to work every day with their tails dragging between their legs wait on him hand and foot? Perhaps then he’ll see the error of his ways and miraculously recognize his full and untapped potential as a paragon among men, possibly even a goddamn savior.”
Ariel could feel her fury melting away along with the fierce thrust of Noah’s words. She knew she couldn’t explain why she no longer felt antagonistic towards him. There was just something about him that compelled her to be protective and sheltering, even in the worst of situations. Like now.
Her eyes softened, as she gently implored, “Don’t you ever get tired of being judge and executioner, Noah? Is it so hard to throw out a crumb of compassion for someone who is begging for a morsel of food, or fighting a crippling addiction, or still struggling with the abuse they suffered as a child? You say he is none of those things, but I wonder how many of those people or others he is hiding behind?”
“Are you sanctioning his actions, Ariel? Or doesn’t it matter how he lives his life, because you’ve decided that he’s been a victim?”
Noah’s voice whipped out at her with deadly vehemence. She flinched at the sheer power behind it, but she wanted so desperately to make him understand what she was fighting for. “I won’t defend or sanction this man’s actions, Noah. If he’s responsible for the crimes that you accuse him of justice will be served, in this life or the next, or the one after that, and in ways that are probably incomprehensible to most of us. I suspect that they have much to do with our own will and the need to punish ourselves more ruthlessly than our system of justice or some vengeful deity ever could.
“But compassion is a fragile thing that exists only in the moment. Do you think that the act itself becomes less significant if we’ve been defrauded or taken advantage of? Don’t you see, Noah? Neither side can be diminished by it. And you ask if any one of us can act with impunity? No, we can’t, but acts of compassion and love are sacrosanct. If you want to believe in something, believe in that, and not in a secular world that criticizes love and compassion as coddling gifts of the spirit, gratuitously offered up to remorseless sinners who are only capable of understanding punishment or death. That’s why the harsh condemnations of a thousand courts and sentences will never measure up to the power of compassion to reform and heal.”
Ariel stepped into his angry stance and rigidly held arms, and then gently rested her chin against the hard unyielding muscles of Noah’s chest. She gazed up at him adoringly as she wound her arms around his narrow waist to hug him close to her.
“And you, Mr. Stanton,” she whispered softly, “have a gift for compassion that outshines every angel in heaven and every saint on earth. I know, because you keep giving it to me, unconditionally.”
As Ariel’s tender declaration and ardent entreaty slowly dissipated the mind-numbing fury that had held him immobilized, Noah took a deep breath of the brisk air and fought for control. Then he was crushing her to him while she held onto him just as tightly, just as fiercely, and he couldn’t ever remember a time when his focus had been clearer or more succinct. He struggled with the elusive feeling, but then quickly became uncomfortable with the incongruousness of the situation.
As Noah brushed his lips against the soft, smooth skin of her temple, he let out an aggravated sigh before saying resignedly, “What do you want me to do, Ariel?”
“Oh, Noah, I can’t tell you what to do for this man. Is there something … anything that won’t compromise your principles?”
