Jesus was reported to have shared this parable of "The Good Samaritan" during a conversation with a lawyer...
"A certain man was going from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him of his clothes and belongings and beat him and went their way, leaving him half dead. Now by coincidence, a certain priest was going down along that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side of the road. A religious Levite likewise came down to the place and saw him, and passed by on the other side of the road. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled along, came down to where he was; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity and sympathy for him, and went to him and dressed his wounds. Then he set him on his own horse and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two day's wages and gave it to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I return'. Jesus asked the lawyer, 'Which of these three do you think proved himself a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?' The lawyer answered, 'The one who showed pity and mercy to him'. Jesus said to the lawyer, 'Go and do likewise'."
(Christian Holy Book -- Luke 10:30-37)
I see a lot of animals... both alive and dead... during my late-night luggage delivery job. The highways are strewn with roadkill... mostly deer, woodchucks, raccoons, possums, skunks, rabbits, squirrels, and an occasional fox or coyote. The deer scare me the most because they can do serious damage to my Ford Explorer if I hit one... and they just run out onto the road from the sidelining woods without warning sometimes. So far I have been able to avoid clashing with a deer, but I have run over one skunk (my truck STUNK for two days after that!), one rabbit, and one coyote (Bouy was riding with me when we hit the coyote) in the year since I started this job. Come to think of it, I was rounding a corner at 55 mph in Dunkirk, New York and ran over (more like BOUNCED over!) a dead deer that was laying right in the middle of the road. I didn't have time to avoid it. I get such a sick feeling when I hit an animal. I hate the way it feels... and I hate the way it sounds... as the tires bump over these innocent creatures.
A few nights ago I was cruising
down route 60 in the town of Gerry, New York. I saw something
moving rapidly in the middle of the road. As I got closer I could
see that it was a rabbit. The front part of its body had been
struck and paralyzed by a car. Its head and front legs were lying
motionless in the street... but it's back legs were frantically
running in place... writhing from side to side. It was horrible.
It was totally obvious its injuries were fatal. Not even immediate
medical attention could save it.
When I was a few feet past the suffering rabbit, I thought maybe I should go back and put it out of its misery by driving over it. That probably was the most merciful thing I could have done, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I hoped another car would come along and do it for me. Later, I thought about the Biblical parable of the good Samaritan. Unfortunately, I was guilty of passing by a creature in need, opting to let someone else end its sufferings. A "good Samaritan" I was not.
The streets can be a dangerous place for wildlife... for both wild animals and wild boys. I've driven past shirtless hot boys in so many different small and large cities and towns... hitchhiking on the streets alone at all hours of the night. They are so alluring! Are they using their young sexy bodies just to attract a ride? Are they looking for more? Can they protect themselves if an apparent good Samaritan turns out to be a sexual psycho-predator... or worse!? I probably sound like an over-protective father, right? I do worry about things like this. More unreported rapes happen under circumstances like this than you might imagine. Many guys have confided their secret nightmares to me over the years. It is not as rare as we choose to believe.
The streets turned out to be a dangerous place for my friend Donnie, as well. Like a deer running into traffic, Donnie collided with the wrong kind of people in the wee hours of the night. This cute 18 year old kid was grabbed, taken behind an old building, and raped by two men. When they were finished with him, they left him laying on the ground like roadkill.
I've driven down these streets late at night before. Each town seems to have them. They are dark and foreboding. In the daylight, they appear somewhat normal. But late at night, people you probably would never see during the day prowl the sidewalks... both predator and prey of all things illicit.
So, what the heck was Donnie doing there in the first place? He was lured there by some guy on an internet chatroom. He was looking for action. Not a native of Buffalo, New York, he didn't know the rep of this part of town. Like the wildlife I see on deliveries each night, he was just trying to get to where he was going, unaware of the dangerous traffic milling to and fro until it was too late.
Like the suffering rabbit, Donnie's mind became paralyzed from the hit he endured that night. His feet wanted to desperately escape the pain, but his mind remained fixed at the spot where he was raped. Since the rape, he increased his time on internet chatrooms... telling everyone about what happened to him. He would cry and freak out as he relived the tale in his mind. It made him look helpless... like an easy target. Predators got hard as they heard his story, thinking, if it happened to him once, it would probably be easy to take him down a second time. He got a lot more invitations for action after he started proclaiming his story. I don't think he realized what dynamics were at play, but I could see it unfolding. Even though he spoke like he desperately wanted to avoid getting hurt again, his mind and body remained planted right smack in the middle of potentially dangerous incoming traffic.
"Should I just let him suffer in the middle of the road until his pain surrenders and dies?" I did that to the rabbit, but Donnie is more valuable to me than that. I couldn't just leave him there! There are too many guys in our community who have been repeatedly used, abused, and tossed aside like roadkill on the streets. Guys who have been raped, beaten, harassed, persecuted... or ignored because they are not attractive enough or too old... whatever the reasons are, we have a lot of hurting bodies littering our streets! Many are writhing quietly inside themselves... dying a slow and painful death. I didn't want Donnie to suffer alone like that. And I surely didn't want some careless sex-driver killing his spirit even more by pouncing on top of his vulnerability a second time. These were the thoughts going through my mind.
Sometimes, when I've had a particularly long night-delivery route, I see the sunrise as I am driving home. In those morning hours, I often pass county highway maintenance trucks combing the streets for the previous night's roadkill casualties. They dispose of the bodies and clear the way for the next night's unfortunate traffic-slaughter of animals.
The last thing I wanted to see was Donnie among the "roadkill" body-count of another violent sexual crime.
Since Donnie's injuries were not fatal, I decided I should drag him off the road... away from threatening traffic... by strongly suggesting he stop telling the whole world of internet chatroom strangers about his rape and seek a healthier therapeutic way of dealing with it. I was going to tell him he was only advertising his vulnerability by indiscriminately talking about it too much. Donnie was not going to want to hear this. He was really traumatized by what had happened to him and he was crying out for sympathy and healing everywhere he went. You have to understand my nature here. It is as hard for me to personally confront someone with something they don't want to hear as it would have been for me to put my truck in reverse and run over that suffering rabbit a few nights ago. I can do it, but I usually avoid such things and default it to someone else. It is one of my biggest weaknesses. In this way I am a terrible father-figure and friend.
I put myself in reverse and began heading for the place in the road where Donnie was struggling. When I reached him, I realized the time I wasted debating whether or not to confront the situation had already given Donnie the opportunity to be struck by two more vehicles. The first vehicle was driven by another near-rape attempt. The second vehicle was a church bus driven by a group of Christian fundies who nearly flattened him with accusations that his rape was God's judgment because he had not repented from his "sin" of homosexuality. Donnie's injuries were compounded because I took too long to respond to his need. He's healing nicely now, but I still regret hesitating as much as I did.
I'm thinking about the parable of "The Good Samaritan" again. I think the guy who was robbed and kicked aside like roadkill was LUCKY that the priest and the religious Levite walked by him on the other side of the road. They were unsympathetic selfish bastards. If they would have stopped, their damaging hidden agendas would have only deepened Mr. Roadkill's troubles. Donnie experienced that firsthand.
I drove by the suffering rabbit without doing anything about it. I nearly drove by Donnie too... because I don't feel comfortable saying things if I know they will not be received well. But sometimes it has to be done anyway. If we don't confront a brother when it seems like his actions are setting him up for trouble, there are all-too-many troublemaking Samaritans out there who are more than ready to seize the opportunity.
Jesus described the Good Samaritan as a true "neighbor" because he helped his fellow man in need. Neighbors are bonded together by a common street... or town, city, state... or church, school, club... or nation... or planet. I have not always been a good neighbor because I am often more concerned with making people feel good than I am about potentially dampening things with gentle words of advice which might allow them to benefit from my own experiences and mistakes in life. In this way I am guilty of being a bad Samaritan. No doubt there are a few roadkill bodies laying around because I failed to be a true neighbor when I saw guys trending toward trouble. I said not a word because I feared it might be unwelcomed.
I hope the suffering rabbit knows his painful death was not in vain. It taught me an important lesson... and I hope to change my neighborhood with it.
