This started out as a fiction exercise, but I thought maybe it would do well on my blog. So here we are.

Several weeks ago I was leaving the Hattiesburg Library, and knew on my way out that there was someone heading out as well, following pretty close behind me. When I got out of the building I turned around to see an African American woman, short with short black hair and dressed in black pants and a fairly nice dress shirt. Her daughter was behind her, and the woman stopped and took her daughter by the arm, scolded her and then gave her three or four slaps on the legs. She proceeded to walk away from the little girl, the child holding her hands to her legs and trying to keep up all the while holding back a sob. I don’t know why I kept turning around and looking back. I must have done it three times probably, and knew somehow the third time that the woman was irritated with me for doing it, and she said, “What you keep lookin’ back heah fo? Yeah, I beat her ass.” I have never taken kindly to authority, and I do not like it when anyone directs a stern tone of voice at me. “I’m not studying you,” I lied. “You need to get a real problem.” I knew she was right, and I was mad that she noticed. “That’s rude,” I said. “You don’t talk to a total stranger like that.” “Whatever,” she said. “No, you have a problem,” I said. “Fix it.” She said something back to the effect of “Yeah, you’re my problem.” I got in the car and cranked the engine, pulled up behind her and gave her the finger before heading out of the parking lot. My Christianity was nowhere in sight. Looking back I wish I had done things differently. Had said, "Ma'am, I'm sorry I was staring, and I'm sorry you're having a rough night. I hope things improve for you." I don’t know what the kid did in the library, but my assumption was that the woman just shouldn't have had the kid in the library in the first place. The child was four or five, six tops, and I know that it must be hard for a kid that age to sit still and be quiet in a setting like the public library. I also thought the woman could have handled things differently--as in not spank your child right out in the open for everyone to see, and then walk away from her as if she were leaving the girl behind. All of this may be so, but I don't know what happened to that woman during the day. I have been in a public library when a child got to crying so loudly that a librarian asked the woman and the child to leave if she couldn't get the child quiet. I don't know if this is what happened to woman above or not, but it's certainly possible. I also know that many people go to the library to use the internet because they may not be able to afford it or a computer at all. I also don't know what kind of day the woman had in general. If she was checking her e-mail about a job opportunity, about a loved one in the hospital, if she was job searching or trying to look at homes in another part of the state or country. I don't know if the child had a daddy to come home to, and I assume she didn't as there wouldn't have been any reason to bring the little girl along had there been another parent at home to let the mom go to the library in peace. None of these things at all may be the case, but I know that it is rare to have that perfect day. I am not obligated to the same kind of responsibilities that that woman deals with every day. It is often very hard for me not to be selfish, and to broadcast that selfishness to the world, mainly because I have not ever had to deal with the kind of selflessness that comes with being a spouse or a parent. I guess if I could explain myself to the woman, I would tell her that it was heartbreaking to see her child in pain and running after her mother in that pain in the dark to the parking lot. I'd say that I didn't understand why it was necessary to slap the child and to do it in public where everyone could see and embarrass the girl. I'd say that I was staring because that's what I do, that in the recesses of my mind I consider myself a writer and the writer is always staring, always observing the world around them for material, to try and understand or even to just celebrate all the mystery that we are subject to in a given day. I'd say that I was staring because I wanted to know the whole story, all the heartbreak and the frustration, and maybe I was looking for the good, because somewhere in there I know that there must be love from that mother to that child, and I wanted to see grace's victory in all the frustration. I could have said all of that to her. Why not? If could lie to her and flip her off, why couldn't I say what I was actually feeling? I wish I had. Such things are what mends the bad from the world. That night I failed.