UNUSUAL BIRTHDAY STORY PART II

"Allow me to help you please" I said like a true gentleman (which I am). I scanned her items adroitly before she could utter a word of protest. 

It was only when I attempted to pay that she spoke for the first time. She refused my offer but I had earned her trust.  She thanked me and mentioned her name to me. I told her mine.

"Today is my birthday", she said completely out of the blue. I was taken aback. 

"Today is my birthday too", I said. But she wasn't even slightly taken aback. So I was taken aback again that she wasn't taken aback.

But she is an elderly person and elderly people seem to know everything. 

I half-expected her to say "and I know you called in sick at work because they won't give you the day off and there are a truckload of men in your house consuming all your chicken and Pepsi". But of course she didn't say that. 

"How are you celebrating?"

"Not doing much really? I'm having a calm one as usual?" Why I was speaking sentences in question form only Lord knew. But for some reason the words came out infinitely polite. I consciously stopped myself from asking how she was spending hers as that would have been the natural thing to do. I knew she was lonely.

But she had read my thoughts like print. "My closest family is in far away Portsmouth". That went straight to my heart. I fought an urge to go back in there to get her a cake, me being such a nice and lovely young man. 

Just then at the entrance area, something caught my eye and I had one eureka moment. I knew at once what she would appreciate. They had lovely stuff still on display at the store entrance strategically placed to have you reaching for your wallet. I got some gorgeous bouquet of flowers, paid and presented them to her like the queen she was.

"Happy birthday Mrs Knight" I said.

I thought to myself "this is the best thing I've done since...well since the last best thing I ever did". All of a sudden, without warning, Mrs Knight started bawling her eyes out as we approached the car park. I didn't quite get that initially. Then it made sense, she was overwhelmed with emotion, me being perhaps the first man to buy her flowers since the end of World War I. Right, right, right. I could see the appreciation in her lovely little eyes.

But then several people stopped to ask her "you alright?" which sort of baffled me a bit. A few minutes earlier, in the shop when she needed help, not a single person had paid her any mind. She was struggling then not now. So it took them a bit of wailing for them to pay attention? A few people had approached her. But then reality hit me. Like Mr Brown's fist on Rihanna's nose, it finally hit me. They probably think I'm low-key robbing her!

I saw what they saw in their eyes; a black man in a hoodie and matching bottoms standing next to a small, whimpering white old lady right in a quite dark area. If this was America, I probably would've been shot four times by police already. I've got to get out of here and fast, I thought.

People were trying to talk to her. As she opened her mouth to explain that she was just touched by my gentlemanly gesture, the only thing that came out was just louder boo hoo hoo.

I mumbled my excuses and left swiftly. I half-flew into Marl’s car. I must have been panting because he asked me what was happening. He had suppressed his patience long enough but curiosity had gotten the better of him. “I will explain later”.

But I didn’t have to. Because I realised that I had left my bag with Mrs Knight along with her grocery. I asked Marl to get it. I couldn’t be bothered, one. And two, if police were there they’ll take him instead.

Marley came back with my shopping splitting his sides with laughter.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He said he went back to where the lovely lady was and a bunch of elderly people had gathered around Mrs Knight. Soon as they saw him they started telling him what a great gentleman he was. And how he is different he is from the youths of today. There were lots of “blessings be upon you” and “you are amazing, those are lovely flowers” etc etc.

How anyone will mistake Marl for me, I will never know. He looked like a bear in a hoodie. I suppose all black people look the same to some. Like Jacob, Marl had robbed me off my blessings. Great great, great. Typical.