An Interlude in Edinburgh

"Help."

I've just finished watching the classic of Western cinema known as Howard the Duck with my friend Vasco and his girlfriend Holly. In Howard the Duck, an anthropomorphic duck travels to contemporary (i.e., 1980s) Cleveland, where he proceeds to stop an evil alien from destroying the earth using a big laser cannon that apparently fires the time vortex from the Doctor Who credits.

"Please help."

I'm currently traveling south on A7, having to carry my little Boston U notebook (obtained during my visit to them in the spring, as I checked out their computational neuroscience program) in my hand because it won't fit in my pocket. It's past 1, and almost entirely silent, but in a calming way—the silence of a city at sleep. It's pleasant out, and my leg is feeling better. I'm also heading entirely in the wrong way. I should be going north. In fact, I've been noticing that the ground has been rather flat, and I feel somehow that it should be sloping upwards, but, really, it's quite pleasant out, and the route was so simple, wasn't it? Tracing it out later, I took a wrong turn out of Vasco's apartment building; otherwise, I would have been walking in the correct direction. There's a cemetery just to my right.

I finally localize the voice. It's coming from a figure across the street, but she's moving towards me, crossing the road. She doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the street around her. My first thought is that she's going to be hit by a car. I look down the street both ways. My instincts aren't honed to the UK, but there's no cars anywhere.

"Help me." I think she figures just because I've stopped doesn't mean I've heard her. By now, I can tell from the tone of voice that this isn't the sort of "call 999" sort of shout - it's something less urgent but somehow more raw. She makes it to my side of the road.

She's clearly been crying. A bit of mascara on her cheeks. Her hands keep jumping up towards her face. She says something about her friends, and something about a bus. I don't get it the first time. "Sorry, what was that?"

She tries again. I had said enough to indicate I was an outsider, and so far most people have adapted a bit and slowed down when I haven't gotten things the first time, but she can't seem to. This time, though, I hear more. She was down there for... something. I still can't make it out. She's there with friends. But for some reason they leave without her. Maybe she has alternative ideas, but her phone is dead, or she doesn't have one; it's out of commission somehow. And now she needs to take the night bus, but she doesn't have any change. Not a penny.

"How can I help you?" I ask. I'm not much help. I don't even have a phone. My phone hasn't worked since the Detroit airport. I had to get a chip, or something, to get it to work in Europe, but I wasn't able to in the pre-Europe buzz.

"I... I..." She's still having a hard time speaking. Her breaths are ragged. "I just need the fare."

"How much is it?" At least I have some change.

"£3.50," she says. She seems a bit surprised. "Flat fare."

"No problem," I say. I get out my wallet. I need to fish through it a bit. Coins have different shapes and edges, in part, to help assist visually impaired people to find their coins without sight, but I don't know American coins well enough to do so, let alone British ones. But a £2 coin is pretty big and has two colors; the £1 coin is small and fat; and the 50p coin is large and thin. I know that much, at least. I give them to her.

She's still sniffling a bit, but manages a weak smile. "Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. I don't have anything to give back to you. I'd do anything. I'm so embarrassed."

I mumble something along the lines of "Not a problem."

"I'm so embarrassed. Can I... can I get your phone number, or something? I'm so sorry. Thank you."

I'm not really sure what to say. That won't do you any good? I contemplate giving her my email address, but I don't have a pen or pencil. I had to borrow Vasco's pen to draw a map for the route I had been intending to take. I hate combining pen and pencil. It looks awful. Instead of doing that, I try to reroute the discussion. "Step onto the curb," I say. She's in a bus lane, but she's still on the street, and I'm still worried she'll be hit by a car. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, no, it's, it's fine," she says. "I'm so embarrassed."

"It's just fine. You need to get home," I say. A bit too abrupt, certainly. But I'm worried about her. She might be drunk. She needs to get somewhere safe. She has her fare now. "I hope you have a better evening than the one you've been having."

"Thank you, thank you," she says. "Thank you so much." She turns to leave, and starts walking north, the direction I should be walking. I head the other way. I look back over my shoulder. She's still walking, I think, or is she looking back at me?

'Stranger danger'. That's what we call it in the US, anyway. All the guidebooks are full of warnings. Wear a moneybelt. Keep it on you at all times, even when sleeping. Bring a bag to keep it in when you take a shower. Don't carry more than pocket money in your wallet, and get to your moneybelt outside of plain sight; go into a bathroom and switch out money and your ATM card there. When in a hostel, have a lock, and attach your suitcase to something a thief can't move.

And, of course: beware of these situations. I once saw a 20/20 special illustrating the dangers of travel in foreign countries. In other countries, groups of young children will come up to you, looking like beggars. They'll hold out cardboard for you to put change on. Meanwhile, some of them are rifling through your wallet, stealing it away and replacing it with a suitably similar replacement.

Here's how it could have happened. She comes up to me. Has a sob story. Asks for change. I take out my wallet and rifle through it. Meanwhile, it's dark out, the street is almost completely abandoned, I'm right by a cemetery, and I'm paying attention to her. Her accomplice comes out behind me. Brings himself to my attention. Brandishes his weapon. They know I have a wallet; it's even out. I can't help but give it up. I don't lose much, I suppose, but it's not a great way to start out my official vacation. I have to file a police report to try to recover my stolen property, and meanwhile I'm traumatized by everything that's happening.

But that's not what happened. At first, as I use the patented "satellites in the Northern Hemisphere point south" method to discover that I've walked for a mile in the wrong direction, I'm frustrated that I'm rewarded for my good deed by realizing that I've been going the wrong way. But then I realize that, if I hadn't been going the wrong way in the first place, I would never have been walking down that street at that time, and that woman may have still been frantically seeking someone who would lend her the change to get her back home safely.

I'm a good liberal mainline Protestant. I don't like to talk about religious stuff. But, after I reverse course, and later make myself lost for a second time, I find myself thanking God that I was put in the right place at the right time. If you don't subscribe to such beliefs, then spare a thought for the neurons that caused my brain to activate the "heading in the wrong direction" behavioral patterns. Yet things could have turned out so much differently if I had just looked around a bit, or thought more clearly, or, or, or.

I should have done more. I should have offered to walk with her to the bus stop to make sure she was picked up okay; I should have given my email address somehow and told her to email me when she got home, to ensure she had done so; I should have triple checked with her that I gave her the right fare. And maybe she didn't need it for a bus fare. Maybe she wanted it for something else. But, whatever it is she needed it for, she needed it more than me, so I'm just happy I was there.

On the way back, I also realized that, contra the instructions of the guidebooks, I had neglected to lock my suitcase and to the bed. And, guess what? When I got back, it was still there.

I'm sure there's a time and a place for stranger danger. Kids shouldn't be getting into random cars. But sometimes it's good just to let go of that advice and trust people. Trust that they have good intentions; trust that they have more than their own interest at mind; trust that they sometimes know what's best for them, and sometimes know what's best for you. I'll get burned for this someday. I know I will. And I went and locked up my suitcase like I was supposed to. But I'll keep trusting, because I know I should. Some days, the people really do just want £3.50.