The Pros and Cons of Helping

March 19th, 2022

I woke up early today, at around 6:50am. That’s normally early for me, but has been the norm in Mexico. It’s Saturday, so I was hoping to get a few more hours of sleep in, but I find myself on the sun’s schedule these past few weeks, so as soon as those roosters started yelling, I knew I wasn’t sleeping any more. Is it just me, or the whole “cockeldoodledoo” thing is a little played out and cliché, no?

I did my typical Saturday morning thing; I lay in bed scrolling the timelines, filling in the Wordle, and looking at things on my phone. After checking the NCAA College Basketball schedule for the day (it is the thralls of March Madness, after all), I saw that games started at 10:15am. It was somehow already 8:00am, so I decided the game plan would be to smoke my very last joint and go for a little walk, picking up something to eat along the way, and making it home in time to catch tip off. Yes, very good.

I finished up the weed and got nice and baked. I’m here for another week, which isn’t a long time to go without any, but would definitely be improved by having some. Then again, every time I venture out of the residency in which I’m staying, I get bombarded with offers to purchase more marijuana, so I know it’s out there if needed. I don’t know what it is about me that screams “this guy gets high”, but this has been the case since before it was even true. Everywhere I go, people are either offering, or asking for, cannabis. You grow your beard and wear tie-dye everyday and all of a sudden you’re typecast…

Zipolite is an interesting place. From what I can observe, there’s an interesting divide between locals and visitors. The visitors are here to vacation; to dine, to drink, to socialize, and to enjoy themselves. The locals are often up early, hammering planks of wood and moving around large wheelbarrows full of gravel. The visitors barely look in the direction of the locals, who serve them and drive them and cook for them, while the locals are often salty and impatient with the visitors. It’s also worth noting that the visitors are all white, which is a team I play for but, more and more, don’t root for.

I try my best not to be one of the visitors, so I’ve been holed up in my room for the past three days, kind of just passing the time by reading and exercising and painting on my own. Today, I was at least going to go for a nice, high walk, and the plan was to do it early enough that I wouldn’t have to encounter too many tourists, or people in general, for that matter. I don’t want to sound cynical, but most times I encounter a person, no matter the circumstances or setting, it’s rarely good. No, this walk would be a quick, solo one, and I’d be home in time to catch tipoff.

I made it about four minutes down the way before encountering a man laying on the side of the road. He was clearly hurt, bloodied all over from scrapes, and a big gash across his head. It looked as though he was in a motorcycle accident, but I’m not sure. There was a dusty motorcycle parked nearby, which could have been the culprit of this incident. The man was very old, very thin, and seemed somewhat delirious. He was visibly shaking, and clearly not okay. He looked like Sam Elliot, had he just emerged from spending a year in the forest without food or shelter. His white hair was long, both on his hair and face, and it was soaking up more and more blood with every second, like Ric Flair getting color. I assumed he was woozy from the crash, possibly concuss.

Another guy, a local who lived across the street, ran out to help as well. We both tried communicating with the injured man, each in our own language, but he wasn’t making any sense at all. At one point, the local man asked the injured man if he needed water, to which he replied, “no, please. Just one tab, please.” The local man was confused, unsure of what he meant, so the injured man continued, “Just one tab, por favor” before pointing at his tongue and then clasping his hands in prayer and raising them to his forehead. Oh. The local man asked if he had any friends here in Zipolite, to which the injured man replied, “only the Aztec Gods.” I was starting to understand the cause of this apparent motorcycle crash a little more. The local man had clearly never done acid before.

At this point, a crowd started to surround the injured man, all locals. After all, we were huddled off the side of a dirt road in the middle of the jungle, far from the main road and all its amenities. At least five people were now surrounding this old, injured man, asking him questions that he was in no shape or form to give an answer to. By the way, not to make this about me, but I was high as hell at this point and just wanted to enjoy a nice morning stroll, damnit.

After spending about 40 minutes with the injured man, I decided he was in good hands. The locals who showed up really took charge and eventually, I was just standing there, watching. An ambulance had been called, he was moving all of his extremities, and none of the cuts on his body seemed too serious. Not wanting to add another body to the confusion, I decided it was better to clear out instead of wait there any longer. I asked some of the locals if there was anything more I could do to help, but they assured me there wasn’t. I hope that man doesn’t get on his motorcycle next time he’s tripping, but I can’t be sure he learnt that lesson.

I continued walking, and as awful as this sounds, I was relieved to be done with that scenario. I feel for the injured man, and I always have compassion for someone in need of help, but he was getting help, and he was also an idiot for driving through dirt roads in that condition. As I kept going along, about two minutes later, the road eventually just stopped and, all of a sudden, it was the beach. I found that peculiar, and stood there noticing the abrupt transition for about one second, before spotting the large truck that hadn’t noticed the very same thing. The full-sized Toyota Sequoia was stuck in the sand, unable to move. A handful of locals were surrounding it, analyzing what to do with it.

One man, a friendly looking fellow without any front teeth, asked me if I could push. Knowing that that’s one of the few things in this world I can actually do well, I felt the obligation to say yes. This is why I should walk around limping more often. The owner of the vehicle was a large European-looking man. He resembled a Gerard Butler character from a movie about a successful burglar pulling off another massive heist. I’m not sure if that’s a thing that exists, but it sounds like it could, and this guy definitely had that vibe. He wore short, salmon-coloured shorts and a loose fitting, white linen button-up shirt. His hair was grey, curly, and dropped down to his shoulders, where it blended in with his long, flow-y beard of the same color. His girlfriend or wife, whom he just referred to as “love”, remained in the passenger seat and didn’t get out once. I didn’t expect her to get out and start digging in the sand with her hands, the way the others were, but maybe getting out of the car as to lessen the weight of a stuck vehicle would’ve been nice. She had too much collagen injections in her lips and sat with her feet up on the dashboard, fanning herself while the local men and I worked to get the car unstuck. They seemed like a wealthy couple in their 50’s, most likely here on vacation.

I told the toothless man that I would help push. He then asked if I needed any weed. See how the universe provides? I was skeptical, though; I’ve heard some horror stories about tourists buying weed from undercover cops in Mexico, so I’ve been careful about who I get my weed from, and where. I highly doubted this shirtless man with no teeth selling dime bags on the beach was a narc, but maybe that’s what they want you to think, you know? Remembering that I just finished my last joint, I replied “hmm…. si”. Then I heard the familiar noise of an iPhone starting to record a video. My first thought was “oh shit, is my camera accidentally recording in my pocket?” Then, I realized a much more troubling possibility, “oh shit, is he recording this drug transaction?” He asked how much I needed and I replied “actually, no necessito, no gracias”. Five seconds later, two cops pulled up on ATVs.

So, to recap; I’m high as hell. I just wanted to go for a nice stroll before the basketball games start. I’ve already encountered an injured old man tripping on acid, now I’ve agreed to push this SUV out of the sand, and I may or may not be implicated in an illegal drug transaction in Mexico, and no one present speaks English. Great. It isn’t even 9:30am yet…

The driver of the truck got out and spoke to the police officers. He informed them about the predicament as I subtly inched further away from them, and after a minute or two, they took off, leaving us to deal with it. Turns out they were just there checking out what the commotion was all about. Well, at least that’s one potential crisis averted.

The crew consisted of six of us. There was the toothless weed man. There was a very cool looking old man in jeans, a straw hat, and sunglasses, who would sporadically venture over to a shaded bush where he’d take a sip from his glass bottle of clear liquid. Judging by the face he’d make after taking each sip, it wasn’t water. There was another shirtless man, seemingly in his 30’s, who sported a nice gold chain and who seemed very tired and sore. There was also a young-looking man, likely in his early 20’s, in a striped shirt, who would talk to himself and laugh out loud every few moments. He’d also dance around sporadically, and pick random imaginary things out of the sand from time to time. I don’t think he was 100% well. But the least well of the bunch was a very thin teenager with a bandaged, bloody leg, who moved slower than molasses. He should not have been there with us; he should be at home resting. And then there was me, rounding out the squad.

Everyone took turns being the leader and playing the role of director, and there were plenty of disagreements. We had some planks of wood and some loose stones, so the strategy was to place as much as we could of our limited materials underneath the tires and then push the car back incrementally, inch by inch, re-applying the wood and stones after each round. We’d push for 10 seconds, and then set up for another 10 minutes, on and off, moving about 6 inches each time. It was scorching hot out at this point, without any real shade on the beach, and even the outside of the car where we were pushing felt like lava to touch. I felt like a real asshole, but I took my flip flops off and put them on my hands in order to push the car. The toothless man laughed at me.

This was certainly not the most organized or thoughtful crew. I tried offering some input, as I find the sand and Montreal’s woeful snow and ice to be not dissimilar in nature. Alas, they didn’t want to hear me out. Or they couldn’t understand me. One thing I’ve learnt is that sometimes it’s good to help, and other times it’s better to just get out of the way and wait for instructions. As mentioned, I don’t speak Spanish very well, so I couldn’t really participate in any of the group brainstorms. I was just there for the hangs, with no real clue of what was going on. I felt like I was at least out there problem solving with my bros, despite making very incremental progress. I was also glad that the cops were gone.

At one point, the skinny teenager with the bloody leg told the driver to go forward, that it would help facilitate his eventual reverse. I’m not sure why we were taking order from this kid, as that just brought the truck right back to where we started, equally as stuck as ever. More than anything, I just wanted this to be over. I was hot, thirsty, hungry, sweaty, and high. I thought about making an excuse, some reason as to why I needed to take off, but I ultimately concluded that, since I agreed to help, I’d see this thing to fruition.

Sure, we were sort of just moving stones around and I certainly wasn’t loving all the sweaty, smelly armpits rubbing up against me each time we pushed, but I’d like to think that I’m a man of my word, so I stuck it out. However, I learnt a lesson today: kindness can reveal itself to be incompetence. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. It was now past noon, and wee had been pushing this car through approximately six feet of sand for hours. I had yet to eat or drink anything and I was missing the college basketball games. At one point, the man who helped me with the injured old motorcyclist walked by and gave me a nod. “I should have stayed with that mission”, I thought to myself.

Eventually, after more than four hours of moving stones around, digging with our hands in the sand, and pushing this SUV, we got it out. The boys and I moved the large planks of wood back to their place, a shaded wooded area a few yards away, and I took off without saying a word, before the weed man could get any more evidence on me. I was glad that was done.

Along the way back to where I’m staying, I was walking behind another local man. I said hello, and we briefly talked about how hot it is today. We passed an older man, clearly gay and clearly here on vacation. The man ignored the local, then looked at me, changed his expression to a smile, nodded at me, and said “buenos tardes”. I said it back, as a guttural instinct, but that bothered me. It also helped me realize something: when the old man on the motorcycle needed help, it was locals who rushed over to do so, while plenty of tourists slowed their pace to get a better look as they walked by. When I was helping push the truck out of the sand, along with five locals, we asked numerous tourists to lend a hand, but they always politely declined and kept going to get brunch or lay on the beach.

Even the wealthy couple in the SUV were not exempt to this dogshit phenomenon. While they offered the group of helpers cups of water from their large jug, the man approached me specifically and solely to offer a cold, unopened bottle of Pedialyte (an electrolyte beverage). I accepted it, said thank you, and then gave it to the toothless man. Even the woman in the passenger seat kept giving me a specific laugh and smile, as though to say “this is so crazy, sorry you got dragged into this!” She gave me that same smile at least four or five times, which felt polite of her at first, until I noticed that she didn’t do that with anybody else. I’m conscious of my white privilege, but being conscious doesn’t equate to it being any more palatable. Fucking white people, man.

I finally made it back to my room, where I took off my sweat-drenched clothes and immediately jumped into a shower to wash all the sand off of my body. I was grateful to be back in the confines of my room, where nobody needs any help with anything. On the other hand, I’m glad I helped. As a general rule of thumb, a person should always help when they can. I strongly adhere to this. Be it a person, a child, a dog, a bird, or a caterpillar, if you can offer some assistance, without it costing you anything but time, then you do it. Always. Time is a finite resource, but it’s never wasted being helpful. And let’s be real, if I can spend an hour every morning scrolling social media timelines, its not like my time is that precious.

The other day, an elderly woman in a wheelchair asked for some assistance. She wanted to feel the ocean, but couldn’t traverse the sandy beach and make it to the water alone. I agreed to help, unaware that this would also consist of helping her remove her clothing so that she could enjoy the feeling of the ocean on her bare skin. As I carried this naked old woman in my arms, with loose handfuls of skin filling each hand, and careful not to hold anything too tightly in fear of snapping her brittle bones, I knew that she needed this more than I didn’t want to do it. I brought her into the ocean so she could feel the water, and the overwhelming joy and excitement that she expressed, verbally and just via her eyes and smile, made it more than worthwhile.

I’m not sure what the moral to this story is. Fuck white people, maybe? Always help when you’re able to? Never drive a motorcycle on acid or drive your large truck onto the sandy beach? Those feel like valid ones, for sure. I hope those people in the Toyota SUV will now stop and lend a hand at their next opportunity to do so.