Donald Trump Saved Me and Offered to Make Life Better
The Bloody Experiences of a Busted Knee and a Presidential Man
Soon after our President’s inauguration, I met Donald Trump.
There was no grand affair, no Mar-a-Largo visit, no event that would put me anywhere near our current president. My encounter with Donald Trump began with a busted knee.
I guess I should back up a bit.
I was out of town (town then was New York City), and while walking on an uneven sidewalk that amplified my pre-existing invisibly uneven gait, I took a tumble. Suddenly, I was nursing a severely busted and bloody knee.
As I surveyed my now dripping red leg and peered at my cell phone for directions to the nearest pharmacy — there were no supplies at my AirBnB, a truck pulled up. The driver leaned toward the passenger window and offered me assistance. When I hesitated, he pointed out his age and the fact that he could not hurt me in any way. “I’ll just get you to the pharmacy,” he said. “It’s not that far away.”
I did something atypical. I got in the stranger’s truck.
He introduced himself, “My name is Donald by the way.”
With hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic cream and bandages — which Donald paid for — I sat, cleansed my wound, and bandaged my knee. Donald requested my company, “Just for conversation.”
In the three minutes drive from bloody sidewalk to pharmacy, I had already gathered that Donald’s heart was hurting. Though he’d never say it, he was alone and lonely.
Time and companionship are always among the greatest gifts we can give our fellow man. A conversation would cost me nothing. My evening appointment had been canceled the day before, my newly busted knee needed a rest, and Donald needed some human interaction. I agreed to sit outdoors, as we already were, and talk.
As he told it, his wife had long left him, his adult child had forsaken him, and he and his girlfriend had recently broken up.
I also learned that his name was Donald Trump.
Of course, Donald wanted more than a conversation. Donald was on the prowl for a new companion and lover. With every sentence, he sold himself, his money, his properties, the great town we were in, his terrific place by the ocean that we could go to any time, and what he could give “beautiful black” me.
I know. I know. Based on all that has been made public, Donald Trump’s affinities lie with all people white and all things gold. I do not fit into either category. Trump’s passions also include self-promotion, self-service and anything that flatters his image of himself. The Donald Trump whose company I now entertained was apparently not the Trump to which the public is used. He was, however, not uncomfortable with his self-described greatness. He continued selling.
I wasn’t buying. I was grateful for Trump’s saving me and my busted knee by getting us to the pharmacy. I protested his payment for my medical supplies, but he told the pharmacist that she should not process my payment and took care of the bill himself. Donald invited me to his home, wanted me to go to dinner with him, and made explicit requests for nakedness and naughtiness. He was vulgar, coarse, and every second word out of his mouth made me recoil. I understood why Trump was alone. He did not know how to turn off his crass speech, even with someone he’d just met. I could only imagine what his treatment of others would be like over the long term. And with all that he was offering, not once did I indicate need or desire for any betterment. He merely assumed I wanted and needed what he could provide.
My heart broke for him. The very thing he wanted, he could not have because his acidity and vulgarity drove others away. His self-aggrandizement and decries of others could not have been more acrid. He never apologized for his crassness; only laughed it off as though it was natural and healthy and funny. I did not believe his assets to be what he claimed they were or his proficiencies to be up to the exceptional standard he declared.
It’s amazing what you can learn about a person during a short drive and a subsequent conversation.
It’s also amazing how a lifetime of financial success and things can still never meet the most profound human need to be loved and accepted and to be at peace with oneself.
The life endowing and affirming sunny blue skies, cool breezes, and lush greenery that formed the backdrop of our conversation all lost their vigor and vitality in the echoes of Donald’s speech that day. Even as I write today, there is indescribable something in my chest that pains for Donald’s losses in life, that had been pressed, changed and then spewed out like lava without limits.
I don’t know where my Donald Trump is today. I know he is not in the White House. That’s because my Donald had never lived in Trump Tower, or been to Mar-a-Lago, or had a daughter by the name Ivanka. He’d only voted for him and had allegedly legally changed his name once Trump became our incumbent president.
I will likely never have an opportunity to meet our nation’s current President. I would not want to either. I already met one Donald Trump. Except for their coffee and milk preferences, they seem very much alike. And the Trump I read about in the news daily assaults and bloodies my ethics, convictions, senses, and sensibilities.
Oh, and I won’t be getting in a stranger’s truck anytime soon. That once was enough for a lifetime.
