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“Can you give me a ride to the Shell station?”

The groceries were in the front seat, I had just loaded them all up, this guy with a reddish beard and a limp approached me. I knew the Shell station, I pass it every day, it’s close to my house.

“Hold on, let me move these groceries,” I told him.

I wanted to be the type of person who gives homeless people rides, especially since my wife and my daughter were out of town and it was close.

I put the groceries in the backseat and he said something about my stomach; I thought he was calling me fat but then he said something about the bag in the backseat, a brown paper bag.

“Oh that’s wine,” I said and then he sat down in the front seat and I walked around to the driver’s seat.

“I’m Josh,” I said. “I’m Andy,” he said. He was holding a Diet Coke bottle and placed it in his lap.

I looked at his shirt and there was something sticking out, something round and I said “What’s that?” and he said, “That’s my stash,” oh, like his bottle.

That’s what he was referring to when he said something about my stomach, that he had a liquor bottle tucked in his pants, but while that’s happening I’m like “Is that a gun?” but only to myself. I don’t think Andy had a gun, he just had cigarettes in his front shirt pocket.

We start driving and then I smell Andy and it’s nothing I haven’t smelled before, the dry homeless person smell, I remembered that smell from when I worked with a heroin addict and took him to free lunch at a homeless house and from when I used to go to another homeless mission sometimes.

Andy looked at me funny, then I realized his right eye was kinda squinty, yet smoothed over, like he burned it somewhere.

The Shell station wasn’t far, but he told me he didn’t want to walk uphill. He told me he lived in the garage of a woman who was “very religious” who would let him in the house if he wanted, but he liked the garage because he could drink out there. I almost said that just because someone was “very religious” didn’t mean they don’t drink necessarily, but I didn’t say that.

We passed by a row of houses across the street from the Kroger and Andy said when he got some money he would buy up three of those houses and I said, “Why, so you could be near the Kroger?” and he said “No,” that he just wanted a house, but I didn’t get why he needed three of them.

By now, we had passed through a light on the corner and were almost at the Shell station. He asked me to take him to his house instead of the Shell station, but I decided that wouldn’t be good. Andy said he knew Wally, who owned the Shell station. He wasn’t lying, I knew Wally, too, at least I knew who he was, because I lived down the street.

I stopped myself from saying I lived down the street from the gas station.

I was getting nervous for some reason, this was not who I wanted to be, I didn’t want to be the person who was afraid of another person.

I pulled into the gas station, in an empty parking spot near the entrance. Andy said, “I get a check at the beginning of every month, because of the disability and they said I have mental health issues”—he interrupted himself to make a comment about a woman leaving the store, a comment that wasn’t nice—” but don’t ask me for anything by the 5th because I’ve done spent it.”

Andy grabbed my hand and I shook it and then he opened the door. With his back turned to me, he stopped. “Now just hold on for a second”—a voice went off in my head, one that went “Do not fear for I am the Lord, Do not fear for I am the Lord”—and he handed me his Diet Coke and he started readjusting his pants, his bottle had slipped or something.

I didn’t really like this and just wanted to leave, but do not fear, do not fear.

Andy said, “Now just hold on a second for me.” He was using the passenger door to block his below-the-belt readjustment.

I looked at the time and almost made an excuse for leaving.

This is not, this is not, this is not who I’m supposed to be, this is who I am.

Andy said, “Just hold on, now.”

Do not fear.

“Okay now,” Andy said. I handed his Diet Coke back to him. He shut my door and went into the store.

Should I take a different way home? I live close by.

Do not fear.

Because I live close by, will he walk down my street and see my car?

Do not fear.

Will he try and find me at my house? I see that crazy eye.

Do not fear.

Do not fear, for I am the Lord your God. I will make you strong and help you.

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Excerpt from WOODBINE, a new ebook by Josh Spilker about his neighborhood in Nashville, TN. Get it here.