It was about 3:30 AM this morning. I’d gone to bed not long ago, but I had fallen asleep. My natural rhythm makes me something of a night person. I’m also prone to insomnia, but I’m not troubled about it anymore – boring late night TV, preferably old sitcoms or B-movies, usually helps, so I just lie down in the living room. I check to see if infomercials will come on at any point, because they give me nightmares – especially the ones about exercise devices or real estate schemes, with their smug success stories of narcissism and greed.

But I was startled awake by a sharp rap on my front door. Somewhat disoriented, my first reaction was to feel a bit fearful. Having grown up in bad neighborhoods in Philadelphia, even in my current small town location I keep a baseball bat next to the front door. Before I opened the door I picked it up, and let it hang from my hand by my side.

I found a woman in her early sixties sitting on my porch step. She had white hair and wore a jacket and jeans. One of her shoes was missing, exposing a dirty white sock. Her eyes met mine and she said, “Can you help me?”

I dropped the bat and went out, stood over her, and asked, “What’s wrong?” She said, “I hurt my foot. I live right up the street at 218. I’m trying to get home.” I told her, ‘Hang on a second.’”

I went inside and put on my bedroom slippers. In my half-asleep state, I thought she wanted me to help her get home. I grabbed a cane I’d used when my bad back was worse, thinking it might help her to lean on it. When I got back outside, she said, “Do you drive?” (Believe it or not, I don’t. It’s a long story.) She said, “I need someone who drives. I think I broke my foot.”

My partner, who goes to bed at a far more normal hour, was asleep. Like an idiot, I went upstairs and told him what was going on. Though deeper into sleep than I’d been, he suggested the far more reasonable option of calling 911. I went downstairs and did just that. A young man answered, and asked me a distressingly long list of questions. (I kept thinking of the poor woman on my step all that time, not knowing what was going on). Finally he told me not to move her, and that he would send a policeman, and an ambulance would arrive soon after.

I went back out to her. In the few minutes before the officer arrived, she told me more of her story. She’d gone first to the one-story stone house across the street, catty-corner from ours. She’d fallen in front of that house, on her way up the street to visit a female friend who lived about a block west (it didn’t strike me in my drowsy state as an unusual hour to go visiting people).

The resident of the stone house was her friend’s son. I silently recalled waving hello to him when I’d checked my mailbox about two days before -- he’d glared at me as if I’d flipped him the bird. She said she’d crawled to his door, and he’d told her, “There’s nothing wrong with you. Get the hell away from here.” Then she’d crawled across the street to my house (thank God there’s almost no traffic that late!) She added that the pain was so bad she didn’t even try to walk on it, and that she thought she could feel bones moving around in her foot. While she was explaining all this with perfect clarity, I noticed for the first time the odor of beer wafting from her.

The police car pulled up, moving slowly in search of the address. I flagged him down. The officer seemed like a nice enough young man. He said an ambulance was on its way. As she told him her story, he asked where she lost her shoe. She said she’d lost it across the street, and he shone his flashlight on the lawn over there. I saw the shoe on the grass, and went to retrieve it.

I was feeling pretty cold at this point – I was in a T-shit and jogging pants – and asked the officer if he needed my help. The ambulance had just arrived. He said he didn’t. I told the woman I hoped she felt better soon, and she thanked me. I went back inside, and must have fallen asleep fairly soon after that, because I really don’t remember anything else.

The incident reinforces my impression of the guy who lives in the stone house, whose name I still don’t know, though he’s been there a while. I’m glad we were home (though it’s not like that’s unusual at that hour!) I’d like to think any of our other neighbors would also have helped her.

I keep thinking of things I should/could have done to make her more comfortable, like giving her a blanket. It can take me a long time to fall asleep, but once I do, waking up can take me awhile, too. I was out of it and not thinking very clearly, but I did the best I could at the time. I hope she’s recovering comfortably today.