Mentally Challenged Man Falls Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EIWOtbPoHI

There is a guy who walks the mall everyday. All day. He is pleasant enough, and sometimes I can hear him singing all the way down the hall. He is about six foot four and has a horseshoe haircut, or as my uncle's hat used to call it a "solar panel for brain energy." He wears the same grey sweatpants and purple shirt for Norwalk High School everyday and carries around two handfuls of cassettes that he listens to in his old school Walkman. He is also severely mentally handicapped.

I see him everyday, and every once in a while we have a conversation. Well, he yells words, and since I don't hear very well, I have a hard time telling what those words actually are, so I smile big and say things like, "Oh, wow," or "Okay" and try to be as polite as possible. I guess that's sort of a conversation. Anyway, I see him everyday and on most days, I duck behind the counter so I don't have to talk to him.

Today, as he was walking, he slipped and fell a few feet from my little booth. He wasn't hurt, but he was wailing and pounding on the ground. He was just really embarrassed that he fell more than anything, I think. He seemed like he was okay, but he just kept sitting on the ground. A customer that was here, an overly muscled guy with a Napoleon complex, a bad haircut and an awful Affliction knock off T-Shirt (on a side note, what is worse: an actual Affliction shirt, or the one that just rips off the style?), looked over at hm and said, "I'd help him up, but I don't want to touch him." Then he laughed and looked at me like I would think it was funny.

The sad part is, I wanted to help the guy if he was hurt, but I mostly just wanted him to go away. He wasn't hurt, and there wasn't anything I could do for him, but also I just didn't want to do anything for him. I am trying to figure out if that makes me as bad as the other guy making snide comments or if I was doing the right thing. Like not giving into a child throwing a tantrum. But, I feel like my general indifference meant that I am a bad person. Also, I feel like posting that link makes me a bad person, but I just do what the Googles tell me to.

On an unrelated note, I sold a phone today to a sixty-five year old Asian man who was covered in tattoos. They were all old fashioned designs, nothing intricate, but I could see them start on the top of his hands and go all the way up his arm. A large dragon snuck out of his mustard colored shirt at the sleeves and what I think was a portrait of someone was sort of visible peeking out of the neckline. I thought maybe he was yakuza, but instead of missing the tips of his pinkies, he had grown his pinkienails out so that it reached as high as any of his other fingers. I have nothing to add to this other than it was neat and "little old Asian man covered in tattoos" put into Google gives you this:

http://www.hanzismatter.com/2006/11/chucks-tattoos.html

That site makes me laugh.