Mr. Schultz

Mr. Schultz jammed his hands into his pockets, pulled his coat collar up around his ears, and headed into the wind in the direction of the river. Twilight was gathering and lights were coming on in the tall buildings he was passing. Traffic hustled by, and pedestrians hurried to the bus stops to get on crowded buses.

Mt Schutz saw none of this. He didn’t even notice the children who darted back and forth across the footpath in their after-school games. Mr. Schultz was thinking of no one but himself.

This had been a rotten day. Only a little worse perhaps, than the previous days and weeks, but worse enough to completely discourage him. Business was bad. The board of directors had decided that bankruptcy was the only solution. Mr. Schultz couldn’t bear that. He had been in business for forty years. He had the respect, admiration, and envy of his friends. No one could make money faster than him. No one had a nicer family, a more beautiful home, or a better reputation. Now all that was crumbling around his ears like a paper castle.

Well, with everything gone, there was just no reason for living any longer. He knew a desolate spot on the river where he could slip beneath the icy waters. No one would see him. He would end it all and let his sons and heirs worry about the rest.

He turned down a small alley. This was a bad part of the city, noted for crime. He smiled, wondering why he became so cautious when he planned to end everything anyway. But Schutz always had wanted to do things his own way, and he intended to carry out this plan his own way too.

He left the warehouses and stepped onto the river’s muddy shore. He knew a rock that stuck out of the bank, and he planned to sit on it and write his last words. It was beginning to get dark so he mustn’t delay.

“Bother!” he muttered. “There’s somebody there.” He walked closer, though. Nothing stopped his plans, ever. “It’s just a kid, a girl,” he muttered again. “She’ll leave when I get there.”

But the girl sat with her head between her knees, her shoulders shaking with long, agonizing sobs. For the first time in years Schultz felt like he did not command the situation. You don’t just walk up to a sobbing child and say, “Move over I want to commit suicide here.” And Mr. Schultz was much too impatient to stand and wait for her to leave. Well, the best way he thought, is to find out what is wrong, help her stop crying, and send her on her way. Then I can get about my business. “Excuse me for interrupting, child” he said, “but tell me what is wrong. Can I help?” “Nobody can help,” sobbed the girl. “Nobody but God, and I don’t think He is interested.” (Little did they both know that God was a work right then.)

Mr. Schultz opened and closed his hands. What was he getting himself into? “I’m not God,” he said gruffly, “but if you tell me maybe I can do something.” He sat down on the other side of the rock with his back to the girl. He never could stand tears, and if he could just get the girl to go home, he could get on with his own business. “It’s getting dark. You ought to be home,” he said. “Won’t your mother be worrying about you?”

“Oh, mister, my mother is too sick to worry about anything. Unless I can get a doctor, she will die.”

Schultz turned to look at the girl, though it was almost too dark. She was much too thin, and her clothes were ragged. Poverty shrieked at him for the first time in his plush life. He thought of his own daughters off at finishing school, of the money he spent on dresses and sports clothes. He hadn’t even realized that other people’s daughters could be this poor. Oh, yes, he gave to the poor, but he had no idea that anyone lived like this. He had never seen poverty at such close Range before.

“I’ll get a doctor for your mother,” he said, “Will you promise to stop crying?”

“Do you know a doctor who will come?” the girl asked unbelievingly. “I don’t have any money, you know.”

“Look, I have a doctor. When I say come, he comes. Let’s go to your mother first, then I will call my doctor.”

Schultz helped the young girl to her feet, and they hurried towards the buildings. He couldn’t believe it when she led him into a dilapidated house on the waterfront. He had no idea anyone lived there. They were supposed to be warehouses, he thought savagely. How could people possibly live in them when they are so cold? The girl led him up a dark and creaking stairway to a dimly lit hallway.

“The man who owns this building is very kind,” the girl informed him as she opened the door to a small apartment. “He lets us stay here for nothing. But we don’t have any heat, so it is very cold.”

Schultz looked around at the bare, cold room. Clean it was, but bitterly cold. The girl lit a candle. “We’ve never had the electricity turned on,” she said. “We haven’t any money, you see.”

The mother lay on a bed in the corner, visibly ill. He touched the blanket. How thin it was! He glanced at the small stove in the corner. Heat was the first thing needed here. “Look girl, I’m going to find you some firewood for this stove. Your mother will never get better in such a cold place. I will call a doctor, and then I’ll be back.”

As Schultz went down the creaking stairs he wondered about the address. As he went outside to call the doctor he looked around. “This,” he said, as he pulled his collar tighter, “is one of my warehouses. I had no idea anyone lived here.”

He called a taxi and went to a local hardware store. They were just closing but he got a sack of firewood to last the night. When he called the doctor, he explained the situation and said he would wait on the corner. He directed the taxi to a corner store and stocked up on, groceries.

What if his friends could see him now? The whole story would be known. It was late when Schult’s duties in the warehouse were finished. A fire was blazing in the small stove. As he was leaving he stopped short. “What was it I was doing when I got so rudely interrupted?” he asked aloud.

“Oh, that.” Schultz looked at the cold waters of the river as the lights shimmered in the current. “Sorry river, I don’t have time for that now. I’ve got to lick that bankruptcy problem. The girl and her mother need me.”

Schultz hurried off home to tell his wife the whole saga of the night.