Focus and Re-Focus

 

            The quality of life in that particular town on that particular street at that particular time was indescribably low, empty, shallow, and depressing. Leonid had lived in this town, on this street, at this time since the day he was born at home, raised by parents who loved him, who taught him to love others, to sacrifice personal comforts, and to think of the well-being of others before himself. Because crime was at an all-time high, he stayed home with his mother while his father went to work, learning the basics of life and lamenting the danger and ugliness of the world outside of his window.

              On the summer following his eighteenth birthday, he traveled to the high school to take his test for graduation, proving that his twelve years of homeschooling sufficiently prepared him for life as a functioning adult. The four-hour test was unsurprisingly simple, leaving Leonid completely at ease and satisfied that he could not have performed any better. A week later he received a letter from the school district informing him that he received a 99% on the test overall and his diploma.

              By the end of the month, he joined his father on the drive to work for an interview with the accounting department, not a job he desired, to say the least, but because jobs were scarce, he took the opportunity and received an offer to begin work the following week. Two years into the role as an accountant, he could feel his heart and soul withering with the constant barrage of numbers and suggestions from him based on those numbers.

              On the night before his 21st birthday, he made the decision to relinquish his role as an accountant and move away to a different house, a different street, and a different city, longing for someplace that was quiet, peaceful, and clean, uncertain if such a place even existed, he took the huge risk of emptying his bank account, buying a car, and simply start driving west, stopping whenever it seemed reasonable to do so.

              It was the third city he found, actually more of a small town built around agriculture and farming, a community that left him with a feeling of peace and happiness. Knowing that he would do his best work by continuing on as an accountant, he joined a small law firm after seeing their ad in the local newspaper. With a pocket full of money, he paid six months rent at a small and comfortable apartment only two blocks from his new place of work.

              After two weeks of work, he began to feel at home in the town, he made personal, friendly connections with his neighbors, inviting them in for dinner or meeting them for lunch and occasionally helping them with their personal finances. Even though the city was small and quiet, he could still see the pain, the loneliness, and the emptiness in so many eyes around town. His neighbors, the mailman, the young girl at the grocery store, and the older woman working as a waitress at the local diner.

              Seeing their pain and emptiness only brought up the lessons his mother had taught him about helping and providing for others. His new job paid very well, and he began setting aside ten percent of his income to help those in need, to make closer, personal connections with those hurting, and reaching out to those who were clearly suffering.

              Being very careful to not come across as a stalker or a creep, he paid careful attention to when these people arrived at and left from work, how they traveled, where they lived, and with whom they interacted. It was three days later that he noticed the young girl at the grocery store marked with multiple bruises and a black eye that he devoted himself to discreetly finding an answer to the source of her suffering, determined to put an end to whoever it was that was abusing her.

              Parked in front of the grocery store mere moments before she finished her shift, he watched her climb into a barely functional four door sedan driven by a man a few years older than her. He followed them from a distance and could see the man yelling at the girl, strike her a few times, and pull in front of a single wide mobile home on the edge of town. He watched as the young man stormed into the house, while the girl waited in the car, to eventually step into the front yard, to then be grabbed by the hair and dragged into the house.

              Removing a baseball bat from the backseat of his car, he pulled in behind sedan, knocked on the front door, keeping the bat obscured from view, to face the young man with a beer in his hand and an angry face, spewing profanities at him and accusing him of stalking the girl. Leonid grabbed the young man by the front of his shirt, dumped him into the front yard, and beat him nearly unconscious as the girl watched from the front window. As the young man gurgled through a mouthful of blood, Leonid leaned in close and warned him that if he every struck the girl again or even uttered an unkind word, he would return and repeat this process a second time and if necessary and third and even a fourth.

              To drive the point home, he stomped on the fingers of his right hand, climbed back into his car and drove home, giving a small wave and a smile to the girl at the window, who reciprocated the gesture and uttered something that he couldn't quite make out.

              The following evening, he followed the elderly waitress home, to watch her remove her shoes before exiting her car and walking up the sidewalk to enter her home. The next morning before work, he visited the shoe store at the other end of town, leaving them with the instructions to place a phone call to the woman with a message that a new pair of shoes had been purchased for her and that she needed to stop by and pick them up, for they had already been paid for.

              Two days later, he visited the diner to happily see the waitress in her new shoes, smiling, and walking as if life had certainly taken a turn for the better. He ordered his meal, left a large tip, and took home his leftovers in a small styrofoam container.

              Wishing he could do more for his neighbors, but desiring to do so on an anonymous basis, he began leaving extra cash at random times in places that only they would find them, trusting that wisdom would be exercised with the arrival of funds to help pay for groceries, electricity, gasoline, or possible medical needs.

              It was on a Friday evening when he arrived home from work that he found a handwritten note stuck to his door with the message, "I know what you're doing, and thank you." In a mixture of happiness and disappointment, and not knowing from whom the message originated, he hoped it was not from those he had been helping. He rose early the next morning to take a walk and see if he could find other opportunities to help and was stopped by an elderly man out walking his dog, who introduced himself as the pastor of a local church and the one responsible for the local food bank.

              "I trust you found my note," he said, offering to shake his hand. "Our town definitely needed someone like you to arrive. I could certainly use more help at the food bank, if you be interested in helping either financially, donation wise, or by volunteering your time." Leonid introduced himself and told the man he would consider his suggestion and would respond by the end of the day, accepting a business card before he departed.

              Just before making dinner, he placed a call to the number on the card, left a message confirming that he would frequently drop off bags of groceries but required anonymity in his donations. The next day after work, he stopped at the grocery store, bought easily three times his normal quantity of groceries and received a heartfelt thank you from the checkout girl for his intervention. Assuring him that her boyfriend vowed to change and would faithfully follow his instructions.

              Leonid now had a new life, new friends, a new purpose, and a joy that filled him like nothing ever before had.