Take Me to Your Country

"I know this sounds weird but can you take me to your country please? I have a daughter. You can marry her and take her to your country too", said the man in front of me, his eyes so eager for an affirmative answer that I could see or I believe I saw tears in there.

I don't know how to answer that question. I am stunned. Never in my life have I felt such strong desperation from another human being; never in my life have I felt such strong desperation from my guts either. This Iranian man, at his 40 or so worn-out age, is now almost begging me. I want to tell him that I understand his situation, but I just couldn't. For a moment I think I was already brainstorming the feasibility of taking him out of the border. I wanted to do that so bad. But how can I really do that when all Iranian citizens are not even allowed to have their own passports? How can I really do that if the Iranian government might know it and put me in jail? How can I really do that without getting him or me or his daughter killed? There are a thousand questions flicking through my mind in that one moment and for a while I just froze there until I couldn't take it anymore.

"I am sorry sir, I can't". I was surprised that I used the word "Sir". In West Hollywood I greet people with "bud", "bro" and "hey man" all the time. The last time I used the word "Sir" was probably at my graduation ceremony 2 years ago in D.C. It just burst out of my lips, maybe out of my guilt for another man so deprived of everything, so poorly endowed ever since the moment he was born to this world. I searched my backpack and gave him almost all of my bucks. He looked at the money, obviously appalled,

"I don't want your money. I just want to get out of this country please".

I wanted to ask him to stop saying that. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Take it. Take it please"

"You are a good guy"

This compliment "You are a good guy" struck me. I've heard it many times in my life from my friends, from homeless people in the street, from my boyfriends and girlfriends and from my grindr hookups, but this time it feels so importantly relieving to me. I need a compliment from this desperate man that I fail to help. It's like offering a pill to a soul disturbed by guilt and shame. It works at that moment.

He took the money and repeated that compliment

"You are a good man. Thank you".

"Thank you instead", I replied.

The second day in the morning, I decided to leave Iran. I sent him a message and for the first time in my life I realized that "I wish you all the best" can be such a genuine literal wish instead of merely a colloquial cliché word. The day is sunny as usual, just like the day I arrived. Happy people with happy faces strolled around bleak streets; carefree boys and girls chase after starting buses --- it all felt exactly like the day I arrived, only that there is a part of a man that has just died.