Decimus is in a wheel chair waiting for a taxi to take him home from the hospital. He has been in the hospital for a week with surgery, successful surgery, and is now to be dismissed to continue his convalescence at home.
May walks in escorted by one of the nurses in the psych ward. The escort leaves after nodding at the waiting room attendant. May looks around for a seat, suddenly smiles and sits next to Decimus."Hello, do you mind?"
"Not at all. You don't look sick."
"I'm scared, not sick. At least not in the way you mean, sick. I've just been released from the psych ward. I don't know what to do next."
"Go home, I guess"
"Easy for you to say. You've got one."
"A home. Yes, of course, in a manner of speaking I do. Don't you?"
"No. I have the address for the Rescue Mission but I don't know where it is. I don't know this area. They told me I could call a cab and that the Mission would pay for it. I know I have to go somewhere, and I can't go back to what I had. They would kill me or I would kill myself."
"I have a cab coming. I can drop you off at the Rescue Mission. You say you have the address?"
"I have the address. I told you that."
"So you did."
"Sorry. I accept your offer. I haven't got any money."
"Money? Oh, you mean for the cab fare. Don't worry about that. I can pay. It's about all I can do anymore, but I can still do that."
The cab arrived. Decimus Waterbury is wheeled to the cab and very carefully installed. May followed, watching the procedure and notices how weak and frail the old man really was. It was pretty serious, she thought."
Mr. Waterbury asked the driver, "Do you know where the Rescue Mission is?"
The driver was suddenly a lot less friendly. "I wasn't told that's where we were going. I don't make those trips anymore."
"The Mission won't pay you?" Panicked May. "They told me they would."
"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Lately they don't." The driver got out of the cab, slammed the door, and opened the back door of the cab. "Get out," he said.
That's when Mr. Waterbury spoke. "Wait a minute. I'm paying for the ride."
"OK, didn't know that. Her too?" he asked suspiciously.
"Her too, wherever she wants to go."
The cab driver leaned over the seat. "Rescue Mission?"
"Yes."
They leave the curb. Decimus turned towards May. "Is that really where you want to go?"
"That's where they said I should go, the hospital, I mean. I haven't got anywhere else to go. I just hope they take me, until I can find a job and a place to live. I really don't have plans, as they say, which means I don't have idea what's going to happen."
Long silence. All you could hear was the sound of traffic.
"Look, I don't want to be, I mean I'm not making a proposition or anything like that, but I don't even know your name."
"It's May, like the month."
"Mine's Decimus. I have a big house. It's kind of a mess right now, but it is a house, and the roof doesn't leak, or anything. This isn't a proposition, I think they call it, but"
He stopped. She was laughing, holding her had in front of her mouth and laughing.
"You don't know me. I've been making my living being propositioned as you put it by men. But I'm done with that now. I mean really. No more drugs, no more of the life."
Another long pause, May stopped laughing. She looked at Decimus with steady eyes, waiting for his response.
"I probably don't understand what you just said, and if what I'm guessing is right, I don't think I really care. If you want to stay in my house while you get set up, the offer stands. I'm not suggesting anything else."
Just then she remembered what she had seen at the hospital. How would this guy make it alone? Maybe there were others in the house.
"Who else lives in the house? Are you alone?"
"Yes. And I can't do that any more. I've got nursing help coming and we'll set up something. I don't want to leave my home, but it's starting to look like that. I live too far away for day help."
"Maybe I can help. It would make a change." She giggled a little and her hand went up again.