Crying out to G-d

I didn't see her to start with. My eyes looked beyond the cement picnic tables out across Hollywood to Long Beach, far off in the foggy distance. Then I caught her in the side of my eye, kneeling, hands locked together, fingers entwined in each other.

The noise I was importing into my head via thin black wires cut off. That's when I heard her.

She was crying her heart to G-d. Sobs welled from her very depths, and were flowing up out of her like a mighty geyser, the pleas splattering like burping hot mud on the ground in front of her. My Spanish is so rudimentary, and in honesty I knew it was none of my business to understand her, but I knew her heart was weighing like stones, piled up on her chest.

Off to one side stood a Latin guy, white sweat pants, bare-chested. Sitting with his back against the fence, facing the Hollywood sign sat a white guy in jeans, wearing a crimson baseball cap.

I instinctively wanted to stay close to her, to protect her at this vulnerable time, but knew that I had to also get away from her. I moved off to the west, following the edge of the descent, and sitting just out of ear-shot.

She continued for maybe 10 minutes, then stood up, gathered her things, and walked over to the shirtless guy in the white sweats. He took a full looking tote-type bag from her, and they walked off together down the dusty trail.

I sat there in silence. Now knowing some of how Eli the priest felt after his encounter with Hannah.