"Did I disturb you?"

After coming home this evening from a nice little night on the town -- chowing down at Pix, attending a wickedly funny performance by David Sedaris and then engaging in a wildly divergent conversation with my Rather Shy Classmate -- I took the pup out for a brief evening constitutional.

It was after midnight. There is still life on my street at this hour, thanks to the bars nearby, so I'm accustomed to passing people on our walks even at this time of night. But as we loitered briefly near a large patch of lawn just a few blocks down, right on the main street where I live, I was surprised to suddenly hear a woman call out to me: "Hello!"

I looked around to find its source. Fom a basement window well of a house that has been converted to the offices of a non-profit organization, my eye caught something moving in the light. The woman was waving to me from down in that little hole, about 30 feet from where I stood on the sidewalk.

Hello, I responded and tried to size her up as quickly as I could. I get panhandled all the time down here, and I was wondering if she was one of the regulars. She wasn't.

"Did I disturb you?" she asked.

No, I said. Are you OK?

"No. I'm not OK," she replied. She had some dyskinesia -- a bit of bobbing and weaving -- and I wondered if she was drunk or high on something. "I'm not OK at all. I'm cold and hungry, and I got nowhere to sleep. A guy down the street said he'd fix me up a plate of something. I guess maybe tomorrow. But I ain't OK at all."

I jammed my hands in my pocket. Well, I wish I had something to help you out, but I don't have anything on me at all, I replied. Have you considered the shelters downtown?

"They make you wake up too early, and they ain't safe," she said. "I need me some sleep, so I'm staying here." She continued speaking, but a bus passed by just then, and I couldn't hear another word. When it was gone, she was finished saying whatever she had to say and was looking at me, her head bobbing.

Well, like I said, I wish I could help you out, but I don't have anything on me.

"That's OK," she said. "You have a good night now."

Walking back to my place, I couldn't quite get this woman out of my head. I get panhandled all the time and am also sadly accustomed to people living on the streets, but something here didn't seem right.

I returned to my place, grabbed a coat I was thinking of giving to Goodwill, took some deli meat from my fridge and walked back down the street. She was still in the hole when I returned, and I approached her there.

That's when I saw her bare legs. She tried to cover herself, but she had no pants. She had only her panties, a large t-shirt, no bra and a formless coat. As she reached up to take the items from me, I noticed a hospital bracelet on her arm. I inquired about the hospital. She told me she'd been recently discharged from the big one just a few miles away.

"Doctor says I got me some problems with my equilibrium," she told me. "And I get cramps in my legs, so he say I should eat lots of bananas. But I can't eat no bananas when I got nothing at all to eat. I ain't even got nowhere to stay."

On the steps beside her were what appeared to be her only belongings: a few cigarette lighters, a hair tie, a few other small items that looked scavenged out of garbage cans.

She introduced herself as "Ruby," asked me my name and delicately shook my hand. Then she thanked me for the jacket and the food, and we bid each other goodnight.

I walked back to my place again with a weight on my mind: Just what was my moral obligation to this woman? Human to human, how should I handle this?

She seemed lucid and oriented to space, and there is such harrasment of the homeless in town sometimes that I hesitated to call the police. She'd found herself what looked to be a safe spot for the night, and the police might only move her from the roost without helping her. But her naked thighs, the sight of her panties and the hospital bracelet on her wrist disturbed me.

I called the hospital when I got home and inquired whether they were missing a patient. After a few phone transfers, I ended up talking to someone in the ER who told me the only thing I could do was call the cops.

I called several numbers at the police station, not wanting to dial 911 for a situation like this. No one ever answered the phones I rang. And so that was that: I decided to let Ruby find her own way in the world.

But still: It bugs the crap out of me. I have no idea what that woman's story was, but no matter how you look at it, the story can't be a good one. Not when you're sleeping in a basement window well, wearing a hospital bracelet but no pants.

Life can be a cruel, cruel thing. And whenever I'm confronted with something like this -- which is thankfully not often -- I am deeply troubled. What is the humane thing to do? What is the moral thing to do? How much responsibility do I have to help someone in distress? What level of distress is sufficient for me to get more involved?

And just what kind of action on my part will let me sleep soundly tonight (tucked in, as I will be, beneath an alpaca blanket, 400-thread-count sheets and an embroidered silk duvet)?

Did she "disturb" me? Oh, yes.