When I first arrived in New York I was given the strict instructions that if I saw a man who looked like he was asleep or dead on the subway platform or in a car, I was not to touch him or get anywhere near him. “He may be dead, but that is not your problem,” Renee said, leaning toward me — I could smell the hairspray on her dark, curly hair, it smelled expensive, it smelled like lust, it smelled like rooftop bars and overpriced cocktails — “and if you stick around to find out, you might get hurt, too.” In Renee’s world basically everyone she didn’t personally know in New York was an enemy, and so they were not to be trusted. She had the worldy air of someone who has lived in big cities all her life — the air i so desperately wanted to exude at 22 fresh out of college and I believed her, believed her words, witnessed the bums she cautioned me about hunched over thousands of plastic bags filled with cans, smelling of piss and hard times, how if you were anywhere near them you’d have to cover your mouth with a scarf to breathe and even then the urine smell would still creep through and linger long after you exited the subway.
yesterday i saw a man lying on his side on top of a street grate, his entire body exposed to the elements: the light mist that was falling, traffic exhaust. his hands were outstretched so that his fingers just barely grazed the fire hydrant and I stood not 1 foot away from him, waiting for the light to turn green. i thought about renee’s words and i didn’t say anything. i told myself he seemed to be breathing. i felt glad he had at least found a warm grate on this chilly april afternoon. when the light turned green, i practically sprinted across the street.
i don’t know how i feel about bums. they ask me for money: sometimes they are nice, sometimes they yell. sometimes they say nothing, just sit with a can beside them or a homemade sign that they wordlessly hold up to passers-by. sometimes they wear nice shoes, which makes me wonder. sometimes they are filthy. sometimes they roll down the street on a wheelchair, singing songs and making moderately offensive comments through a microphone that is attached to a speaker system that is also somehow attached to this chair (maybe this is only in Philly — for example, this man with the speaker once called out to me when i was crossing Broad Street “Hey honey! You lookin’ good!” This would be unexceptional except for the fact that every other person walking/driving down Broad Street also heard this comment).
Once I gave a girl in New York a dollar because she was sitting on the street with her dog and she looked so sad, I couldn’t help it. Once I gave a dollar to a man who was selling cut, wilted daffodils and he said “That’s all you have?” I like to think these people would help me out, if I ever found myself in a similar situation. I like to think I’d never be in this situation. I like to think I am some kind of Good Samaritan and someday someone will do something nice for me because I did this, like that movie “Pay It Forward” with Kevin Spacey. I like to think that these people probably have family somewhere and maybe that family is wondering what has become of them, who they are with, where they are, if someone loves them.
My dad had a friend who was a severe alcoholic and he died alone in a hospice room before he turned 50. when i drive past the hospice when i’m home, i think about him and i wonder what the last thing was that he looked at, if maybe he made it to the window to get his last glimpse of the world, or if he died in his sleep or watching TV. if it was the latter, i hope he wasn’t watching a reality show. my brother’s friend died three weeks after we saw him at a bob dylan concert, on his front lawn where his friends dropped him off in the small hours of the morning. drugs.
i think a good superpower would be the ability to live your life choose-your-own-adventure style. no, no, this isn’t what i want: let’s go back to page 42 and pick the other decision. let’s start over. this story doesn’t end up where i want it to go.
