I have never met so many beggars in all my live-long days…
At every intersection, people are walking in between the
parked cars. In front of every store, you hear “Got some spare change?” or
“Hey, got a dollar or two?” Pumping gas the other day, a gentleman approached
and said, “Hey, help a brother out—I just need to catch the bus to
Jacksonville. Got a few bucks?” (Because I look like a brother, I
suppose. My parents gave me two brothers through natural childbirth, and my
sisters have me two brothers through marriage. I need more brothers like I need
another hole in my head.)
I’m still unsure where they get the markers and the
cardboard for making their signs and am convinced there’s an underground
black-market for markers for the homeless… Have you priced markers lately? They
aren’t the cheapest things in the dollar store…
My favorite is the guy who stands in front of Publix on
Federal Avenue who denounces the mob…. Or is it the Mafia? Either way, I’m
assuming he thinks he’s unemployed due to the Mob/Mafia. I’m like, “Hello, if
the Mob/Mafia really were out to get you, you’d be dead!” But there he stands
almost every day, switching out this cardboard sign for that cardboard sign,
all the while thinking he’s making some kind of change in the world while
hoping spare change will come his way…
What an odd phrase: “spare change.” Imagine if every time a
major change happened in the world, there was just some “spare change” hanging
around. Like we could save it up and then force change in the direction we
wanted instead of just reacting to it thusly…
And I just love, love, LOVE the dirty
looks they give me, like they’re entitled to the spare change in my pockets
(as if I’m in the habit of carrying a shitload of coins in my
pocket!) and it is I who am the failed human being for not handing it
out like I can spare all the money in the world. Trust me, I wish I could! But
when you have a billion homeless and unemployed standing around at every
corner, every store, every stop light? Yeah, I started saying “no” about a week
after I got here. It’s an automatic response now, which in a way saddens me.
The last thing I want is a callous, hard-hearted attitude toward my fellow man,
especially those who actually do need the help! But I’m stuck in that old
Catch-22 that is American life: Help the helpless, but look down on those who
can’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps! Charity and Condemnation all
rolled into one way of life.
And the cigarette bumming? That also is an automatic “No!”
now, granted a little more vehemently than the standard “change” query. They’re
expensive, dammit! Buy your own goddamn cigarettes! One woman, standing right
behind the gas station, peeked her head out as I was walking back toward my
car. “Hey, mister, can I bum one?” As she said it, she lifted her skirt ever so
slightly, as if promising sexual favors for a cigarette. A look of disgust must
have crossed my face (I’ve never been that good at
impromptu-emotional-face-blockage) as I blurted, “I just got the
freaking pack!” I got a double-fingered California wave and a “Faggot!” before
she disappeared back behind the “has seen better days” wall of the gas station…
Something tells me she’s seen better days as well. Be that as it may…
Ewwww!
Last night the BED and I spent a few hours watching some of
the few home videos’ my one sister made for me over the years. Seeing the pics
and small video clips of everyone back home made me a little teary-eyed. Yet it
also made me realize how much happier I am. As I looked at some of those old
pictures and photos of myself (more over weight, looking older, tired,
worn out) I realized I am happier and more content overall then I was
back home. Not that this is a reflection on my family and friends—some of the
best a person could ever ask for on this green earth! It had a lot to do with
circumstances, both in and out of my control, and a need for some of that spare
change that had been lying around, unused and neglected.
I made the change. And I couldn’t be happier.
Now if I could just find ways to market that? I’d be able to
hand out some to all the homeless in the greater Fort Lauderdale area…
So to both monetary and intangible spare change… A toast…
