In the 1960s, they are commonly known as bums or panhandlers, and most have a story to sell for some spare change. A panhandler in Times Square tells me how bad I am and that’s how—by inflection and context—I learn that bad means good. Another, on the Lower East Side, tells me about buying a pair of white shoes for his old friend Billie Holiday, and the two of them hanging out with “that trumpet player, another Billy, you know who I mean….Billy Eckstine.” I am skeptical of the whole story because I know Eckstine only as a vocalist, but on my next visit to Colony Records I learn that indeed Eckstine started out as a trumpet player, and he hung out with Billie Holiday (who—I am now sure—once received a pair of white shoes from a friend).
Here’s a story I tell a lot: “There’s this bum asleep under a tree in Washington Square Park while I’m eating my lunch. I quietly put half of my corned beef sandwich next to him, go back to my bench, and wait for him to wake up so I can see the look on his face. He unwraps the sandwich, peeks under the bread, and scowls. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a jar of mustard.” Everyone enjoys the story, though no one believes it is true. It is.
In the 1970s, courts rule that patients in state mental hospitals who are of no imminent danger to themselves or others must be released. Some of them wind up roaming Broadway on the Upper West Side, including one gaunt man in his thirties who wears a gabardine trench coat no matter the temperature, skulking from block to block, getting kicked out from store to store. He disappears during the winter and somehow reappears in the spring, an avatar of survival.
In the 1980s, I notice street people who are not bums or former mental patients: some of them are apparently victims of the Reagan Administration systematically denying Social Security disability applicants until they reach a third-level evidentiary hearing—if they have the stamina to get that far. My mother, with advanced cancer, was turned down twice; she "won" a month after her death. My father sent a note back to the government: “You are too late. I lost my Pearl.” In her memory, I give to beggars who appear sick or disabled.
In the 1990s, while walking from my apartment on 104th Street up to Columbia, I pass the familiar faces of a small-town. On the corner of Broadway and 106th Street one man says over and over, “Spare-some-change-appreciate-it?” in one William-Carlos-Williamsian American beat. Occasionally, I see him give money to someone even less fortunate. On 107th and Broadway, the guy with the brown corduroy jacket chants: “Spare some change for a container of cawfeee?” I tell people that one day I actually gave him a container of coffee and he laughed. Everyone enjoys the story, and believes it is true. It isn’t.
One summer afternoon, the sky blackens instantaneously and rain comes down in torrents, sending people scurrying for shelter. I wind up sharing an awning with three street people, including one I haven’t seen before. The “spare-some-change-appreciate-it” guy—whom I’ve come to think of as the Mayor of the Street People—says to the newcomer, “I haven’t seen you around here. What’s your name?”
“Eddie,” the newcomer replies.
“What’s your last name?”
“Oh, I lost that a long time ago.”
One time I respond to a plea for money with, “I’m sorry I can’t give you anything,” and the man’s face balloons with rage. “Don’t you ever, ever say you’re sorry for me.” Another time a young man asks for change then adds, “I hate myself for asking.” He looks healthy but it is freezing and I can only imagine what it feels like to be sentenced to an outside prison. I give him a dollar, and continue on my way. He follows, and I wheel around, prepared to admonish him for breaking the unwritten law that you never stalk, when he implores: “You’re not angry at me, are you?”
Sometimes I go for days or weeks without giving anything, partly so I don’t have to decide who gets and who doesn’t, careful not to make eye contact unless I am prepared to give. I reach the point where I don’t feel bad about not giving, but always feel good when I do.
Then on a frigid night in 1998, I meet my match:
A beggar on Broadway and 115th Street asks if I can help him out, and I give him a quarter. He thanks me and holds out three subway tokens. “People give me tokens, but I got no place to go. Will you buy them?” I excavate the crumpled bills and change from my pocket and separate four singles and two quarters. I give him the money, and he spots the ten still in my hand. Without giving me the three tokens, he says, “Let me have the ten and I’ll give you more tokens.”
I’ve got plenty of places to go and can always use tokens. I give him the ten.
“Thank you,” he says. “You’re a good man.”
“What about the tokens?”
“Oh no, you said you were giving me a gift.”
I am furious and sputter for my money back, but he keeps shaking his head. Finally, I say, “Look, just give me back the ten. Keep the rest of the money.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t do that,” he says, clutching my money.
Blood rushes to my face, and I snarl, “Then I’m just going to have to get a cop. Do you want all that trouble?” I have no intention of getting a cop, but maybe the idea will intimidate him into returning the money.
“You do what you have to do. But I just can’t give you this money back.”
I skulk down Broadway freezing, defeated, and broke.
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