Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Street Scenes

Yesterday I was sitting in my (parents’) car at a stoplight on University a few blocks south of Broadway. A line of cars was crossing the intersection from my left. Just before the last one entered the intersection, a young black man on a bicycle (poppin’ a wheelie the whole time) crossed in front of the car. (It was an SUV or something like that.) The SUV screeched to a stop and the guy on the bike kept going, laughing like a hyena.

My immediate, vocal reaction was, “Whoa, he shoulda fuckin’ run that guy over.” Not a great thing to say, even to oneself, but that’s how pissed off I was. The SUV driver just saved his life, and he’s laughin’ his damn fool head off. Maybe he enjoys the adrenaline rush, because he clearly saw the SUV coming.

In the evening, I nearly got run over while using a crosswalk in Cedar-Riverside. As the car approached me, I put up my hands, hopped mostly out of the way and said, “Whoa, whoa!” The middle-aged lady at the wheel didn’t react much. I think she was embarrassed and ashamed, but maybe I’m just projecting, because that would be my reaction. I’m just glad I responded as quickly and forcefully as I did. It’s taken a long time to undo the middle school conditioning of pretending like nothing bothers me.

It made me sad to think the guy on the bike apparently places such little value on his own life. But I was still mad at him. That kind of behavior makes those of us who care feel like suckers. It’s like the panhandler conundrum: to give or not to give (a fuck). I googled it and found a The New York Times editorial citing Pope Francis’s advice.


He recommends giving, even if they use the money for alcohol. (Street drugs don’t seem to exist in the Pope’s world.) Whatever they buy, it will make them happy. He also says you must look them in the eye and touch their hands. That sounds good, but the money still presents a dilemma. If they use it to buy drugs and then die of an overdose, what then? Don’t you bear some responsibility for that?

Last week I got panhandled by a black guy outside Calhoun Square. (As Uptown has continued to gentrify, the number of panhandlers seems to have risen.) I looked him in the eye (like I usually do) and said, “Sorry.” He didn’t hear me, so I repeated it, just before opening a door to the mall. He acknowledged it and then added something like, “Ya don’t hafta frown at me just cuz I’m black.”

I turned around and glared at him for a moment as he walked away. “Yeah, thanks for callin’ me a fuckin’ racist,” I thought. “I’m sure black people just love gettin’ panhandled.” I know he was lashing out from despair, but it still sucked. There we were, sniping at each other, while the Fat Cats looked down from their penthouses and laughed.

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