Lucky

There is a man who used to beg for change on the Metro. I don’t know what has become of him. I no longer live in the DC suburbs and so I no longer stare at my shoes while riding the late night Red Line to Shady Grove. My shoe staring is now reserved for the L train. Or the G.

I remember him because he was angry. The homeless around us mostly fade into obscurity: “I’m sorry to bother you, but if you could just spare some change, or if you have a bite to eat, I would really appreciate it. Have a blessed day.” Not this guy. He was incensed at a world that had handed him a raw deal and told him that deal was entirely his fault. Told him that he was the one who was wrong. That his mental illness was his alone.

A fun thing about American identity is that we lay our failures entirely on society and make our successes ours alone. Although we have no state mandated religion, we believe that some people were just built better. We think that it’s okay that our country’s promise of equality does not extend to matters of addiction, brain chemistry or really the over all luck of the situation we were born into. This does not even scratch the surface of what people of color and the LGBTQ+ among us have to contend with.

The man on the Red Line train to Shady Grove presented as Caucasian. He also smelled really bad. “Come on! Can’t somebody please just spare like thirty-four cents? It’s just fucking thirty four cents! Please? Really? Nobody can spare thirty four fucking cents?” He stopped in front of me. I was struggling through a particularly dense (and pointless) section of Paradise Lost. “I’m sure that book will give you all the answers you fucking need. Have fun reading it, asshole.” I didn’t give him any money.

If I were a homeless person don’t think I’d be nice or grateful either. It’s so much easier to be #Grateful when the world has truly given you a lot. When, as I write this, I can sit in my air conditioned apartment and altogether avoid the deadly one hundred and ten degree heat wave outside. I’m so grateful that I’ve got gratitude to fucking give to others. But if I had to legitimately live on the street, and had to get up every day to a world that told me that my real problem was that I just wasn’t trying hard enough, I’d be pissed off too. With every passing day, the belief that I could somehow get myself out of this thing would weaken. Doing the same thing expecting different results. I’d be pissed. Because when the world said “work harder” it didn’t mean “work harder.” “Work harder” is there to help those who got lucky think that they deserved their luck. “Work harder” really means “be lucky.”

How in the flying fuck does one become lucky?

I recently had lunch with an old friend I had lost touch with. We talked about many different things, and eventually got to the topic of the homeless. I told him, happily, that I had started giving money to the homeless when they asked for it. I was being a good and compassionate human. I was proud of myself, and secretly judged those around me for not being able to shell out a dollar for this person who was clearly in need. After all, with a few more dollars, you could go get something to eat. I was helping buy a person a meal. I was inherently a good person. I wanted my friend to acknowledge how good of a person I was!

“They’re probably going to buy drugs with that though. Like, what if you knew that they were going to buy drugs with that? Would you still give it to them? I think you have to be okay with the idea that they’re probably going to buy drugs with it.”

We are all on some kind of journey. Whatever the fuck this thing we’re doing is. And in theory I know that it should not matter what a gift (“thirty four cents”) is going to be used for. You give it because you believe in the humanity of the other person. Or you give it to restore the humanity of yourself.

I know that my friend was right. I know that it should not matter. I would like to think that, if I ran across the angry homeless man on my way to visit my parents in their DC suburban home, that this time I would give. But I’ve also stopped giving in general.

I’ve thought too much about it.

I’m paralyzed.