"Get a fucking job"

Monday night, after a beer and a good conversation with a friend at Ten Stone, my favorite local pub and restaurant, I was headed home when I heard someone near me say, "hey man." Although my instinct in the past been to ignore this sort of address from a stranger, I've been trying to train myself to acknowledge such requests for my attention, even if it often is a homeless guy asking me for a few bucks (which I usually give them). When I turned to say, "what's up," to the stranger, I found myself talking to a black dude, dressed in fairly normal, baggy clothing. He asked me if I ride the bus. I told him I unfortunately do not (I decided not to tell him about how I had tried to catch one just a few days ago, but failed to ever find an actual live bus to get on, which is frustrating since they always seem to be around early in the morning, waking me up with their unbelievably noisy engines). As I was deciding not to bore him with my story, he asked me if I had a bus token, to which I said I did not.

I guessed that was about the end of it when he thanked me for stopping and then proceeded to go into a bit of a rant about how no one else in my neighborhood had even stopped to talk to him. He said he had never been treated so rudely in his life; one lady actually told him to "get a fucking job." "And I do have a job, man," he told me, defensively. I tried to mutter something about how this neighborhood isn't that bad and I was sorry that people had treated him so badly, at which point he said this is why he "never comes over here" and then told me how his car was impounded because he got a DUI last night and he'd spent the last 16 hours in a jail cell. I told him again I was sorry, it sounded like he'd had a pretty rough day, and asked him if I could give him some money for a bus token. He said yes, and only took a dollar (I thought bus tokens were more like $2, but since I can't find a bus when I need it, I don't even know). He thanked me and continued to go on about how lousy things were going. He started to walk away, but I remembered someone telling me how people respond positively to physical touch, so I randomly decided to shake his hand and wish him luck before sending him on his way.

I don't know if he was making up this whole sob story to get money out of me (it's happened before), but he didn't seem like a druggie or a homeless guy (anyway, they usually just tell you if they are). I genuinely felt bad for the guy, especially because he had been purportedly treated so poorly. Now if he had really gotten a DUI, he did deserve to spend the previous night in jail, but he didn't deserve to have people in the neighborhood treat him like garbage. I think Philly is a pretty nice sort of city, but experiences like this make me wonder about this species of ours. I guess the guy could have mugged me for all I know, but I think the risk of getting mugged is worth helping people out. Sometimes you have to play it smart, but you don't have to ignore people or insult them over a lousy dollar or two.

Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.
Matthew 25:24

----------------
Now playing: The Fray - Syndicate
via FoxyTunes