The other day, I was walking home from work for lunch. I do that. It sounds decadent but it’s a bit of a rush-job really. Twenty minutes to get there, twenty minutes lunch, with a good book, and twenty minutes back. It’s nice though. I know I’m lucky to be able to do it…
…which will
probably become the theme of this post. So, watch out… just… watch out.
So, there I
am, walking home up the main street and there’s this guy lying on the street up
ahead. Right in the middle of a busy lunchtime town centre street. And he’s got
a sleeping bag which is covering his legs and he’s got a bulging rucksack
tucked in behind him and his legs are stretched out so far onto the pavement
that people are getting in each other’s way trying to get around him and not
having to resort to stepping over him. And he’s got a handwritten sign on his
sleeping-bag-covered knees. It’s a very carefully written sign, blue biro on
brown cardboard box-flap. It’s saying:
“Please
help me. I am very hungry.”
And, within
the dusty confines of my own head, I get a bit annoyed.
I mean,
look at this guy. Looking moderately well-to-do. Taking up half the street with
his begging-ensemble. He’s obviously a member of one of those rolling groups
who get ferried from town to town, landed in the town centre, and there get
left to beg for what they can before being bussed back home again. He is
playing us all, with his rucksack, and his beard, and his sad face.
But it’s
the sign. It’s that sign that’s the worst of it.
You’re
really very hungry, are you? It’s there, writ large in blue Bic on your
cardboard flap. Very hungry, you say. But what happens when some kindly
passer-by gives you money, as many already undoubtedly have, and you nip into
the adjoining shop and score yourself a nice sandwich and maybe a latte? What
happens to your sign then? Answer: Nothing. You come back and ease into your
sleeping bag and hold up the very same sign that says you’re very hungry even
though you’ve just had the full feed. Because that’s the con, isn’t it? That’s
the game. You don’t have a series of alternative signs in your rucksack, do
you? ‘I was hungry but I’m not anymore.’ That one isn’t in your repertoire, is
it? No, it bloody isn’t.
Ideally,
you would have some LED sign, which could be revised in accordance with how
much food you had eaten. “I am moderately hungry, as I’ve just had a big bap,”
it might say. Or “I am fully satiated now, food wise, you don’t have to worry.
Shall I pull my legs in a bit?” Perhaps there could even be a gauge on the
sign, an easy-to-read graphic indicating, on a scale of 1 to 10, how very hungry
you currently are.”
I strode
on, eager to get to my tea and my book. But, as I got near the town green, my
pace slowed, my mind turned on itself.
Who in the
hell did I think I was? Who in the hell was I becoming?
How many
slips, how many trips would it take for me to be the person lying on the side
of the road, begging for alms? Three? Two? One, even? How self-satisfied and
insular am I, that I can mentally berate the person whose feet are marginally
in my way or whose sign might not accurately reflect the state of his
hunger-level? Make no mistake, Bucko, that could be you. That may well be you,
someday. And not in some outlandish ‘Trading Places’ fairy tale scenario either.
That could be you within a year if everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
And so what if that guy is part of some larger ‘bussed in’ money begging project. Is
that what he envisaged for himself when he was a kid? Is this where his mother
hoped he might end up?
I see it
all over the place. People so wrapped up in themselves that they care nothing
for the other person in front of them. Not only the ‘not caring’ but, more than
that, the active resentment of the person who has slipped further down the
ladder than the rung on which they currently sit. I’ve seen that all over, but
I hadn’t seen it so much in myself, until now. And mark me, I didn’t like
seeing it in myself. Not one little bit.
I don’t
have to give the guy money. If I think he’s being exploited by some organised immoral
system, I don’t have to support it. I don’t have to be that naïve. But, by golly,
I surely do have to recognise that the man on the deck with the sign and the sleeping
bag is 100% as valuable a human as I am.
And I have
to remember to treat him accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment