Illustration by – Mohamed Hassan
I’ve got another post in my series on “How to Time Travel Safely” in the works, but this happened and I want to get it down and get it out.
Yesterday, Jacquie and I caught the express train into Manhattan to see Tom Hiddleston, AKA Loki, in Betrayal. My birthday present.
It is long enough to the next stop that a busker can perform a set. If you are lucky, the busker will be good.
We were lucky. A tall thin man set up a couple of African drums, like big bongos. I can’t hear a lot of music very well. My Cochlear implants process speech a lot better than pitch and timbre. But they process rhythm perfectly. I love drums. And, this guy was good.
As usual, when we leave Roosevelt station, most of the people in the car weren’t the same color as Jacquie and I are. People from almost every continent on earth were in that car. But we were all smiling, beating time to the music, and in the end, gave the guy a big hand. A lot of us had fished out a buck or two to give him before we got to Queens Plaza.
As he was taking up the collection. A young woman who had been sitting on the floor next to the door got up. She was barefoot. Her face was scarred in what may have been a ritualistic pattern. She was wearing a black plastic garbage bag against the day’s rain. She wore it with holes for her arms and head more fashionably than I can find words to describe. It did not disguise the thinness of her body. I figured she was going to horn in on the musician’s moment to take a collection of her own. It happens on the subway.
But, she came across the floor toward the musician with a five-dollar bill in her hand. She held it out to him. I saw him hesitate, his eyes soft. She clearly needed it more than he did. Although he needed it. He took it. Not out of greed, so much as to let her have the dignity of giving. You could see the complexity of the decision on his face. After he got out at Queens Plaza, I bet he spent the rest of the day and half the night questioning it.
She went back and sat on the floor. The guy across from me was the kind of guy I would hesitate to meet in a dark alley. But he had tears in his eyes. We both kind of shook our heads. What had we just seen?
As the train rolled toward Court Square, I decided I couldn’t stand it. I fished out a five and walked over and gave it to the young woman. I won’t tell you what we paid for the theater tickets, but it was a helluva lot more than five bucks. I handed it to her with my left hand, although my right knew what I was doing. She accepted it and thanked me.
I sat back down. The guy across from me nodded his approval. I fought back tears. But, it was the best I’ve felt in a long time.
As we crossed under the East River to Manhattan, a man came through the doors connecting our car to the one in front of it. There are signs all over the subway telling us that seven people died last year doing that. He had a sign hanging from his neck and was carrying a big plastic cup.
When he got close enough for me to read the sign, it said he was completely deaf. The cup had “Hearing Aid Fund” scrawled on it. OK. A huckster? I didn’t know. I do know hearing aids are expensive. They are seldom covered by insurance. If you can’t hear, you are unemployable, especially in this economy. When I take my processors off, I am completely deaf. I am terrified of going out into the world without them.
I had given the busker a dollar. I had given the young woman five. Against my better judgment, I would have given him something. But all I had left was a twenty.
I saw a couple of kids who had given the busker money, hold out a dollar to the guy. He came over and collected it and bowed to them. He pointed to the words “thank you” on his sign. He turned around to show them a picture of Jesus on his back.
Then I saw the young woman get up and walk on her bare feet toward the guy. She reached out and gave him the five that I had given her. Then she motioned for him to wait a moment. She counted out some change, and gave it to him. He then moved on to the next car.
She got off at Times Square, as we did. As we were going up the stairs, I looked back and saw her glance up at me.
Jacquie said to me, “She is mentally ill.” Stating the obvious.
New York City actually has some pretty good ways to help people like that. The police and the MTA will respond if you call. I didn’t call. She wasn’t my responsibility.
But, I can’t escape hearing words like:
“Give to everyone who asks”
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good portion—packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing—will fall into your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return.”
I keep thinking about a story about a widow who put two pennies in the offering plate. The same guy said her gift was more than the ten-dollar bills thrown in by rich people.
I remember other crazy stuff about God feeding the birds and clothing the flowers. So, God will take care of you, too.
Nobody but crazy people believe that enough to actually live it. To live in our world, you have to take care of yourself. You need to hang on to your money. Never be a sucker.
Yet, I can’t get this poem out of my mind:
When Jesus Came to Birmingham
When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do, ‘
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.
– G. A. Studdert-Kennedy
