nyj27: one year in New York


Believe it or not, people have actually started bugging me about where the latest update on my “crazy New York life” is. Having passed my one-year anniversary here some weeks ago, I suppose a report of sorts is in order.

I could tell you about my Boss-concert, or surviving the Blackout, but those stories I’ll put straight on the Web (soon). Keep watching my website. In the meantime, indulge me in a mildly meandering story by way of update/recap.

Last week a friend I was IMing (yes, internet chat is my latest addiction) expressed misgivings about an unselfish act he’d performed in San Francisco. He told me he was in a bad neighborhood and saw a man following a woman who apparently wished to be rid of him. My friend went after them into a store where he spotted a knife on the man. Without thinking, he called the cops on his mobile. The woman got some distance from the man (who still kept up his pursuit), but moments later several cops tore past the store. Nevertheless my friend expressed something like regret at the mostly selfless courage of his act. Too much personal risk. Not enough that he might have saved a potential mugging, rape or murder victim.

His perspective unsettles. And reminds how esteemed and indulged selfishness is in this city. My sister, on a recent visit here, mentioned the aggressive self-centeredness she saw in my silent expectation that companions speed or slow their steps to keep up with my mood. I was chagrined. And yet relieved that someone in my life saw ugliness in my thoughtless actions, but loved me nonetheless. An honest love is far more comforting — if unnerving — than blind love or love-in-denial.

Honest love, and the poor. Two things that have held the hardening of my heart at bay this last year. The poor because, when you befriend the homeless as I have been able to, the stark realities of their difficult world smack you out of your clean-smelling self-absorption in a hurry.

Let me tell you a little about my friend Becky. I first met her early in the summer, during a rainy day when I bought food for her and the man she calls her husband (I think they’re common-law spouses at best). Most days I walk a block to work from the train, along 32nd Street. After several days seeing that same girl begging, I stopped to talk with her.

We chatted off and on, but I didn’t really become involved in Becky’s life until one Thursday about a month ago. Almost immediately after my greeting she said, “Did I tell you what happened?” Two days before, her husband Adam had suffered some kind of stroke or neurological trauma and had to be taken to the hospital. Apparently he was dead for 17 minutes before they revived him. Tears welling up suddenly, Becky said the doctors attributed the recovery to his youth and relative health. Initially Adam had to be on life support, but was moved to ICU. Reluctantly I interrupted her story with the cold words of reality: I was late for a meeting.

But over the next few days Becky and I kept talking, mostly about her frustrations in seeing Adam — the dangers of sleeping on the streets alone, the hassling she encountered at the hospital (from some, not all), etc. One evening on my home from work I found her almost distraught (she admitted herself once during that period, for what proved to be an anxiety attack). Hospital security had denied her access to Adam for reasons including the state of her clothes (though she tries to stay neat). She and an unemployed construction worker from Vegas, who’d somehow burned through two grand in a week here and found himself on the streets, had gotten at least $8 together, which they thought would be enough for the $2 apiece subway rides to a Salvation Army center uptown. Once there, though, they were denied their requests for clean clothing and told they’d have to pay for it. Eight dollars and nothing to show for it. Becky just stood there, frustrated and weary. “They don’t even pay anything for that stuff! It’s donated to them. Pure profit.” Ultimately I took her to Kmart for a new outfit so she could try to still see him before visiting hours ended.

This has helped endear me to her, but it’s such pocket change considering the money I drop at Starbucks each month or spend on a nicer weekend meal. Not even a 10-percent “tithe” compared to what I spend on my own fleeting pleasure (that daily latte is rarely ecstasy in a cardboard cup).

I saw Becky the day after our shopping trip, but then several days passed without seeing her at all. Then one day she was back in her regular spot, a man with scarred face at her side. It wasn’t the fresh-faced Vegas boy, so I inferred this was Adam. Becky walked the rest of my block to work with me and explained. Adam was indeed in her care now, but in a mental state almost like a child. Incidentally, whatever you may think of Becky’s so-called “marriage,” she’s certainly faithful in the “sickness and health” part.

Several more days passed and I didn’t see her. The last time she’d been gone, someone in Queens had put them up. I hoped her absence meant she was once again off the streets, if only for a time. Selfishly I wanted to see her — to know she was all right — but seeing her would mean that she was worse off.

Then last Thursday I saw her again. They had been staying with someone, she said, but he was a man. Contrary to her hopes, it turned out his offer of housing was not so altruistic after all, so she’d left to avoid the sexual obligations implicit in his pseudo hospitality. A small victory was finally getting her Medicaid card, but Adam’s was still to come. These days she expresses an increasing determination to get them off the streets. But it’s hard being strong enough for two, with Adam as he is, and addressing business matters such as welfare.

She hugs me so tight when I say goodbye at the end of our short walks. Yesterday I proposed we have lunch, and her face just lit up. But relationships with the homeless are hard. You can’t call them on their mobile, or make appointments with the usual ease. The habit with which they claim certain stretches of pavement doesn’t mean they’ll always be there when you want to talk. (It turns out they run errands too!)

And of course there are other questions. Why not take advantage of the system? What about city resources? Even more charitably minded friends seem inclined to quickly defer to the expertise of city shelters. Yet somewhere there’s a major disconnect. The homeless I’ve met regularly tell stories of shelters where you must sit to sleep, or can’t spend the night at all. Shelters where they’ve encountered violence, reports of which aren’t taken seriously.

I have to say, they’re in a pretty powerless position. If something out-of-line does happen, who’s going to believe the homeless person claiming abuse? It’s a lose-lose situation. Even if bruises or other physical injury could be proven, the accused could easily explain the wounds as self-defense.

And yet if one such as myself were to offer temporary housing or other help, there are manifest problems in that “solution.” Accountability and trust, the specter of drug use … and that’s just off the top of my head.

Worse yet, it can all be so selfish on my part. Maybe I would mostly be helping her out just so I could briefly feel “good” — pride myself on “really making a difference” in somebody’s life. That’s a pretty pathetic image — my supposedly virtuous act as gesture of self-serving ego support. And yet I know myself well enough to see such self-centered motives lurking behind the most “altruistic” intentions.

Some time ago, a radical eccentric said, “The poor you will always have with you” and encouraged his followers to help the poor and powerless as if it were him they aided. Helping a homeless person may unfortunately feed my obsessive need to feel “good” inside all the time, but the more sacrificial that becomes, the better a chance it has of saving me from the callous concern for self-preservation which makes my friend regret his rare act of self-giving bravery. A New Yorker I may slowly be becoming, but that need not reduce me to the hollow, brittle shell that’s left when selfishness completely takes you over. 

On that grim and oh-so-lovely note, let me finish with a note of practical advice. ;) Which is: if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the city, it’s that the easiest way to stop homeless people asking you for money is to give them friendship instead. 

Finally, along with the thick skin I’m slowly developing ;) — feel free to opt out of this “list” if you want; just let me know. Hope all is well with you all, and I promise, I try to be very good about responding personally to the email responses I get.

posted @ 01:01 AM on Tue - September 30, 2003 remark! Email |  as quoted:
before I said ...  but more recently: 

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