Today I was making the dreaded trek home after class. This involves walking the uphill portion of Baxter Street which seems to last forever. About midway there is a Chevron station on my side of the road. I see a black man in a wheelchair talking to people as they walk in and out. Immediately I assume that he is asking them for money, so I look away and keep walking hoping that I would be too far away for him. I was not.
"Hey! Hey, man!"
"Yeah?"
"Hey, man, could you roll me up the hill?"
"Sure, I'll roll you up the hill. Where you goin'?"
"I'll tell you when we get there."
Hmm. The man is probably between 55 and 65 years of age; black people age really well, so it's a tough call (Did you know that Samuel L. Jackson is 56?). Anyway, he has a plastic bag with him, and it looks to contain some sort of alcohol.
"Do you want me to carry the bag?"
"No, I want you to push."
Terse. So he loads up and off we go. As we head out of the gas station a black woman talks with him for a few seconds. She has a smile on her face, but it sounds like there's hostility between them. She says something like, "Aight, I see you around!" He replies with a bitter tone, "Nah, I ain't fuckin' wit you." My guess is that he asked for a ride and she said no.
So we reach the sidewalk and I realize how hard this is gonna be for me. Even though the man is missing one leg, he must weigh between 160 and 170 lbs (maybe more, I'm awful at guessing weight). Plus I'm wearing flip-flops. So there I am, scrawny white boy pushing old, one-legged black man up this hill, which suddenly seems like a vertical climb.
I try to make polite conversation. "So what's going on today?" "At least it's not too hot." That sort of thing. He replies to it all, but I don't understand him very well; a combination of me exerting myself, being behind him, and thick ebonics. I must say, there was not really a friendly tone on his side of the conversation. Oh well.
He asks me if I have any money so he can get a taxi. I tell him I don't bring my wallet to class. (Lie). At this point there is a crack in the sidewalk, but there's no avoiding it, so I keep a-pushin'. We hit it and he says, "Whoa, don't break my shit!" but not in an amused way. I tell him I didn't see it.
We take a right into the dry cleaner's parking lot, and this is some serious incline. I'm walking on the fronts of my feet and positioning my hands to where the handles of the wheelchair are in the center of my sweaty palms. This is because if I placed my hands regularly on the handles, I'd be feeling up his armpits. I figured we should get to know each other better before we got to third base. Fortunately, lack of shame allows me to ask for his assistance in getting his tri-limbed body up this parking lot.
Somewhere in my workout I hear him ask something about me having a car. I don't respond, because I wasn't sure exactly what he asked and I had already asked him to repeat himself several times. We get past the tough part of the parking lot and he says that we can stop there. That's when I notice a lone car and a shady-looking character sitting in the driver's seat. I tell the man, "Take it easy," and go back on my way. I hear the man talking so my guess is that he asked that character for a ride.
Though this crotchety, old black man did not say, "Thank you" at any point, I feel I made peace with God today.
5 comments:
Having lived in Atlanta now for closer to a decade, I am immune to shit like this. You know it's getting bad when you start playing games with bums such as these. Ask them riddles/questions. If they answer correctly, throw them a buck. They never answer correctly, and deserve little compassion with the shit that most of them pull around here. It's where the playas play.
All of this could have been avoided with one, simple word from the get-go: NO.
Here we go with Stonewall Holland again, posing as if he has balls. Sure, you can sit around the apartment and write on the internet about your staunch position on situations such as these, but in reality you're the biggest pushover of all time.
We all know that if it had been you, you would have done the exact same thing. You probably would have given him a ride too; hell, you would have given him your car. Then you'd tell everyone that it got stolen and go on another one of your three rants that you say over and over.
Say whatever you want. Like the previous 50 people who passed by him before you did, I would have just said "no." It's not that hard. And if he asked me for money, I wouldn't have had to LIE about it. I'd have said something like "sorry, my parents work too hard" or something like that. I've done it many times before downtown (and you're usually with me), and I'd have certainly done it in your case. It doesn't take "balls" to say it (If the guy was big and black, and it was the middle of the night and you were alone, then we have a totally different story).
As usual, you continue to think you are helping these worthless, ungrateful drunks when in fact you are hurting them, by KEEPING them worthless and helping them remain dependent on naive white college kids like yourself.
Poor people suck.
Post a Comment