I Am The World's Biggest Jackass: Confessing As Public Punishment
Archived from April 1, 2008
You guys.
Today walking home from the bus, this man ran towards me. He was yelling "please!" and such. He said, "don't be scared, I'm a neighbor, I live right here on (my street)." He told me he has "full-blown AIDS" and that he was bleeding from his rectum, and that he needed to go to Rite-Aid to fill his AZT prescription to stop the bleeding. In retrospect, like 8 of these things are obviously completely implausible. If you are bleeding from the rectum, you go to the EMERGENCY ROOM, you don't go get some pills. He said he needed AZT, but that's a drug you take every day when you have HIV, it's not like some pill that suddenly stops your anal bleeding. He told me an elaborate story about how his mother told him to "soak a towel in saline solution and shove it up there, and then go out on the street and find some loving human being who can help you." He promised me of course that he would pay me back, his mother would pay me back, she was on her way, etc. He was holding my arm really tightly and saying "please. please." while looking into my eyes. He was all hunched over like he was in pain. He didn't seem homeless, but in retrospect I think it's pretty clear he does not live on my street. I didn't really have time to deal with the situation, and as usual (and in spite of my 2 semester stint in "Women's Self Defense" training) I didn't have the presence of mind to take even the most pointless of precautionary measures (such as asking "what is your address" or offering to go with him to the Rite Aid on Wilshire after he said he couldn't go to the one on Sunset). All I thought was, "this is obviously a scam, but if it somehow WASN'T, then me not helping him would be the worst thing in the world." So I helped him. He showed me his medicaire slip or whatever. He said he needed $67 for his prescription. He kept telling me he was on dialysis and had had to change out of his pajamas when he started bleeding. What? He held my hand and kept saying "don't let me get hurt, oh god please don't let them hurt me" (about the cars) while we crossed the street. In my mind I was thinking, "you asshole! why are you doing this to me?" but out loud I kept saying, "it's okay, you'll be okay." I went to an ATM, and, since it was such a clever (? or I am just such a dickhead) scam, I had to give him $80 because you can't take just $67 or even $70 out of an ATM. He wrote down my phone number and told me his mother, whose name was Helen, would call me to return the money. "I am such an asshole," I thought over and over again as he hugged me intensely, pressing his face against my face and saying, "thank you, you are a human being, thank you thank you thank you." I knew he was just some meth-head or something, and I knew I was just throwing $80 out in the street, but I did it anyway. Why? I don't understand this experience. Several hours have passed and I am still just profoundly confused by my feelings and actions. I thought "yes, this is clearly just an insane drug addict. And yet I am going to give him this ridiculously large amount of money anyway, because I don't want to live in a world where someone actually COULD have a medical emergency and no one would help him." I don't know how that logic plays out. Me giving this crazy guy $80 does not make the world any more, or less, of a place where someone can have a medical emergency on the street and get helped by strangers. But I just kept thinking, "WHAT IF IT IS TRUE??" And I guessed I would rather be sitting at home feeling like an asshole for throwing $80 in the garbage can than for walking past some pleading, panicking human who looked in my eyes and begged me for help. Psychology is bizarre. What does it all mean? I need that $80. I might not need it as bad as Kevin (for that was his now-hilarious name), but I need it. I'm sorry you are an insane meth-head but I am not a fancy rich lady. Still, I do (did) have $80. I owned that amount of money, while Kevin clearly doesn't (didn't). Or, as Julianne so wisely put it, "he may not have needed it for what he said he needed it for, but he obviously did need it."
Uh. I feel so intensely lame. I feel like the naive country cousin who comes to the Big City and gets fleeced and has to be schooled in the arts of urban living by his wiser family members. I feel like a dumb hick. I feel embarrassed. But I also feel ashamed when I imagine myself saying "SORRY" and walking past him. I'd probably do it again. I mean, I obviously won't do it again for Kevin.
Which raises an interesting question--what if this happened every week, or every day, to me?? That's what makes me kind of mad: Kevin made me significantly less likely to help some other insane meth-head who could potentially actually be having a medical emergency in the future. And that actually is kind of scary, and presumably the reason we are all so alienated from one another blah blah blahblahblahblahblah.
Obviously I am just going on the assumption that "Kevin's" "mom" is never going to call me. I would be almost frantically amazed if she ever did. I'll probably find my phone number floating in a puddle of human excrement by the bus stop tomorrow. Or else "Kevin" will start calling me every day asking if I want a subscription to "Premiere" magazine. And the answer is "no." FUCK YOU, KEVIN.
GOD. WHAT AN IDIOT.
But frankly I'm surprised this hasn't happened to me before. The "spare some change" guys are a dime a dozen (SO TO SPEAK har har har (ugh)) but you'd think there would be more of these surprise attacks on your human heart, these undeniable pleas that prey on your built-in class guilt, these...........EMOTIONAL MUGGINGS.
Yes! I was emotionally mugged! that's what it felt like! and I just wanted to get away from him as fast as I could. He yelled my name and kissed his hand at me as I skittered away, and I thought, "Jesus Christ."
But what should I do the next time a crazy-seeming person begs me for money to deal with a medical emergency? SOME OF THE TIME it has to be true, right?? God, I am such an a-wad. You know what else is weird, is that I feel like this kind of thing happens to me a lot. Not this intensely, of course (or I'd be broke (haha)), but I feel like these kinds of people sort of zero in on me. I am not a girl who gets whistled at or grabbed or followed around by gross sex perverts or even hit on by normal guys, and I am not a girl who tends to get fucked with by mean violent guys on the street who want to scare me. But I am the person who the insane panhandler with the bizarre sob story will pick out of a crowd. I've seen it happen many times. How do they know that I am this bleeding heart, naive kind of country bumpkin who will be like, "oh my god! Here's my social security number and my passport and my checkbook!"???? I think of myself as actually sort of stern and uninterested in my fellow humans. Many people have told me that they thought I was variations on the phrase "a bitch" for the first year or so that they knew me, because I "look so mean" (actual description) when I'm walking around. I also think of myself as fairly cynical, especially about any strange men who accost me on the street. I don't look all fluffy and girly and like I would bawl if a squirrel got run over by a car in front of me (although I would). I also am very VERY VERY careful to never make eye-contact with anyone, ever, when I am out in public by myself. I learned this in women's self defense, along with walking quickly and with my arms swinging at my sides (not in my pockets), to give the appearance of forward drive and competence, even when I am lost. So I ask you: WHY ME?????? I think I would rather get whistled at, to be honest. Although all forms of being accosted by men on the street are bad.
In conclusion: please send me $80 because I'm santa claus and I need a new engine for my sleigh or else what will become of the children???
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