When I was a sophomore at college, I used to see the same crackhead every time I walked to class. He was always at the corner of Howard and MLK, a not-yet-gentrified part of Baltimore. To paraphrase Chris Rock, if you find yourself on a street named after Martin Luther King, run. I never did, despite the man waving his hands, doing an off-balance jig, crack’s telltale ash around his mouth. His eyes were always extra wide open, as if he had to see everything he could possibly see to survive.
I’d ask him how his day was going; his response would be apropos of nothing. Sometimes he’d ask if I’d heard the news about X or Y. I hadn’t. I was an apathetic college kid. Parties in Fells Point: Fine. Martin O’Malley’s stance on Baltimore’s education system: Nah.
The man never asked for money. My grandma once told me that anyone lingering anywhere was a wino looking for wine money. Someone stands outside 7-Eleven to finish a cigarette? Wino. “He’s waiting for the right moment to ask,” she’d say. It was funny to think about all those pastors hoping to score cash for a bottle of Arbor Mist as they waited outside the church to welcome the congregation.
My grandma hasn’t visited me in Florida. She has dementia now; traveling to unfamiliar places is too disruptive to her routine. She’d be repulsed by the number of panhandlers, even just the number on N. Dale Mabry before you get to MLK. There are the regulars, including a man and woman, and, occasionally a child, with their sign reading, “Help Please.” There’s the woman on the median, selling water or newspapers. Grandma would say, “Look at their shoes. Nice says don’t need money,” or, “Look at her wig. It ain’t cheap.” They had enough to get their own wine.
I’ve never given any of them money, and didn’t feel guilty about it until recently, and only because my dog started barking at the woman with the wig, baring her teeth and clawing the window. The woman looked terrified. I mouthed “Sorry” and drove on, and felt rude for engaging with her — as opposed to staring straight ahead — but not buying what she was selling, or offering change for nothing in return.
When I walked past the crackhead back in college, I was usually on my way to my Occidental Civilization class to take a nap. I was like, “I live in America. I got this.” I do. I’ve got our cultural norms, traditions, and values down. Penning a column called “Dark & Sinful,” I clearly know enough to ignore said norms, traditions, and values.
Ignorance goes wrong, of course; and avoidance, due to ignorance, leads to things like Donald Trump getting the Republican nomination. Maybe the eye doesn’t have to be on the prize every second, whether the prize is making the left on Spruce to get home, the American Dream, or even a bottle of wine. Looking people in the face can’t possibly hurt as much as pretending they’re not there
This article appears in May 19-26, 2016.