Got Any Change?

The Mercer on ramp is always rife with colorful characters. By characters, I mean panhandlers for a lack of a better word. Bum or beggar seems too rude. Sometimes when the light hits just right, I end up stopping right next to one of these guys. Sometimes I give change if I have it and sometimes I just wish them happiness and health.

I had seen this particular character before. I always wonder about these young ones. Are they just begging for sport or for some rebellion against working for the man, or are they really in trouble? I wonder, because I’ve known people like this. This guy was one of the bold ones, walking right up to my window.

With a mouthful of Cheetos, he held out his hand and asked me if I had any change. I handed him a handful. He was impressed, and then he fell in love with me. He told me repeatedly that I was beautiful. When I did not speed away or roll up my window, he took it as an invitation to come on over. He leaned on my window and looked in my car. He noticed the Buddha hanging from my mirror and he noticed my wedding ring.

He asked me if I was rich, and I said definitely not. With a ring like that, you must be, or he must love you. Does he love you? I looked him in the eye. He was dirty, but good-looking. He didn’t look particularly crazy or desperate. He looked like someone I might have hung out with in the old days. He does love me, I said, and smiled. He smiled too and then said, as the light changed, I’d love you too as pretty as you are.

And you know what? I took it as a compliment, and I was flattered. I’m not amazingly beautiful or magnificently kind, but I do try to see the decency in people and treat them with respect. I don’t care if he was just working me for money or he was just high. I feel like giving him the benefit of the doubt and accepting the affection. I say, pay it forward. It goes a lot further than a handful of change.