The Question Series #4
The Bigger Evil
I bought a beer for a homeless man a few days ago.
It’s an odd story. I didn’t notice him holding a sign that said he needed fed, or a beer, or even that he needed money. In fact, he didn’t even have a sign. He just had a hat flipped over with change in it like a salted offering, dirty, ragged clothes, and a track of sidewalk that he paced, bouncing from one set of rejecting eyes to the next.
My hotel in Toronto is close to a major entertainment district intersection and it attracts panhandlers and bums and other such lesser citizens. As if you couldn’t tell who they were by their signs or outstretched hands, you could see plainly that they were homeless from the way the sun had bleached out the fabric of their outfits and turned their exposed flesh into leather.
They are ignored. A stream of people flow past them daily as if they were rocks on the bank line. Some folks go out of their way to avoid them. Whether it’s out of fear of the homeless or second tier populace, or just because they wish to avoid the guilt associated with rejecting a hard luck case, is hard to tell.
Im inclined to say it’s guilt, because several of the homeless carry signs that say, “if nothing else, please spare a smile.”
At first I thought it was an interesting tactic: the rejected acknowledging that guilt plays a role in why a person might give, so they wield it to reach a desired ends. Then I realized that most of the homeless are not getting smiles, or looks, or any kind of human recognition that affirms that they exist.
I began to wonder if it was the act of not giving that was so bad, or was it the act of not acknowledging the existence of a person that was the true evil? What does it say about us as a culture that we can so easily refuse to give outward awareness of another human being’s spot in the grand design? Money is one thing, recognition is another. Is our obliviousness our attempt to make sure this “bad behavior” is not reenforced?
I stopped taking the main streets about two weeks into my stay in Toronto because they are usually crowded with tourists and yes, shamefully I admit it, homeless. There is also a good amount of people handing out flyers, information on Islam, and Pro Choice lectures. Not that I’m staunchly opposed to any of those things, I just don’t want to be inconvenienced by it during my daily routine.
But is acknowledging another living being that much of an inconvenience? And while there are groups and organizations that routinely dole out sustenance, where are the places and people that dole out validation?
In taking the back street on a trip to one of the local beer stores (you can’t buy beer in grocery stores around here) I passed the man I’d come to know as a standard fixture in the area in a back alley laying on some news paper. He watched me go buy like a dog might watch his master, waiting for some queue that he should act for acceptance. I gave him none.
I went into the beer store and bought several cans of Canada’s finest, of all kinds and makes because I like variety. I placed them in a my reusable cloth bag and walked out, back the way I came. When I passed the man, his eyes followed me once more. I stopped, reached into the bag and pulled out a tall one and set it down beside him.
He smiled, looked up at me and said, “thanks, pal, I haven’t had one of these in a while.”
“Well,” I sad, “beer to me has always been something that has made me feel like I was apart of the group.”
He nodded, and drank, and I pulled out one I hadn’t tried before and took a sip beside him.
I left after a couple of sips. He thanked me again and I told him I’d get him another if I saw him sitting there when I went on my next beer run. So far I haven’t, but I’m always ready to buy.
I wonder though, if I did something wrong. I mean, alcohol and the homeless have a pretty strong negative connection. It’s always assumed that they take the money that’s given to them and buy booze, but I wonder if that’s because booze helps them hide from a truth we all contribute to daily: that the homeless don’t exist if we all agree they don’t. So, which is the bigger evil, contributing to an addiction, not acting because we assume evil will result of our act, or continuing to operate as if, by doing nothing, we are not doing evil ourselves?