Living vicariously, part II: Brother, can you spare a dime?

It’s Sunday night, and I wish it weren’t. I don’t have to work tomorrow...it’s President’s Day, and I happen to have the day off...but I feel like I’ve squandered my 3-day weekend already. The truth is, I’m tired of that idiot job, no matter how well it pays. I can’t afford to chuck it, but driving around this afternoon, I thought about it...what if I sold everything, and went off and lived somewhere in a trailer...and had some small job that wasn’t so stupid...could I do that? No, I don’t think I could. But sometimes I think about it. It never ceases to amaze me that when I was doing work that mattered, I barely made a living wage, and now that I’m doing something absolutely meaningless, I’m paid more than I ever could have hoped to make, working with kids...

Last week, Thursday I think, it was so cold here...below freezing, which is unusually cold for Dallas in mid-February. It was still dark outside, and maybe 27 degrees, at 6:00 AM, as I pulled up to 7-11 and dashed inside to get a cup of coffee to drink in my car, on my way to work. As I stepped out of my car and walked toward 7-11, I heard a voice say, “Ma’am, can you spare a quarter?” Startled, I looked up and saw a young man, tall and skinny, standing huddled against the cold, outside the store.

A little frightened, I ignored him, and hurried into 7-11, where I got my coffee. When I came outside, he was still standing there, shivering. He couldn’t have been more than in his early 20's. Tall and skinny as he was, he reminded me of my son, Chris. I gave him a dollar, and some unsolicited advice: “You’re not going to do well here,” I said, “This is a really Republican neighborhood...”

“Yeah,” he said, taking the dollar, “Thanks, I guess so,” and he walked away quickly. He was wearing sweats, and it was way too cold to be out wearing just sweats. I felt like a jerk, giving him just a dollar...what would it get him? Barely a small cup of coffee at 7-11...I overthink these things always, I know, but there’s a part of me that thinks I should have given him $20, and a part of me that thinks I should have brought him inside 7-11 and let him pick out some breakfast. I don’t pat myself on the back for having these thoughts, because I didn’t act on them, and I’m reminded that the road to hell is paved with good intentions...but I wondered why didn’t he have a coat, or a warm sweater, and where did he come from, in my neighborhood, out in the cold at 6:00 AM? I don’t believe anyone with a warm alternative would willingly have been standing outside in that cold, at that hour, on that morning. There’s no regular bus service through my neighborhood, so it’s not like he was riding a bus and got off and ended up there...maybe he had some junker of a car parked around the corner somewhere, but still...

My neighborhood is filled with people who would look at that kid and say, “He’s young and able-bodied; he could have a job.” In theory, that’s so, but...if you don’t have any money, or a place to stay...how do you get yourself together to apply for a job? And if someone is 23 and living on the street, I think it’s fair to say that they may have more obstacles to finding a job than I could probably imagine.

I got into my warm car, with a full tank of gas, and a radio that works...and the fact that I’m disenchanted with this job, and that the commute is a bitch, and that I hate having to be up and out at that hour suddenly didn’t seem so important after all...