It’s the morning after Valentine’s Day. We had a fabulous dinner at our favorite restaurant: a complimentary Kir Royale, a 7-course tasting menu, and wine paired to each course. A gustatory extravagance. We didn’t get to sleep until well after midnight, and I overslept, and now I have a headache and I’m running late and of course the car is almost out of gas. I pull into the Shell station around the corner (I know, I’m supposed to go to Hess because they give more political money to Democrats but, see above, I’m running late).
Just as I’m finishing up and pulling the nozzle out of the tank, he comes up to me. His car is idling at the pump on the other side of the island. He’s wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap and he ambles — that’s the only word for it — over to me, and heartily wishes me a good morning and a Happy Valentine’s Day. I’m wary but I return the greeting. He introduces himself: his name is Mike. I replace the gas cap, tell him I’m Matt, and head towards my door.
“Matt! I’ll remember that: M&M’s, we have the same first letter.”
Then he launches into his story. It’s windy, and his enunciation isn’t perfect, but I get the gist. He lives in Newport. He’s out of gas. He lost his wallet. He wants some money for gas, and suddenly, I’m flashing back to San Francisco, six years ago.
…
I’m 23 or 24. I’m in San Francisco for a week, sent out by my company to work on some ridiculous software project that we shouldn’t have started in the first place. The customer is pretty crazed, and we’re all working 10-hour days. I have a cold. My dad’s in the hospital. I’m tired, sick, and I want to go home.
Actually, all I want at this point is to get to my hotel, which means hailing a cab. I really, really suck at hailing cabs. It’s stressful and terrifying and part of why I don’t live in a real city. Whenever I’m in New York, I have to have someone else get the cab for me. It’s pathetic, really. Once Rachel and I were in New York for a romantic weekend to see a Broadway show (Ragtime) and we started walking from the theater to our hotel when we realized it was fricking freezing out and we were stupid and should take a cab. I made a few half-hearted attempts to get one on my own, and then guiltily slunk into a line for cabs outside some random hotel and let the doorman hail one for us. Not my proudest moment.
So anyway, I’m standing on this corner in downtown San Francisco, sniffling, hungry, and exhausted, when I see this guy walking towards me. He’s tall, well-dressed, African-American, and striding down the block with great purpose. He greets me, asks if I’m from around here, and launches into his story. I can’t remember the details, but you can probably guess the broad outlines, car broke down, wife’s sick, lost wallet, needs money for repairs, etc.
Right away I can tell it’s a scam. His patter is too good. He even slips up once — even after I told him that I’m not from San Francisco, he still says the line, “I don’t have AAA, and your police are no help.” Your police. If he was telling the truth, if he was talking off the top of his head, would he have made that mistake? I didn’t think so. But somehow I find myself taking out my wallet and giving him $40 anyway.
I don’t know why I did it. No, that’s not true; I know exactly why I did it. I was tired and miserable, and didn’t have the energy to make a scene or argue with him. I remember he took my business card, like he was going to somehow pay me back or something. I finally went back inside, called a cab company to come pick me up, and finally made it into bed. I felt like an idiot. I felt like even more of an idiot a few days later on a shuttle to the airport, when I heard the two guys in the seat in front of me talking about being approached by the same guy with the same story and telling him to get lost.
…
So back in the present day, Mike’s asking for money, and I’m not going to give him any. I start to stammer out excuses. (Literally. I know that’s an expression people use, but I actually began to literally stammer out excuses.) I had no cash on me. (True.) I was running late. (True.) I was really, sincerely sorry I couldn’t help him.
“You’re not sorry,” Mike said, walking away in disgust. “If you were sincere, you’d help me out.”
I got in my car, and I drove away.
And Mike was right. I thought about it on the way to work. I decided he was scamming me, and so I turned him down. He asked for help, and I turned him down. Maybe I was right, and it was a scam. Worst case, I’d be out a few bucks. But what if I was wrong? The worst case for him is a lot worse than it was for me.
I really hope he got home.
{ 11 } Comments
I wish I could tell you 100% that you did the right thing. (And I’m pretty sure you did)
The best I can offer are 2 similar experiences in the same town.
One time, walking to the train station (downtown side) I was approached by a guy who had locked his keys and wallet in his car on federal hill. He needed $60 bucks for a locksmith. Not being much of a cash carrier, I gave him nothing (his story was compelling, though, and I felt bad). Several months later, at the train station (state house side), I was approached by the exact same guy, who locked his same keys and same wallet in his same car…
The worse time was when somebody came banging on the front door of my house (my house doesn’t really face a street, so it’s very unusual to have somebody just drop by). The person at the door had a whole story about locking their infant in the car (in addition to their keys and wallet), a couple of blocks away. They wanted money for a locksmith, again. I refused them money (which ate at my insides) but offered to call a locksmith for them. I figured once the locksmith saw the situation, they couldn’t leave an infant locked in a car. The person refused my offer to call a locksmith (which is the part I use to make myself feel better). And then made a comment (similar to your guy) about my being unwilling to help someone in such an awful situation (which is the part that haunts me).
Our logic tells us that we are being scammed, while the proverbial “what if” wants to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
I think you did the right thing and admire the fact that you are kind enough (to friends and strangers) to let this haunt you.
I have found that around where I work I often have people approach me with stories about needing money for bus fare. As I now carry around small pre-paid tickets that are good for any one continuous ride on the state bus system (which cost me about 60 cents each), I offer those up when asked. If the person takes one, I figure I’ve helped out someone who really needed transport. If not, I know I was being scammed.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to every situation, but I think it’s the equivalent of what Ken did with offering to call a locksmith and is a good way to try to address the problem — offer some kind of non-monetary help. I don’t know how that that would have worked in either of your situations, Matt, so this comment is largely useless.
Ken, if it makes you feel better, the police will jimmy your care open if you lock your baby inside. I know this because it happened to me once, when my son was a few weeks old. They make you sign a waiver saying you won’t hold them responsible if they break your door lock, but they do it for free.
I don’t carry cash. For that reason. Heartless, I suppose, but I had too many shady characters in Memphis approach me, begging for cash.
It was a scam. Don’t feel bad.
That has happened to me. I gave some money to a guy recently in fact:
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And then I saw him again:
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Maybe this is the wrong attitude, but I always put myself in the beggar’s position and ask myself, “If this were my problem, how would I solve it?” I’ve never answered that I would wander over to a wealthy neighborhood where I don’t live and tell my story to total strangers and yell at them if they didn’t give me money.
I think, ironically, liberal people tend to dehumanize beggars by assuming that someone of their class can’t get by in the world in any other way. As an inner-city New York teacher (who has, for a year, been poor enough to get really hungry), I have learned that this simply isn’t true. Even among the admittedly awful positions that poverty puts people in, individual charity is neither affirming nor really helpful. Poor people are not intellectual cripples. They have families, communities, and ingenuity and almost anything anyone really needs in NYC can be gotten for free.
In my current neighborhood, there is at least one beggar per block. Some cry and tell long stories. One wears Sean John jackets and another wears $150 Merrell shoes. One stands outside the bank on weekends and yells at people until they promise to bring him a twenty from the ATM. And whenever someone calls the police because a beggar is getting violent, a crowd of self-satisfied white people gathers around him, screaming, “He has a right to be here! He has a right!”
Individual charity does nothing to help the beggar. It only makes the giver feel smug and it keeps the government from feeling like it has to provide reasonable services to the poor.
Once I walked into a Dunkin Doughnut’s and while waiting in line I hear one woman tell another woman to look at how much money she had made. I turned to look and she had chunks of crumpled up money all over the table. The other women, both of which in rags as you may gather, asks where she worked, and the women replied… right outside this door, I make at least 60-70 bucks a day. Ever since that day I can not bring myself to give money to anyone I see on the street. I know some of them probably are in need, but like they say… one bad apple…
Growing up in Westport, Massachusetts, I am not accustomed to random people approaching me on the street asking me for money. Since I’ve moved to Boston, I can’t go a day without seeing someone on my way to or from work. The worst is when they sit outside the ATM booths. I can’t very well go inside, take out cash, count it, put it in my pocket, and walk outside and say “sorry dude, I don’t carry cash”.
I’m sorry to say I’ve become very cold about the whole thing, but it all makes me very uncomfortable so in this situation I’m much better with avoidance.
I’ve been making my way through season four of Six Feet Under, and just saw the particularly terrifying episode where David gets carjacked by some nice-looking guy who was pretending that he ran out of gas and needed help, when really he was a psychotic drug addict carjacker. I thus learned not to offer help to strangers because they will probably hold a gun to your head, toss a dead body out of the back of your van, make you smoke crack, and then pour gasoline all over you before leaving you to wander along the freeway looking for help (which people also won’t give to you because they think you’re a gasoline-soaked psychotic drug addict carjacker). Another handy reference on this subject is the film “Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer.”
You did the right thing.
Ok, see, this is why I don’t watch Six Feet Under anymore. I don’t want to have to smoke crack!
In my heart, I believe it was a scam.
It seems like someone who’d have the guts to approach you in a public place would not be disgusted if you were without cash, just like him.
You DID do the right thing.
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