Walking back from the store and I spotted him, a bedraggled somewhat seedy looking man ambling and lurching along the sidewalk headed my way. I knew what was going to happen, years of experience walking the streets of first Providence and now Cleveland have given me a sense of street people and I made myself ready for anything from him. A simple request for money or a cigarette would be the easiest to deflect but occasionally I have been accosted in a more physical manner and I tightened my body for that possibility.
He approached me, I could smell the booze on his breath, wafting into my face and assaulting my nose from three feet away. He stopped and fixed me with his milky blue eyes. I nodded curtly and moved to his left, passing quickly around him. He put out a hand to stop me and spoke in a clear, surprisingly well modulated voice, "Excuse me," he said, "do you have fifteen cents I could have?"
The specific request stopped me and I turned back to face him. Fifteen cents? Why not spare change? Or a dollar? Our eyes met and I saw then the need and embarrassment in his before he dropped his gaze to the sidewalk. I reached into my pocket and handed him a quarter. He took it and shuffled slowly away, head bowed, shoulders slumped.
My own financial situation continues to verge on the desperate but sometimes seeing the world through the eyes of another is all that is needed to fully understand the meaning of the word "desperation".
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