"Misspelled Epitaphs," part two.
During one week of April, I had to drive to and from South Austin to deliver items for our marketing company. One of the things I'm learning about this town is the large number of homeless individuals who have no other option besides begging on the side of the interstate. This particular day I had to make two trips to the company, spaced about an hour apart.
The first trip was uneventful. In the midst of the second, as I pull of I-35, I see a homeless man sitting canted on the guardrail ahead of me. He has a long beard, tattered clothes, shoes that at some point in the faroff past were white. He held a cardboard sign, and it read:
SO HUNGRY. COULD YOU SPARE A DIME?
The obliteration of the self struck me about his words. There is no "I" here, no "me," just the hunger--that is all that is left. I sat in traffic and felt my guts knot. I rolled down my window and held my hand out, and he sat a little closer on the guardrail. When the light turned green, I stopped by him and handed him five dollars. It was all the money I had in my wallet.
He pressed his dirty hands against mine and took my money. "God bless you, brother," he said, his face cracking into a toothless smile. "God bless you--"
I rolled a foot forward. If anyone behind me honked impatiently I was going to kill them.
"--and have a good day," he said, his eyes squinting. The sincerity in his voice, the fervor, the ebullience nearly destroyed me. I drove to the marketing company and thought to myself how horrible it is that one man could find five dollars so significant. I thought to myself how horrible it was I did not have more money to spare. I drove to the marketing company with my fists clenched and my eyes watering.
Five dollars and his face lit like a child's.
I should have given him more.
I've never seen him again.