Cardboard Stars
The other day, I was down on 23rd, heading from 6th to 5th and I don’t remember why, but I think I must have been heading to Union Square. None of that is really critical to the story of me coming upon a man and his cardboard sign and sometimes I like to skim them while I’m passing because they can get pretty creative. Two things caught my eye: he needed 36 dollars and 40 cents and he used the secret codeword, “Texas.”
I appreciate random dollar amounts, but adding cents is the kind of detail I’m looking for in strangers on the street. And Texas. He’s from there. That was on the sign, too. He even drew the Lone Star flag off to the side. He wanted to go home.
So I sat down beside him during sidewalk rush hour and mostly listened, but sometimes talked and it went a little something like this:
Minus: Dude. You’re from Texas?
Dude: Yeah. From Houston.
Minus: I’m from Austin.
Dude: I’ve been to Austin.
Minus: That’s cool. I’ve been to Houston. Only twice, I think. I’m Sarah, what’s your name?
Dude: Tim.
Minus: So what the heck happened, Tim? Did you just get stranded up here or what?
Dude: Well, me and my girlfriend came up here after the hurricane. You know, to start over or whatever. And then the company we were supposed to work for ended up being complete ##$#@. It didn’t even ##$#@ exist! ##$#@!!!
Minus: That sucks.
Dude: Yeah. And we tried to get other jobs, but we’re barely making it, so we just decided to get the ##$#@ out of here. We just want to go home. This place is ##$#@!
Minus: Yeah. It’s not so awesome sometimes.
Dude: How long have you been here?
Minus: Just over four years.
Dude: How the ##$#@ do you do it? Do you actually like it?
Minus: I do, but it’s taken a while. It’s helpful if I can leave for a little bit, every few months or so.
Dude: Well I hate it! You know what sealed it for me? Saturday. That ##$#@ Puerto Rican parade. I was just trying to walk by and they were everywhere with all their little flags and everyone speaking ##$#@ spanish and I was like god ##$#@ what the ##$#@?!! I mean, Texas is just over the border from Mexico and we don’t have every ##$#@ sign in spanish. You come up here and they’ve got ##$#@ spanish and ##$#@ other languages all over the place!!! I don’t get it!
Minus: It’s a little different isn’t it?
Dude: It’s ##$#@ ##$#@ is what it is. They were all over the place. I couldn’t get through them or around them and then I went down to the subway and I was like god ##$#@ how many of these ##$#@ people are there in one place? I mean, everyone’s all crammed together and you can’t get away from them. There’s just too many of them. Too many people in this one place. I need my space. This isn’t right. Or normal. What the ##$#@?!! You know what I’m saying? I mean, they’re always in a hurry. They’re all in a hurry to get nowhere. They’re going nowhere. Just ##$#@ slow down, you know?!!
Minus: Yeah. I haven’t really picked up on their timing or people touching me. It’s interesting though. The ones who grew up here. How they’ve lived like this for so long. How it’s normal to them. I guess it’s just like us growing up down in Texas and them not being able to understand us taking our time or how we could live there without any of their big city magic and still have fun.
Dude: I just want to go home.
Minus: I hear you. You know when it’s time, so you should go.
Dude: What about you? How long are you going to stay up here?
Minus: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I didn’t think I’d be here in the first place and I certainly never thought I’d be here this long.
Dude: Tell me your name again?
Minus: Sarah.
Dude: I’m Tim.
Minus: Cool. Listen, y’all be careful going home. You’re going to wake up in a few days and it’ll be like none of this happened. But I think you’ll be glad you did it. I think it’s good for everyone to leave the place they came from, at least for a little bit.
I’ve thought about this a lot during the past couple of weeks. How it would be good if everyone were required to leave their home and live somewhere else. At least for a year. And to do that periodically. You could go back home afterwards, but I think it would help people see the world a little bit differently. It would mean that they wouldn’t fear McCain, “letting those Mexicans in” if he gets to be president. Or Obama being the Anti-Christ. Or Muslim. Or a secret agent of Bin Laden. And people may begin to understand that Muslim doesn’t equal terrorist, just as FLDS compounds don’t equal Mormon and all Christians don’t equal Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell, or the Westboro Baptist Church.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
So, did you give him $36.40 so he could go home, or did you just use him for the story and then walk away?
There was a guy in Florida who used to ask for $3.50 to add to the $5.00 that he (supposedly) already had so he could get the part to fix his car (which was always parked around the corner, out of view). During the four months that I was in Sarasota, he probably asked me for $3.50 about 30-40 times…always with the same story. I felt bad that the guy never seemed to be able to get the $3.50 he needed to fix his car, but I suspect that if I had given him $3.50, he probably would have asked me again the next day.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
duh. it’s not good manners to say if you give money to people.
i don’t really care if it was a made-up story or not. i just liked the exact dollar amount being mentioned and how he included the cents.
June 13th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Well, I guess Michael and I are rude bastards because I was going to ask the same thing. lol
Great post.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
collin: michael is my little brother, which automatically makes him a rude bastard. welcome to our family.
June 14th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Quite an interesting post and I agree with your view that everyone should be required to live away from their home for a while. I grew up in the mid-west and have lived in many different places throughout the western United States. As much as those experiences changed my perspective of life, nothing has changed me more than living and traveling overseas.
I have spent the last three years living in Abu Dhabi, and have learned a lot about how other people live in and navigate this wide world. People so rich it makes you sick and people so poor it makes you want to cry and give them everything you have. I was never afraid of Mexicans or Muslims, but did not understand them. I have now meet and interacted with people from just about every country of the “Axis of Evil” and think that the average person is not too bad. What we as Americans need to understand is that the political view of the government is not necessarily the view of every single person in the country. We say that about ourselves a lot, and I have experienced it.
So, I agree with your rule, and would add that every American needs to travel or live outside of their country for an extended period. That would go a long way to changing perspectives.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
thanks for commenting, jonathon. it would be awesome to live over there for a little while–or at least to visit. most of my outer-country experience has been in eastern europe. the most important lesson i think i learned was that things are not “good” or “bad,” in comparison to our ways. they’re just different.
it would be best if everyone could leave the country at least once in their lives, but leaving their state or city is a step in the right direction.