It Pays to Have Skills

New York subways are filled with crazy characters. There are the people who deliberately take up two seats, those who refuse to hang on to the bars and step on people’s feet when the train slows and the riders who listen to their ipods and dance along, just to name a few. My least favorite subway fixture is the vocal panhandler.

The subways are filled with signs courtesy of MTA that say things like, “ride in the train, not on it,” and “don’t go onto the tracks if you drop something.” My most recent vocal panhandler experience occurred right in front of one of those signs. It read, “Panhandling: a crime that you can prevent by giving to legitimate charities.”

A man walked into my train car, stood in front of the sign and, in a monotone voice, read aloud from a cue card something along the lines of, “Hi. I’m Bill and I have AIDS. I have a daughter who was diagnosed negative. I have no money to eat. I don’t drink or smoke. If you have change or food for me, I would really appreciate it.”

I have seen different variations of this scenario probably 10 or 12 times since arriving to NYC and it is always completely heart-wrenching. I leaves me feeling a little sick to my stomach. Everyone stares straight ahead as if in a daze so that when the man with AIDS walks by with his hat, they don’t have to make eye contact. I feel guilty for not giving these people money, but I think I would feel stupid if I fished my wallet out of my purse to hand over a few cents when I am not even making money.

In the particular situation, no one gave Bill any money and so he moved onto the next car. Not two stops later three men came into our train car, and sang a Four Tops song a capella. Incidentally one of these men looked so much like Snoop Doggy Dogg that I really thought it might be him. I looked around and people were smiling and clapping along.

As the men sang, they walked by the passengers, a can full of coins jingling with every step, and I was astonished to see that nearly everyone around me was getting dollar bills out of their pockets and wallets to hand over to the singing trio.

I wished Bill could have seen the whole thing. Maybe if he did a little harmonica number or something, he could increase his salary.