'I Don't Carry Cash'

Culturally, there are quite a few things, both good and bad, that one will notice when they move from a town barely large enough to have its own university to one whose university is the size of their hometown. Some are beneficial, museums, restaurants, and 24-hour stores-a-plenty tend to litter larger towns. Not having to go on wild goose chases every time you are looking for something specific makes life simpler. The ethnic diversity found in larger places is enlightening.

Some things, however, are disturbing. Increased crime rates, pandemic idiocy, the sound of gunfire and police helicopters will keep new residents up at night. Nothing seems quite as disturbing as the rampant homelessness and panhandling that seems to take place more in the city than in a town.

My first experience with Tucson upon moving from the village that is Flagstaff came in the form of a quick walk to a Circle K that was conveniently located within walking range of the dorm in which I was moving. When approaching the front door of the building, a gentleman of unknown ethnic origin asked me for a small amount of change. Like the naïve schmuck that is every 18 year-old, I gave him a handful of change I happened to have cluttering my right pants pocket.

Don’t get me wrong; I am a fairly sympathetic person to the blight of the truly unfortunate ones who are trying to get themselves back on their feet, but there is only so many times you can watch a sympathetic mother of three, trying to buy food for her brood, get harassed by a beggar for some change, only to come out of the store ten minutes later to find the same man concealing a new bottle of ‘Premium’ vodka and sucking it down when he thinks no one is looking. My sympathies only go so far.

The fact is, that if you are truly looking for help, you can’t walk into a state, local, or federal government facility without tripping over an agency whose sole purpose is to feed, clothe, and shelter hardworking people who have hit a string of bad luck. Not to say that these agencies aren’t abused as well, but that’s a subject for another blog altogether. The fact is that my good, hard earned, money is already going into social programs and non-profit organizations to help these people. Call me heartless, but the last thing I feel a compulsion to do is to give my money to a stranger so that he could use it to vomit in an alley behind a convenience store.

Compassion only goes so far. I’m certain that mine turned into annoyance over a period of a couple weeks, shortly after moving to Tucson. Amidst meandering back and fourth on campus, going from dorm to dorm a gentleman in his late thirties approached a friend of mine and asked him for a few dollars to get a bus ticket home. A good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, drunkenly felt sorry for the man and gave him a $20 bill. The man appeared to be grateful, and left us to go about our business.

Over the next few weeks, walking about with different friends, I repeatedly passed over the same part of campus to find the same man with the same story, simply trying to get a bus ticket to Texas. Considering how long he had been perched at the same location, I am willing to bet that he had garnished more than enough cash from loose-pocketed college students to get a plane ticket to Tahiti, had he felt like traveling. More than 6 times, he approached my friends and I, every single time, my friends gave him money. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the man was more likely than not simply a fraud.

A few months later, as a sociology experiment, a group of U of A students bought a handful of clothes from Goodwill, messed up their hair, threw some dirt on their faces, and sat on the medians of busy intersections across Tucson, begging for money. To the surprise of the students, they were able to collect more, on average, than they were earning in their real part and full-time jobs. Some of the students actually considered quitting their real jobs in favor of panhandling. Shortly after the experiment was publicized, Tucson Police Department heard of the results, and panhandling on the median of busy intersections was outlawed.

Aside from the one or two occasions when I was on a date and wanted to make myself look like I was the sappy caring type, I learned to simply give the panhandlers nothing more than a, ‘sorry, I don’t carry cash’ and go about my business.

Being polite and turning these people down worked wonderfully, that is until I dragged my crap back to my hometown of Flagstaff to find some of the most aggressive, blatantly intoxicated, assholes I have ever met in my life. These aren’t the ‘politely asking you for change as you walk in or out of a store’ types that I encountered while living in Tucson. I have, on more than one occasion, been followed into and out of stores, to my car, approached getting out of my car, and out of all places, in front of a restaurant that is literally across the street from a soup kitchen. In not once instance, was there any reason to believe that they were simply trying to get enough money for a meal. Every single one who has approached me in Flagstaff was staggering, slurring, and had alcohol on their breath.

For anyone who is looking for an at home version of this experience, and plays games such as I do, rent or buy the game Assassin’s Creed for the XBOX 360 or the PS3. Start walking around the poor district of Damascus and try to get anything done without being constantly assailed by beggar women asking for money. This is the only comparable experience I can imagine, except in real life, there are consequences for throwing a panhandler in a wall, or shanking them and leaving them for dead.

My personal tolerance for the situation reached critical mass one morning last week. I was minding my own business when a visibly drunk man (marked by his inability to stand up straight and a brown jug in his right hand, labeled with three X’s) proceeded to place himself directly on a path between my intended location and myself. The man probably wasn’t privy to the fact that I was already 10 minutes late to work, and already in a mood. I can’t fault him for that. Something that he should have picked up on however, was that the path he was standing on was in fact, a street, and I was in my car as I tear-assed down the icy road trying to get to work.

The light was green, and as I approached, I honked and waved in an attempt to get him out of the way. He refused to move out of the crosswalk, so I eventually had to slow down. I waited for him to approach my door then drove off again. Not particularly attached to a random stranger, I had no intention of seeing him injured, no matter what I thought of him. Plus, aggravated vehicular manslaughter tends to raise your insurance rates.

I may be cold at times, but I’m not cold hearted. The thing that disturbs me most about people who would rather drink their lives away than becoming a functional member of society is the lack self respect. No thoughts as to the family and friends that worry about them, no desire for greatness or even so much as a name for themselves. Nothing but lost potential, and a parent’s lost dream of their child having a better life than their own.