On the list of nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine reasons I should never be in charge of doling out money to people in need … is the simple fact that I seem to take …
EVERYTHING SO %$#@^&* PERSONALLY!
AAAAK!
On the heels of having had such a positive experience, interviewing victims for “Safe Horizon” last week, I was feeling rather cocky when I went back the other night.
Yes, yes, yes, here I am the guardian of the good, I told myself, chest
puffed out even more than usual and lemme tell you, this chest does not need to call any further attention to itself.
Sheesh! Did all you guys (and girls) stop breastfeeding too early?
Anyway, I picked up Kathleen, my leatherette Buddhist bathroom designer pal, and we went back for another night of volunteering on Pier 94.
We were given new guidelines immediately; the well had run dry for all the car service drivers. Evidently, someone at United Way woke and
said, “Hey those guys still have jobs! We can’t give them a thousand bucks just because they lost their WTC fares!”
A good point, I suppose since there are more than enough jobless, homeless folks who could sure use that thousand bucks.
Plus I was getting tired of looking at a waiting room full of Middle Eastern guys who talked constantly on their cell phones and wore more gold around their necks than I will ever own.
(Note to PC monitor) Hey! I’m not generalizing! That’s what I saw!
So with pen and guidelines in hand I went up to the waiting room desk for my first ummm client. A rather sizable guy with an overstuffed briefcase, bursting at the hinges took my hand.
“The internet company I worked at closed cause of the WTC and then promptly relocated to Florida. I can’t get a hold of them, get paid nothing.”
“Okayyyyyyy. How much was your weekly pay?”
Seventy-five dollars an hour. I usually made fifteen hundred bucks a week.”
Shit! I thought to myself. This guy was making some bucks.
As it turned out, he could neither prove his income nor that he even worked at a downtown company. He had an unsigned letter, no pay stubs and when I called what was supposed to be the company in Florida I got someone’s personal answering machine.
I set him up as “file pending” and sent him home empty-handed.
“Hey at least the food is free! Why not grab some dinner and come back tomorrow with signed papers! “ I called out to him as he trudged away, utterly dejected.
That was pretty much the way my night went.
Jobless victims with not even the smallest amount of proof of their predicaments.
“I’ll set you up as pending … pending … pending …” was my mantra.
By the time I got to my worst case, I was ready to commit suicide with a sharp No. 2 pencil right there at my interview table.
She was an older woman, perhaps early 50s, with tight little dreadlocks and sad eyes. She started crying as soon as we sat down.
“I have no money. My son is out of work. We are getting evicted. No one will help me.”
“Did you lose a job below Canal Street?”
“No.”
“Did your son?”
“No.”
“Did you live down there?”
“No.”
“Did you lose a loved one down there?”
“No.”
Sigh.
There was nothing I could do for her.
So what did I do?
Natch.
I asked for her home address and told her I would send her a check toward her rent from my personal banking account.
She thanked me (and seemed rather unsurprised, all things considered), and I sent her off for her free dinner.
“Do you think she was conning me?” I asked Kathleen over our volunteer meal of mashed potatoes, tortellini and salad on Styrofoam plates.
“Maybe, but Buddhism teaches you that anytime someone asks you for money, it’s like God asked you.”
Sigh.
I really can’t do this anymore.
I’m much better at flipping burgers.
The mashed potatoes were good though.
