The Deacon's Bench
Wednesday evening, he was sitting on the sidewalk outside Macy’s in Rego Park, Queens, not far from where I live, holding that sign. He was young, smoking a cigarette. He had a short beard and wore a tight ski cap. I saw him there and stopped. I asked if I could take a picture of the sign. He said okay, but that he didn’t want to show his face. I pulled out my phone and snapped this shot.
I crouched down to talk to him. “What’s your story?” I asked him. “How did you get here?”
“I was in Massachusetts,” he explained, crushing out his cigarette, “and I came down to New York with my girlfriend. I was going to see my mother. I went to the bathroom and left all my stuff with my girlfriend and when I came back she had gone and taken everything, all my money and my clothes, everything. Now I can’t get back.”
“Have you contacted anyone?”
“They don’t have the money for me,” he said. “I’m stuck.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“About a month.”
“Where are you staying?”
“In a tent under a bridge.”
“How old are you?”
“19.”
“What’s your name?”
“Devon.”
“Well, Devon,” I said, “I hope you get where you need to be. Winter is coming.” I handed him a dollar. “God bless you. I’ll pray for you.”
“God bless you. Thank you.”
I have no idea if any of that was true. Maybe. Maybe not. He may have been like the guy on the front page of The New York Post today—a 40-something former stagehand making a small killing from the kindness of strangers.
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But I keep thinking about that woman I saw a few weeks back, sitting on a sidewalk, asking for nothing but a miracle. And I can’t escape the feeling that I should have said something. I should have talked to her. I was in too much of a hurry. I moved on. Tonight, I decided to stop. I took a moment to listen.
Honestly, my wife is far better than I am when it comes to offering charity to beggars on the street. Every week, she gets a roll of quarters, and gives a quarter to anyone—even if they don’t ask. Anyone with an extended palm or a cardboard cup. (Once, when we were waiting for the subway, she saw a guy playing guitar on the platform, his open guitar case at his feet. He was terrible. But she went over and gave him a quarter anyway. I asked her why. “His playing was awful,” I said. “I know,” she answered. “But I like to support the arts.”)
Every day in New York—and more often now than at any time I can remember—we encounter more and more of these people on subways, sidewalks, benches. No doubt, a number of them are frauds. But then there are the ones who aren’t. It’s hard to tell. No one can tell me the economy has rebounded when I keep seeing these folks again and again. When you see them on every block, something is seriously wrong. But something is seriously wrong, too, if we just look the other way and keep on walking, as if this is just another part of life in New York, like graffiti or pigeons or Ray’s Pizza.
I wrestle with what to do when I see these people. Cardinal Dolan the other day said he likes to hand out gift cards for food, which I think is both charitable and sensible. But what if you don’t have any handy? I’m reminded of a story I once heard about Fulton Sheen. He was probably the most famous and recognizable Catholic in America in the 1950s, and he couldn’t walk the streets of New York without being stopped by people asking for autographs, prayers or money. He never said no. Once, after handing some money to a beggar, his niece said, “Uncle, how do you know that he wasn’t faking?”
“I don’t,” he replied, “but I don’t want to take that chance.”
Neither do I.
If I can do nothing else, I can offer spare change and a prayer. Which is what I offered to that kid named Devon. I’ll pray for him, whatever his circumstances. If he’s really living under a bridge, he needs the prayers; if he’s not, he may need them even more.
I remember bumping into a parishioner last summer, who saw me giving a 7-11 gift card to a morbidly obese man who regularly sits on the subway steps and begs. His name is Michael. He told me he’d lost his job in construction a few months earlier. His wife was a nurse. She didn’t know he was doing this.
When I told a parishioner I’d given him a gift card, she was appalled. “You should have just told him to get off his fat ass and get a job,” she said.
Yeah, well. I’m not like that, I said. Which made me wonder, as I walked away from her, “What am I like?”
Maybe I’m a fool, a sucker and a sap.
Maybe I’m throwing away money and charity on people who don’t need it.
But like Fulton Sheen said: I don’t want to take that chance.
And there’s this: I think these people are put in my path for a reason—maybe to nudge me out of my own comfort zone, toward a place of greater charity and generosity and love.
Maybe, just maybe, God didn’t put me into the lives of these people for their benefit.
Maybe they are here for mine.
I’ll pray for you Devon, whoever you are and whatever you’re doing.
And maybe that’s all that matters.
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