Walking up a busy downtown street the other day, following the throes of businesspeople, heading for a coffee. A skinny man with dirty clothes and a backwards baseball cap was scuttling up the street beside me, picking up cigarette butts, brushing them off, putting them in his pocket. He also carried a big plastic bag full of cans he had collected from garbage cans and right off the road.
He was a few feet ahead of me when a fast-walking man came up from behind and put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, that terrible “hey!” whistle that people do that I can’t do but even if I could I would never do except maybe at a Led Zeppelin show. The whistling man was short (about to my shoulder) and balding and chubby and had a lot of cologne on. He had half an inch left to smoke on his cigarette. When the skinny guy turned around, at the whistle, Shorty said, “here, you can have the rest of this.” Skinny guy looked at Shorty for a minute, then said “thanks,”and took the cigarette butt.
Hmm. That’s kind of nice, I guess, but the whistling really put me off.
Then, as the skinny guy scuttered off, Shorty pulled out his pack of smokes (Dunhills) and lit a fresh one. He had a full pack.
And:
i. while those who smoke are under no obligation to give away all their cigarettes to people who live on or near the street
and:
ii. while it can be exhausting to give to people downtown because there are so damn many of them asking and we are all cynical and have our doubts that they will spend our hard earned money on something “appropriate” ie: food not drugs even if drugs will keep them alive longer than a cheeseburger and who are we to judge, really, if you don’t want to give your money don’t give your money
I still:
a) couldn’t help but think that it would have been nice for Shorty to go the extra three inches and give the guy a whole cigarette and that
b) if he had done so it would have been a surprise and a heartening moment whereas
c) as it stands, it just made me (think and) feel a little sad.