Hustlin’ and Hopin’
Last night I went to downtown
I passed by the usual array of rich white faces walking their manicured dogs, sad & desolate black faces hustlin’ on the streets, and determined & methodical Hispanic faces (one was watering the flowers outside of a golden hotel). One 25 or so year old black guy came up to me and began trying to talk to me, I tried to avoid falling into his artful trap.
Then he asked me if I smoked any pot, he was courting clients for a dealer down the street. I told him that I did not but that I was curious about what it does to people’s minds. He spoke with eloquence and scientific understanding of its various forms and effects. He offered his hand and said that his name was Cody, I reluctantly shook his hand replying with “Billy.” His handshake was soft and sweaty, my right hand still feels dirty from it and I avoided touching my face on the train ride home (I was reading Will Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy,” he is my favorite historian). He followed me down the steps to the red line CTA. I notice that he walked with a bad limp in his left leg. I gave him about 75 cents and the advice to get a job because working must be easier than hustlin’. He explained that he was on the verge of getting hired and said with pride that it was an $8/hour janitorial job, but that he was near to losing the opportunity because he didn’t have the $20 necessary to buy a State I.D., which the employer required. He would only look me in the eyes every 20 seconds or so. He was likely stoned, but insisted that he did not do drugs. Cody told me that he never knew his mother and that his father died about a year ago, which forced him to drop out of college.
He cried as he told me the story. His eyes were red. He said with shame that his clothes and body were all dirty and “greasy.” All the while I evaluated him and his story, trying to decipher its degree of truth. He said that he prayed often at a nearby Catholic Church. I asked him if his story was true and he swore to God that it was, he raised his right hand and looked to the sky, though it was hidden by the cracked cement ceiling of the subway. We were alone in the stairwell for about 20 minutes. Sometimes he would pound the wall with his fist to express frustration about his life. He said that most of the people at the homeless shelter have a mental illness, as though to separate himself from them, trying to maintain some dignity. I could tell that he was smart, his mind was agile and quick; I told him that I thought so. When I finally tried to leave he reminded me that I had just a minute ago asked him if his story was true, and thus I implied that I was on the verge of helping him; I appreciated his tactical play and his perception. I couldn’t stop thinking that the twenty dollar bill in my wallet had a different number on it, depending on which one of us looked at it.
I decided to give him one of the five twenty dollar bills that were in my wallet. I figured that even the 10% chance that his story was true was enough for me to help him get to his current dream of becoming an eight dollar janitor. When I opened my wallet he shielded his eyes with his arms out of politeness for my privacy. I urged Cody many times to “please do good with it, whatever it is, just do good.” He promised that he would and requested my phone number so that he could check in with me on his progress. I didn’t even feel comfortable giving him my primary email address (which is shamefully listed for all the world on this site). I wrote my secondary email address on the back of a dirty receipt that he plucked off the ground. He admitted to not understanding how to contact me via email, but had heard once that he could get a free email account through the public library. As we parted, he offered an open palm while I simultaneously offered a closed fist, he conformed to my gesture and pounded my fist with his (I did this from conscious desire to not shake hands with him again. That’s how hypocritical I am.). I suspect that I’ll be checking that email account often for the next few months, until I give up hope.
Through the entire encounter, I do not remember him smiling until I gave him my email address, maybe he felt like he made friends with someone from a different world.
I had spent so much time with Cody that I could no longer take the CTA to make the 12:40am train on time, so I took a cab. The cab driver was a light-skinned black man of about fifty years old, although the hardness of the City could have added ten years to his appearance. I asked how he liked living in
He then declared that this was his City and that he was “number one.” He said that he has lots of important and rich friends. He told me about some people who have in the past turned cab drivers to people of status in society, including former Mayor Harold Washington, who he also claimed was his father (interestingly, Washington beat Daley in the 1983 Democratic primary). He told me that you can have all the degrees in the world, but if you don’t know the right people and if you aren’t in the “
Robert will probably never stop driving his cab and he will probably never be rich, but at least his dreams will occupy his mind during his lonely nights. Wisdom and delusion in one man, I liked him as much as I liked Cody. I would hire them both and pay them as much as I could.
A couple of hard, “tuff” looking white train conductors were complete assholes to me. I had a question so I approached them and said “Hey” in a friendly voice. He said “Hey?” with a scowl. I made a second attempt with, “How’s it going?” He retorted, “How about ‘excuse me sir’?” If Cody had such an easy, mindless job I think he would have instead replied with a smile, “Hey man, what’s up?”
Both Cody and Robert have a lot of talent, all humans do. We’re designed to do great things, and a few of us have, but most never will. How does a human being with all the dark caverns and catacombs of a powerful mind remain sane while working a job below his abilities? They are forced to either lose sanity or to forget about the mental potential that makes them human. “C” from A Bronx Tale said, “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.”
My night was not unusually eventful, that’s not why I’m sharing it. My night was significant precisely because it wasn’t eventful. There are millions all over
I tried to take a step in this article toward acknowledging my own prejudices and my ambitions for breaching my safe shell and eventually helping a whole lot of people. But this article wasn’t just about race, it was mostly about people and faith and hope and pain.
Don’t worry about me, now I’m back home in
Comment by illinikc33 on 19 June 2007 at 1:47 pm:
Yeah, you got worked big time.
Comment by tet on 19 June 2007 at 2:00 pm:
Wow, Billy Joe, that’s a great story. Ol’ Studs’d be proud of you (well, not about the 600k house, but about the rest of it.)
I know a lot of suburban guys who’d be too frightened to speak to a greasy young black man in the subway at midnight. You got yourself a story in spite of your misapprehensions and showed us the inside of a few folks’s heads….
As far as the really smart folks in low-ability jobs go, I can perhaps give you an insight or two:
After I left college, I spent close to ten years in a factory where they made stadium seating for arenas and bleachers for high-school gymnasiums. There were about 150 employees, who ranged in intelligence from barely employable (the guy who swept up the scrap shavings and kept a pet chicken in his apartment) to the absolutely brilliant (the welder who moved up over a decade to become plant manager–not only did he have amazing management skills, he spoke three languages and could rotate in his head parts remembered from five years earlier.)
How do you get through the day when you work in a factory? You talk to the folks around you on breaks, you argue politics over lunch hour. Some guys talk about their girls/wives/sides. In co-ed factories, there is a lot of flirting going on all of the time–a couple of times I saw a woman married for a year or so to each of three different guys from her shift.
In short, there isn’t any real divide between the sort of things that you do on a day-to-day basis and what the blue-collar folks do.
Last Sunday, we had a neighboring triad over for a co-birthday party. All three of them are blue-collar types. One of the guys, who works as a machinist in a factory, brought over a copy of Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History.
Once upon a time, he was studying Computer Science. He realized at the time that if he got a degree in that, it would no longer be fun–he’d be stuck working in an office all day. This prospect depressed him, so he used his other talents to get a position in a “job-shop” in town (a machine shop that makes custom items.)
His wife said that he spends a lot of time programming his PC to do interesting sorts of things, designs little devices with AUTOCAD and devours popular scientific works (like the one he lent me) with fervor.
In short, the intelligent are actually pretty talented when it comes to finding interesting things on which to spend their time. Surprisingly enough, most of them do so without giving up a bit of either their sanity or mental potential. As I said last week, the “college-degree paradigm” is somewhat overrated.
Remember that next time you’re in Wal-Mart.
Tom
Comment by tet on 19 June 2007 at 2:19 pm:
One other thing, Billy Joe…
That book you were reading? It was originally published serially in Little Blue Book editions meant specifically for the working class.
This is very cool in that it ties in with your thoughts, since you’re enjoying a book that was intended for the same high-IQ factory workers that I described in my reply.
The LBBs were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era, so there weren’t any on the drugstore shelves when I was a little kid, but my father was a big fan of them, and my grandmother had a few dozen that she let me read.
Tom
Comment by Allan Niemerg on 19 June 2007 at 3:28 pm:
I’ve had similar conversations. For example:
http://tinyurl.com/ytd5rv
I suppose I’m a cynic, but to me it sounds like Billy got hustled. Still, I believe the State ID story, or at least I’ve heard it enough times to believe it. When I first moved to the city, the homeless bothered me enough to at least think about poverty when I saw them. Now, I barely notice; it isn’t shocking anymore.
But advice to get a job? “Dirty” handshakes? That just stinks of classism and racism. As if people beg because it’s fun or lucrative. Anyone who could hustle well enough to beat minimum wage would be promoted past that amount in no time. Most of those people on the street are just to broken to get a job. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 June 2007 at 3:36 pm:
Allan, the dirty handshakes thing was a symbol of my own prejudices toward the homeless. I was being honest and vulnerable and it was intentional, you don’t need to point something out to me that I pointed out myself and then tell me it stinks of “classism and racism.” That was the f’in point. Besides that, how many people do you know that would have shaken hands with him or even treated him like an equal human? I’m very conscious of race, not because I’m racist, but because I know that race still matters (I even have a blog post entitled “Race Still Matters”). I’ll be colorblind and libertarian when we all start in roughly the same socio-economic class.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 June 2007 at 4:30 pm:
FYI, I just added some lines to make it even longer, dreadful!
Here they are:
White people think that the key to not being racist is to ignore that racial differences exist or even to ignore people of different races living on the streets. Nothing could be safer or more racist. Socio-economic difference do exist. Racism exists inside the people of all races, but white racism is amplified in importance because whites control the resources of the country. Black racism doesn’t affect whites because whites can ignore blacks their entire lives. Blacks are forced to interact with whites because whites control the corporations and the cities. It is white people who have to admit their own racism and their own prejudices before the country can move into an era of racial harmony. When people say that racism is decreasing because the younger generations are less racist than the older generations, what they really mean to say is that the younger generations simply ignore black people altogether, deciding it’s easier and safer and less likely that they will be called a racist if they simply see a homeless black man as no different than a broken light fixture on Michigan Avenue . . . just there.
I tried to take a step in this article toward acknowledging my own prejudices and my ambitions for breaching my safe shell and eventually helping a whole lot of people. But this article wasn’t just about race, it was mostly about people and faith and hope and pain.
Comment by Hanno on 19 June 2007 at 6:22 pm:
I sort of get what you’re saying. One of my favorite past times as an undergrad was to sit down with the hustlers and pan handlers on the side of the street and hear their stories. I hardly ever gave them money, more often I’d buy them a meal. They usually didn’t care if I gave them a dime because most of them were just happy to be recognized as human beings and talked to like anyone else.
Comment by Augur on 19 June 2007 at 7:17 pm:
Soon I’ll tell you the tale of some of the chess hustlers at Dupont Circle in Washington DC.
Comment by illinikc33 on 19 June 2007 at 7:32 pm:
Simple question Jay.
You see 2 guys, side by side, one working on a car, another rummaging through a garbage dumpster. They both wipe their hands on their pants and offer them to you. Whose are you going to shake? And if you say both, I’m calling horseshit.
Comment by kofi the i didn't really need to know how much your parent's house cost but thanks anyway on 19 June 2007 at 7:42 pm:
I have a follow up question: You see 2 guys, side by side, one digging through horse shit and one digging through bull shit. They both wipe their hands on their pants and offer them to you. Whose are you going to shake?
Seriously though: I was being honest and vulnerable and it was intentional, you don’t need to point something out to me that I pointed out myself and then tell me it stinks of “classism and racism.” That was the f’in point.
Does that excuse work for Grand Wizards or Neo Nazis? It’s completely irrelevant how blunt you wanted to be with your -isms, they’re still there. And your ability to recognize their existence or your courage to air them publicly doesn’t give you any special immuity either.
Comment by Hanno on 20 June 2007 at 5:59 am:
‘Does that excuse work for Grand Wizards or Neo Nazis? It’s completely irrelevant how blunt you wanted to be with your -isms, they’re still there. And your ability to recognize their existence or your courage to air them publicly doesn’t give you any special immuity either.”
If the Grand Wizards suddenly decided to amend their ways and were conscious of their every move and consciously tried to not be racist fucklucks, then sure. You’re conflating a person being incredibly honest and vulnerable and expressing secret thoughts many others, probably including yourself, have had at some point with intentionally going out of one’s way to do harm to people. HUGE difference man. The Klan and the Nazis consciously and intentionally tried to harm people, Billy boy is trying to help and dealing with his issues of isolation and growing up in the tightey-whitey suburbs. Hell, he’s got balls. Most people I know with backgrounds like his would put their heads down and keep walking or pretend they didn’t hear anything. Sure he’s got prejudice, but he’s pretty candid saying it and if you read carefully, you can taste the self-loathing coming out of the text. Yeah, Arial 12 point emits self-loathing waves…
Comment by Evan on 20 June 2007 at 6:49 am:
So you were hesitant to get involved with a drug dealer who you suspected might be stoned??? Awful, Billy, awful.
White people think that the key to not being racist is to ignore that racial differences exist or even to ignore people of different races living on the streets.Nothing could be safer or more racist
What does “the streets” being comprised of many different races have to do with anything? I assume you’re talking about those people “hustlin’?” Regardless of the color of these people, I’d prefer to stay away and I don’t feel bad about that at all.
I also don’t know many people who deny or ignore that any racial differences exist, in any way you were thinking of the term “racial differences.” Your gross oversimplifications are bothersome.
Despite the incredible amount of self-loathing, I really enjoyed the story. Good post.
Comment by Anonymous on 20 June 2007 at 7:43 am:
If you really want to look at where the future of race relations is going, you need to come down here and live amongst the poor. There isn’t going to be rapprochement amongst guys like Cody and guys like you, except under unusual circumstances as you described. Are the poor young people divided along racial lines? I think the answer to that question is yes and no, even as the lines between race continue to blur. That’s especialy apparent where I am, where everyone is somebody’s cousin, and race seems to be becoming more a descriptor than a societal tag. Not that there’s any less fighting, mind you; it’s just that there’s constant day-to-day equal-peer contact.
As far as intelligent people in the low-ability jobs– sometimes it’s mental illness; sometimes it’s circumstances; many times it’s people who don’t have workplace ambitions. Those last are the most entertaining to be around, because they tend to have really involved hobbies.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 20 June 2007 at 10:47 am:
All,
As far as my “self-loathing” goes…yes there was a little bit of that when I was writing the story and I’m glad some people have picked up on it, but I’m a little disturbed that others completely missed it and instead started suggesting that I’m a racist. But there isn’t a disturbing amount of self-loathing going on inside me at all…I genuinely have an incredible desire to help every homeless guy I see and I end up being the “sucker” who hands out 5-20 dollars on many of my trips downtown. One of my lifetime goals is to start some kind of a nonprofit that helps the homeless is a massive, pragmatic way. If I had a law firm, I would find an affable, honest homeless man and give him some kind of a job and try to get him off the streets…in fact, I would try to find Cody again and offer him the job first and I wouldn’t care whether he had a State I.D. There is some self-loathing, but there is also a lot of internal pride because I know that I am capable of observing the pain that people are in and I have overwhelming urges to help people in pain, regardless of race. Somehow the few lines about handwashing completely overshadowed the fact that I spent 20-30 minutes with a guy in a subway at midnight at risk of missing the last train home and then got “suckered” into giving him $20 out of the chance that his story was true. The story might have been difficult to understand because I tried to convey my own conflicting and contradicting emotions.
To be honest, I exaggerated the handwashing thing for effect. When I was writing the story I realized that I wasn’t sure whether I had washed my hands at all since being home and I like to wash my hands anytime I come back from a downtown trip.
Poverty is something that troubles me a great deal, I look at the faces of almost every homeless man I see because I want to know how much pain they carry.
Comment by tet on 20 June 2007 at 11:17 am:
“Quit starting at me!!!!”
Actually, I was a bit worried about you, Billy Joe. I was actually expecting him to jump you and remove your wallet from your hands.
That would have increased the current value of his profession to $400/hour rather than the $40/hour he made talking to you.
You’re not particularly racist, Billy Joe–I’ve known a few. A racist would be thinking about how the two men that you mentioned were destined to be in the positions that they held because of their innate inferiority. There was none of that.
I actually think that the paragraph that you added to the piece detracted, rather than improved it–the post was just fine as it was initially.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 20 June 2007 at 11:41 am:
Tom, I agree that it detracted but I felt that I needed to clarify my intent a little bit since the original version was a little too cryptic…apparently.
I never felt physically threatened by Cody. I felt like we were quick friends. Most people would say that it was stupid to be in the stairwell of a subway station alone with no one else in sight, maybe it was, but I felt safe and comfortable the whole time…except there was one instance when two big guys approached us but their focus was aimed at me. They were saying some things to me but then Cody stepped in and said something like, “He’s cool,” and then they left. So while Cody cost me $20, he might have saved me $100 and some pain…but even during that episode I didn’t feel threatened, maybe I’m just naive and have too much confidence in people. Should have included that bit in the story, but I felt that it was too long already.
Comment by tet on 20 June 2007 at 12:11 pm:
I question whether or not someone who gets the vapours over how often someone else washes their hands should be allowed to vote.
Tom
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 20 June 2007 at 1:25 pm:
Just for the record, Teresa is a graduate student in Anthropology at UIUC…she studies a lot of race and gender theory…I consider her to be the most politically radical person that I know. She talks a lot about the coming “revolution.” She used to be, in my opinion, a lot more reasonable and moderate when I first met her, and I regret that the Anthro Dept. has made her incredibly radical. To be clear, being radical doesn’t mean that someone is wrong…she could be right about all of her theories, no one knows for sure.
There was a lengthy email exchange between us but a lot of what was said is not appropriate for the blog, hahahaha. But I hope it’s clear that I don’t agree with a lot of her accusations and I think that I addressed them in earlier comments to other people.