BRO, I CAN SPARE A DIME : The Streets Are Filled With People Who Need Help--And Some Who Don’t

He is almost handsome. But he has that look. I’ve seen it before. I’ve worn it on my own dark face. His mouth, an amber slash drawn tightly against his teeth--intermittent flashes of yellowed white as he soundlessly talks to himself, jerkily, to match his anxious walk. I’ve seen that walk before. I’ve walked it.

He sees me. I see him. I notice that he is watching me. And when he sits down on my neighbor’s stoop, I know he waits for me.

The air is clear and the sky is clouded. It is a brisk Sunday. Summer is here. Damn, I think, and I was in such a good mood. I’d had breakfast with old friends at a cozy cabaret. A man played old folk faves, crooned “. . . parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.”

Now here comes one of them to spoil it.

I am usually filled with anguish at the sight of such men. And women. But especially the men. They crowd the sidewalks outside post offices and supermarkets, their palms up, carrying rags, squeegees, spray guns. They sit with inverted pockets on crates outside restaurants and nightclubs or stationed at freeway on-ramps or mid-traffic, signs, cups or buckets held waist-high, eyes radiating everything from madness to threadbare dignity.

But sometimes these street encounters offer adventure or surprise. Once, while driving east on 6th toward Highland, I approached the intersection, about to turn left, kids in the back seat. I waited as a lean white man in his late 30s, with pockmarked skin and long, stringy blond hair, crossed the street. He was very poorly dressed, brogans worn down to sandals. He walked as though he was overly medicated or overworked.

Suddenly, a westbound lime-green Mercedes-Benz rounded the corner. Behind the wheel was a buxom, well-coiffed blonde in her late 50s. She pulled alongside the man, stopped, rolled down her window and barked at him. He went over to her. She slapped some cash in his mitts and sped off. Surprised, he looked blankly at the bills, straightened his spine, then went into a rage. “Bitch!” he yelled after her, then stuffed the cash in the busted base of a street lamp and stomped off, shaking his fists at the air.

“Meat for dinner!” I yelped, pulling curbside and salivating as I retrieved the alms.

And once, on an early Monday morning, I faked a cheery goodby as I dropped off my son at the sitter’s. Shedding pretense, I headed for the car. As I thought about the job I was sweating blood on, my center of gravity went to my feet. I was in a bottomless depression.

“Nothing’s that bad,” he said. I looked up into smiling brown eyes. His hair was thick and curly. He was Mexican, leaning into the stone facade of a storefront. He sported a brown leather aviator’s jacket, right hand buried in one pocket, left hand grasping a can of malt liquor. I gave a little nod and kept walking. My depression began to lift.

More recently, on a supermarket parking lot, I was driving the old car, the one suffering bald tires and 28 years of abuse. As I climbed out, a young, orange-skinned black guy walked toward me, rag and spray bottle in hand.

“Wash your window, sistuh ? One dollar.”

“You see what I’m drivin’, don’t yah? Hell, I’m after your job.”

He broke into laughter. “Best one I’ve heard yet!”

I laughed with him.

And now another young man is intruding on my prosperity. I’ve just gone shopping and am unloading groceries. As I cross the street, bags in hand, he rises from my neighbor’s stoop and comes toward me. I try not to look at him but see every move as I set the bags down and unlock my door.

“Please,” his English is broken, skin yellow, eyes like agates, hands gesturing at the bags of food. He’s in navy denims and a T-shirt. He looks about 20. “If you could give--some money?”

I reach into my jacket pocket. Abe Lincoln puts in an appearance. I give him the fiver. He looks at it. It’s more than expected.

“Something for you--I can do?”

“No thanks, sweetheart,” I say. “Go on and do what yah gotta.”

He brought out the mother in me.