As I rode into work on the train this morning, I saw an all-too-familiar sight: a disheveled, dirty man sleeping on the subway, a few of his belongings scattered around him. At his feet sat a sandwich and a bottle of water I presume were left by some kind person.
I thought to myself, “I love the generosity of people in my city.” I love the kind and generous people who surround me.
As I sat musing on this, a man walked through the car. He looked tired, maybe a little… jonesing? He stood over the homeless man, sleeping. He checked him out. At first I thought he was checking to make sure the sleeping man was okay, but then I realized – he was casing the joint. He spied the sandwich and the bottle of water, looked around the car, paused.
He picked up the sandwich and water and pocketed them.
I made eye contact with him. “Really?” I said. “That’s not very nice.”
He turned to walk away. A woman sitting across from me with her toddler said, a little louder than I had, though minus the eye contact, “That’s not okay!”
The guy shrugged and left the car. A minute passed. Several of us commuters made eye contact across ethnic, racial, and class lines. I imagine we were sharing a sadness at the unrelieved complexity of the situation: a presumably hungry man stole a sandwich and water from a sleeping man who, though he clearly needed them, likely didn’t know they were there, almost certainly would never know of his loss.
The mom said to her toddler, “I’ll be right back,” as she rummaged through her bag. She extricated a Tupperware container with a sandwich in it, walked over to the sleeping man, and deposited it at his feet.