Late one night, as often seems to be the case, I had run out of cigarettes and—out of compulsion, not choice—I walked the few blocks from my apartment to the convenience store to buy a new pack. Standing outside the store, and greeting me as I passed, was an old vagrant I had come to be acquainted with somehow. It isn’t necessary to explain how I became acquainted with the vagrant. Suffice it to say that I am friendly by nature, and open-minded. I said hello to the vagrant and went into the store, where I purchased a pack of cool Pall Malls, the cheapest brand they had. On my way out, again the vagrant greeted me. It seemed like he wanted to talk, but, I thought to myself, these vagrants are dubious sorts. You never can know what state they might be in, especially considering that they are liable to be under the influence of any sort of illicit substance. I waved at the vagrant and carried on my way. But after walking a block in the direction of my apartment, my conscience—was it my conscience, or rather my innate sense of guilt in regards to my privilege?—got the better of me.
“Yes,” I thought. “I will go back and talk to him. For is he not actually my brother? We have been on good terms in the past, and unlike most vagrants I have come across, he seems like a peace-loving man.”
So, I turned around and walked back, smoking a cigarette as I went.
When I approached the vagrant, I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed initially: there was a woman with him, and she was smoking crack out of a clear glass pipe. She seemed to be totally absorbed in the act of smoking, and was oblivious to my presence.
The vagrant greeted me warmly, calling me his “man.” I naturally took up the most casual mien I could muster, and I asked him how he was.
“Ah, you know. Feeling good. Can’t complain.”
I noticed that his eyes were bloodshot red. He had a rather frazzled look about him that was unfamiliar.
“Is that crack she is smoking?” I asked, watching the woman as, with eyes practically closed, she inhaled the white smoke.
“Yeah. Why? You never seen somebody smoke crack or something?” His tone was rather aggressive, and I felt a sudden tinge of anxiety and a tightening of my chest.
“No, I have.”
“You ain’t got no problem with it, do you?” It suddenly dawned on me that the vagrant was taller and broader of shoulder than I remembered him. He stood firmly and resolutely on his own two feet. For some reason, I had gotten the impression from our past meetings that he was not sturdy at all, and could hardly stand on his own two feet. He was actually rather imposing.
“No,” I said. “I don’t have a problem with it. I wouldn’t do it, myself, though.”
“Why not? What? You think you’re too good for it or something?”
Suddenly I began to feel afraid. I needed a way out of this situation. The vagrant was becoming more and more worked up.
“You look like a pedophile to me,” he said abruptly, and pointed at my chest.
Naturally, I was offended, but I could not allow myself to show it. I simply smiled, as if I understood the vagrant’s comment to be facetious, when in all actuality, I knew deep down that he had meant it seriously.
“You a pedophile?” he asked, so loudly that it seemed it could be heard the entire length of the city block.
“No,” I said, shaking my head modestly, and smiling meekly and dejectedly.
The vagrant walked closer to me, and put his face directly up to mine. His eyes were bouncing around, as if he weren’t seeing me at all, but some phantom that was surrounding me. “Prove it,” he said.
Tears were beginning to form in my eyes. I did my best to smile through them. “Rita,” the vagrant said in a commanding voice. “Give the man the pipe. He gonna’ smoke some crack tonight.”
I was speechless. But though I said nothing, I knew there was no possibility that I would smoke crack.
Rita stood up and approached me with the pipe. I stood looking at it. “Go ahead, pedophile,” said the vagrant. “That’s good crack.”
“Ain’t you gonna’ smoke it or what?” Rita asked in a cackled voice that grated on my ear drums like the cry of a banshee.
I looked at the vagrant. How could I have misjudged this man so incalculably? At that moment, I felt like weeping, and I almost did. I must have painted a pathetic picture. My shoulders were hunched, and I could barely look the vagrant in his wild, darting eyes. Then, I stood upright, squaring my shoulders and tightening my abdomen. Suddenly I was the same height as the vagrant, and I no longer feared him.
“I’m going home,” I said, and with the utmost confidence and self-awareness, I pivoted, turned, and walked away.
“Bitch!”
I didn’t so much as flinch, but I felt a pang in my heart as if someone had reached into my chest and squeezed with the utmost force. I was certainly on the verge of tears, but I did not cry. That word echoed inside my brain long after I had arrived at my apartment and lay in my bed. I rationalized, I justified, but the sound of the word lingered. Eventually, I decided that the vagrant and I actually spoke two different languages altogether. What he called a “bitch,” I called “a sensible, rational human being.” It had nothing to do with weakness. Only fear—but a justified fear. What was wrong with being afraid of the situation I had been put in? Nothing was wrong with it. Any sensible, rational human being would have been afraid. And yet, I concluded, I had inflicted terror upon the vagrant myself. I had most certainly judged him for smoking crack, and he had recognized this, and therefore had become afraid. I spent the entire night, smoking cigarette after cigarette, deliberating this in my mind. In the end, though I knew them to be rationalizations, I was satisfied with them. By morning, my anger and anxiety were gone, and I had vowed never to approach the vagrant again, even if he were starving and needed a dollar to buy the least bit of food.
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