Unexpected Closure
There are so many things in the world that you just don’t get a satisfactory enough response from doing. There’s (at least for me) a strange lack of sensation when doing ‘good’ things, because it seems to have absolutely no consequence in the world that you experience. Like the oddly hollow feeling of donating to charity, because all that seems to happen is you regularly lose some money and get a three-times-a-year magazine filled with pictures of people looking hopeful and some terrible, TERRIBLE writing.
But there’s also the lack of gratification when you make a decision to remove yourself from a situation but don’t get to see what would have happened, had you stuck around. The moment you leave a party or bar or whatever, despite the lack of activity while you were there, you can’t escape the sneaky feeling that the moment you are suitably far away the chairs will start growing money or the entire cast of some popular show will turn up. Naked. Expressly for the purpose of meeting you and getting you to sign their chests (because they’re, like totally your biggest fans).
I’m sure I’m not the only person who has quietly slipped back to some place I’ve only just left to confirm if this has, in fact, happened. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has, on occasion, quickly spun around to try and catch the entire circus full of amputees juggling kitchen appliances that I just KNOW is there and could be missing out on because I was stupid enough to be going the other way. I’m utterly sure that that part of my mind is entirely healthy.
Anyway, there are so many times when you know something or someone is bad for you and you walk away, but it’s disappointing because no neon signs turn up saying that you did the right thing. No flashing avatar in the corner tells you that you’ve unlocked an achievement or that your life score has gone up because you did the Right Thing. Conversely, there are just as many times when you’ve trudged on, forcibly, wasting your time or energy or money to no avail whatsoever, propelled by the grim satisfaction that had you actually been sensible enough to do the Right Thing, it would have been Right. I lose whole days just browsing the internet to repeatedly prove this to myself, (only to realise that the next day something interesting might have turned up).
Occasionally though, you get that feedback. Occasionally you do hear about the lack of exciting things happening after you left, (but because nobody ever talks about what doesn’t happen, you usually only hear about the rare cases when something did happen). Sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, you get that final bit of proof that you did the right or (usually) wrong thing.
About a week ago, I was walking home from a long shift of my miserable, pointless job. It was cold and I was tired and most of my thoughts at the time were about making sure that neither of my feet went on the cracks of the pavement, why the word ‘apparel’ should have more repeated letters and what the name of the actor who was in that show was and what other things I’d seem them in. And as usual, people asked me for money or food along the way. You get to know the regulars, what they look like, where they usually haunt, what common street fixture you like to pretend they are and how to avoid them, when I got stopped by a new one.
I didn’t recognise him, but he was different from the usual case. His wasn’t the stock story of a backpacker from Sydney who just needed enough money to afford a room for the night. He also wasn’t the guy who needed to buy a train ticket to get home. A train ticket that, strangely enough, couldn’t be bought at the trainstation right next to where he was standing. He definitely wasn’t the Big Issue vender who after I bought the magazine (and even attempted to read it later) insisted on talking to me for three hours filling me with the wonderous details of how double decker trams would be installed soon, which I almost wish wasn’t just a figment of his imagination, (but it’s totally impractical if you think about it and you’ll still get people standing right in the fucking door when the entire top level is free).
Anyway, he recited his story, and it seemed plausible enough. He needed to get to some suburb, far away and his car was out of petrol. He just needed enough money to buy a Jerry can from the nearest petrol station, which itself was some distance away. It’s a solid cover story because it preys on the deep desire to do good and the doubt that he could be telling the truth and you might never forgive yourself for leaving this poor soul to his undeserved fate. As a story it was both original and plausible enough. The $20 I had in my wallet for lunch money the next day was starting to feel awfully heavy.
It was a very good story, I’d only heard it once before about four years ago, while walking in an entirely different area. I remembered it very distinctly because I tried to pay close attention to this guy, trying to determine if he was lying or not. I even examined his hat which was for some baseball team somewhere. That guy seemed clean, he didn’t stink of alcohol or drugs or simply of being unwashed, and his eyes and movements showed no sign of addiction that I could see. If he was lying to me, I had no idea what he was going to use the money for. That guy had even promised that he would return the $50 I so graciously lent him by leaving it in the mailbox of a nearby friend of mine and went the bonus mile by seriously memorizing the number. It was a strikingly similar story, down to the use of the words ‘jerry can’ and the amount of money raised. The guy even looked similar. Similar face, slightly thinner but walked the same way, talked the same way and everything.
It took me about 5 seconds to remember, piece it all together and realise what had just happened. I knew in that moment that I had been utterly wrong to give him the money, that he had lied and that I was stupid for believing him. It felt absolutely great to know that I had definitely been conned out of $50, four years ago. Right then, I knew that I would never again worry if I’d done the right or wrong thing again, because through a ridiculous chance of fate I had learnt the unlearnable. I could finally put that slight niggle forever out of my head because now I knew. Case closed.
Except that I have no idea what he wanted the money for.
Fuck.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:16 am
When I am approached on the street (which is rare because I rarely leave the house) I never give any money, even were I to have some ’spare’ coins in my hand at that very moment. This is partly because, well, I just don’t like interacting with people, but mostly because in 99.99% of cases, they are alcoholics, druggies or lazy people taking advantage of others’ generosity. I would much rather give money to someone who was genuinely needy, and the chance of doing that when giving to a street beggar is so low that it’s not worth the risk.