Forbes Magazine named this place the “the most expensive street in the world” in 2008[1]. I was there back then, during the summer, and I wouldn’t have needed a magazine to tell me that. Fifth Avenue, New York City. The place was as crisp and neat as its name, strangely immaculate and absent of the scruffy charm of the rest of city. White sidewalks led to buildings whose names were held in reverence, the kings and queens of the street—Louis, Salvatore, Tiffany—stores I could only dare myself into. There I was in the city. The city! The same city where my grandfather had grown up after his family moved here from Germany. This is why they had come, for wealth and greater opportunities. So that their descendants could stroll down “the most expensive street in the world”—on vacation—and feel somewhat at home, in their own country. I couldn’t take it all in fast enough.
Bergdorf Goodman's, another fancy store on 5th Avenue.
http://www.visit5thavenue.com/wp/wp-content/gallery/700-800/bergdorf-goodman.jpg
The sidewalk traffic split into two categories: business and pleasure. While I and what seemed like the entire population of Texas gawked on the street,spinning in circles trying to recreate those “alive in the city” sort of montages you see in every movie set in New York, men and women with “real” things to do commanded the sidewalk. As they wove in and around families taking pictures, they taught me that you don’t need to say “I’m sorry,” every time you bump into someone in New York. They wore beautiful suits that spoke success, and I found myself watching them just as much as taking in the sights: these people were New York just as much as Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge.
But there was another sight in the city no tourist could ever miss—a regrettably inevitable part of every human population—that was literally to catch my eye. She caught my gaze at the corner of a very busy intersection on the most expensive street in the world, and for a while she held me there, as if frozen, until the current on the sidewalk carried me to happier, more tourist-worthy attractions. She is still the saddest person I have ever seen.
http://dmhamby2.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/homeless-streets.jpg
She contrasted so completely with the white buildings behind her, dressed all in black and shivering underneath a thick, dark blanket despite the heat. That’s the only reason I saw her, I’m sure. I had been so taken in by the glamour of Fifth Avenue and what that meant—an ostentatious representation of the American dream and of success—that I was thrown completely off guard. She was a reminder of reality in the face of extreme wealth. She threw off the whole composition. Homeless probably, troubled surely, this woman was suffering. And the terrible thing was that I could see it all on her face, and it seemed that no one—myself included—wanted to see it. Every so often, someone would drop coins into the cup in her outstretched hand, but it was as if the coins had slipped and fallen in by accident as her “benefactors” quickened their pace and avoided her gaze. The entire time I watched her, she was sobbing. Unashamed or perhaps beyond caring, she shared her suffering with everyone on that corner, looking at the crowds with tears rolling off her face, and shaking silently each time another coin fell into her cup. She shook her cup weakly, resigned and hopeless. Perhaps she heard the same words I did after each coin fell into the cup. These coins weren’t products of generosity but of selfishness and indifference. The reason that those people in beautiful suits could walk guilt-free past people like her every day. Each coin was just a reminder to her that “Nobody really cares!”
Eventually I willed myself away, after what felt like hours but was surely seconds. I desperately wanted to leave. But she followed me long after I turned my back and crossed the street, long after the sound of her clinking coins was overpowered by the sounds of New York that I love—that of taxis, movement, energy, promises and possibilities. I felt for that woman for several blocks after I left her and couldn’t wipe out the rawness of her pain. My sister eventually asked what was wrong with me, and I succeeded in shrugging off the unpleasant feeling. Of what? Of empathy or just pity? I got over it. All that I had ever given her was the sight of a frightened girl on the corner, staring at her, intruding rather rudely into her life and her suffering. And a story, too, I guess. I wonder what’s happened to her now.
And now, on a Greyhound bus heading back to school after a nice weekend home, thousands of miles and hundreds of happy days away from seeing her, I’m supposed to imagine what she felt. Ok. I can get to New York pretty easily, Fifth Avenue definitely. I can imagine the heat, so much hotter than I expected it to be. And how the sun sort of shone off some of the marble on the buildings. And...
How cold it is on the floor! More uncomfortable than cold. God, how long have I been here? Cramped, hungry, uncomfortable. Crying. Why can’t I ever stop crying?! I feel like I’m getting sick. Again. Only a few hours I think. It hasn’t been too long since I woke up on those steps and needed to find another place to sit. I didn’t sleep well. Again. I’m tired. But when do I ever sleep well? There’s too much to worry about in this city, especially at night. Even if I could fall asleep on the hard pavement, I can’t stay that way. A lot of people are eating their lunches now. I guess it’s about that time. God, I’m so hungry! Let’s see, I’ve got....about a dollar. A dollar?! Looks like I’ll be hungry, cold, uncomfortable, tired...crying uncontrollably—all of this!—for a long time! My knee’s cramping up again, but there are too many people around. These people!! Don’t you see me? Me and my damned life?! What did I do to deserve it? And what did you do to deserve yours? I’m a good person, and I had a life once, a real life. Nobody should live like this. No one. You know the hardest thing is that’s who I am now. “Hello, I’m nobody. Who are you?” I am nothing but this damned cup in my hand. I’m a drug problem, or insanity, or laziness. I’m a warning. But I am not me. Thousands of people pass by me every day, but not one looks at me. They avoid me or they stare. Like that girl over there. I wish she’d stop. I wish I’d stop crying. She’s gone now. And here I am, cold, hungry, uncomfortable, tired, crying, forgotten. Here I am...
http://janeheller.mlblogs.com/woman-crying-from-pain-of-abusive-and-alcoholic-husband.jpg
***
I’ve got to admit I felt a little wrong writing that. Fake. What right do I have to tell this woman’s story? An imaginary one’s, perhaps, but not this woman's. As much as I imagined her life story the few blocks after I saw her on the corner, I knew I would never be able to truly understand—to understand in any substantial way, really—what she was going through or what she felt. And to be honest, I wished that I had never seen her. How terrible that is, isn’t it? How terrible but true. After I saw her, I wanted to help, to lift her straight out of her situation and into one of those beautiful suits not two feet away. But I didn’t do anything but stare, not even give her my change or smile! How terrible but common that is.
That woman had next to nothing, but what she did have were her experiences. They are something that I feel I can’t encroach on without her consent. She deserves more than a made-up story. What is mine, however, what I can give to her, is how I react. This exercise taught me that we shouldn’t need to know why someone is suffering to help them. Shouldn’t I have just seen the tears on that woman’s face and wanted to help? I believe suffering is a wrong beyond the need for understanding and never with the capacity for justification. I think we should trust our instincts, that when we see suffering, whether animal or human, we should try to help, few questions asked. Way easier said than done, right?
It’s hard to make an “action plan” for this sort of thing. But what I want to start with is this: try to ease suffering. I think it’s all too easy to put stories behind the suffering we see, but that’s not always the wisest course of action. That’s how we can say that the drag rats on Guadalupe are lazy and crazed, that they don’t deserve our money or some kind words. While I feel I can’t take “Suffering” head on and win, I can easily make small improvements in the lives of those I see suffering. Whether animal or human and no matter the size of their pain, I should always be able to give encouragement or at least a smile. My plan is that whenever I see suffering I can simply ask “how can I help?”
Word Count: 1, 596
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPWOOgOxDJI
A day in the life of a homeless man in San Francisco.
[1] "Fifth Avenue." Wikipedia. January 15, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Avenue (accessed January 31, 2010).
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