I do it, but for years it has been on a very strict case-by-case basis. Do it for one, how do you not do it for another?
I refer here to street beggars. You know, the men, mostly, who stand on street corners with a sign. There is a story behind this.
I was on my way to work, sitting in a line of cars waiting to get on the freeway. On the center divider stood a man with a sign: “Help. My family needs a motel.”
I have seen a lot of signs but never one saying that. And I had never seen that guy or, for that matter, any sign guys standing on that patch of distant suburbia in the 13 years I’ve been turning there. Times are hard.
I was digging into the cup holder for coins, but at the front of the line was a police cruiser. Its red and blue lights suddenly turned on.
When I passed, the officer was grilling the guy. I felt bad for him and ticked at the officer, and I put the change away and got onto the freeway.
Now that is a guy, I thought as I drove, who probably really needed even the little bit of change I was going to give him. It is my rule No. 1 for sign guys: I’ve got to feel they really need help.
And then I thought of the sign guy at Broadway and 18th Street. I cannot stand that guy.
I pass him practically every day, no matter the time, which means EVERY DAY.
“Anything helps” is all that is on his sign.
I figure a man who stands all day on a corner for years can just as easily get a job. And the cops never flash their lights at him.
Never have I given him a penny, no matter how sad sack he stares into the cab of my truck. It only makes me angrier.
I decided, as I lamented the hotel guy all the way into Denver, I would finally confront him.
Turns out his name is Jesse. That’s all you get, he barked. He is 68 years old.
Jesse, up close, is much rougher looking. He smells of exhaust and the street.
He has been on this corner every day for two years, he said. He lives on a fixed income. When it’s gone, he said, it’s gone.
“It is the main and only reason I do this,” he said, adding he takes home maybe $30 a day. That is probably on the low side.
He started street begging in August 2002, he said. He could no longer work. He holds up his disfigured right hand, the one that always holds his sign.
It was mangled in a saw-mill accident decades ago. It finally gave out, he said.
He arrives every day, including weekends, at 7:15 a.m. He knocks off at 6 p.m.
It is a tougher, less lucrative hustle now, he said. People are less generous, he said.
Jesse and I talk for a good while — of how younger guys once tried to steal his corner, how they never lasted. He has nothing else to do.
I learned a lesson. It is probably all about about compassion. I had completely misread, prejudged and pre-hated Jesse.
Maybe his every word was a lie. I don’t know if I care.
I know I am still going to pass him every day, probably will never hand him a cent. I’ll remember, though, what he taught me.
No man stands in the heat or the snow for 11 hours a day unless he absolutely has to, or thinks he has to. Only coldhearted fools see something malicious in it.
I pulled my wallet out and gave him what was in it, which was not very much.
Jesse thanked me kindly.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
