Panhandled!

Ok. Sunday was perhaps not the best day in terms of my looking respectable. The day went something like this. Woke up at Lance's place. Had black coffee (on ode to The Berlin Stories, FYI), then set out into the world. Notice I did not mention that I showered. It was a lovely day in the city, as it went to 50 degrees and I thought "Bloody Mary." I contemplated the idea of having one out, but given my budget and my love of the Bloody Mary I decided to pick up some mixer and some vodka on my way home instead to share with mom. However, as I left the wine & spirits shop on 12th & Chestnut what did I see whiz past me? Yup! The bus home. I waited ten minutes and when I received a phone call from Ms. L. Quigley I had a stroke of genius. Why not walk down to her place of work and have a BM there? Brilliant! She was quite game, given that her shop was fairly empty. Given the shop's location in Old City I decided a nice walk through Washington Square and Independence Hall was also in order. I got to her shop. We poured Bloody Mary. We chatted. The phrase, "Your hair looks greasy AWOL," was mentioned. I freaked out and attempted to do my hair is a manner that would make greasy hair attractive. Then I went back to my Bloody Mary. Then she had a customer. Not just any customer, the other ladies that came in were solo or shopping with her mother in one case. This was a customer with a bevy of children and husband. Given my well...I won't say fear of children but my...yeah, well fear, I went outside to sit on the shop's "stoop."
Nothing happened of note, except to say that my Loomstate jacket did garner a compliment from a hipster and his girlfriend. Then a late-model Volvo pulled into the spot in front of the shop. Within the car was an older man, bespectacled, grey hair and bear, mid-60s, and a woman in her 80s I suspected. The woman, her bob carefully dyed brown, beheld me, smiled as the man parallel parked, no easy job in Old City. They studied the sign above the car, regarding the parking zone for what seemed like an eternity. Then they carefully emerged. I thought from the flourish of activity involved when exiting the car that the man was going to help the woman out from her passenger seat. However, the man had difficulty in walking and produced an elegant cane, made of a knobby, amber-stained wood, a small bag, a slightly larger bag and a book from the back seat while the woman struggled to get out of the car. I wanted to help her but noticed the older man did not offer her a hand. Now, in dealing with my mother, an older woman, I know that little exercises like getting out of a car, walking up steps and the like are sometimes best left to them. It maintains dexterity and builds confidence, seriously, my mother moves sofas. (Shut up, yes I know that episode of the Golden Girls!) So I didn't help her thinking the man believed this too.
Our city - as I am sure you know - is the home of A&E's Traffic Wars. Our Parking Authority Folk (surely the proper name) are notorious. Some carry machetes! So the man reviewed the sign after he emerged with all of his gear, even though he had studied it carefully from the car's interior. He looked at me, then walked a few feet as the older woman began to walk north. She smiled at me again. He turned around, uh-oh, I thought, he wants advice on parking in Philadelphia. There was no hole to jump into, getting up and running into the shop behind me would also prove strange so I sat there. "Excuse me, could you tell me if I'm okay to park here? I never can tell sometimes," he said. The sun was shining and it was in my eye. I squinted and ran my fingers through my greasy hair, which in my defense was collapsed hair product, not grease. "Sir, I was raised in Philadelphia and went to college in New York. I've never even had my license." (Yes, I know I should get it and I will this year! I promise.) "But I think you should be fine," I said this as I got up to check out the sign, a complicated affair, as it had a second sign underneath that said you had to use a large meter nearby for two-hour ticketed parking. This confused me. I kept looking. There had to be something more. Sure enough it said this was only enforced Monday through Saturday, as it was Sunday, or Bloody Mary Day he was in the clear. Like a good chap, sent by Scrooge to purchase a Christmas Turkey, I pointed this out. "You're fine," I said. He thanked me, the woman had stopped her struggled walk up Third Street, she was only one storefront facade or so away from us and she smiled at me again. He with cane, her without they carried on up Third Street.
Then they stopped. Oh no, they had forgotten something. I wanted to stand up and help them but realized the older gent was intent on his independence. He carefully placed his cane on the front window, the bottom of the cane deposited into the gap between hood and glass as he supported himself on the car handle. "I'm such a kindhearted soul," he said. "That I didn't lock the door behind me." I laughed, said he wasn't in the neighborhood for that. Then the woman was on my side, her hands, as knobby as her companion's cane struggled with her bag. She withdrew twenty-dollars from her purse. I began to realize she was indeed handing it to me! It came to me like some sort of communion. "This is for you, young man." She smiled, she patted my head. She put her ancient fingers to her mouth, "Shhh, I don't want him to know." I didn't know what to say. Yes, as a writer and house cleaner I am consistently broke yet I didn't want to take the money. I didn't want to not accept it either. These are tough times. My hair was greasy. The woman wanted me to buy some shampoo at least. The man turned now, the lady was directly behind him now. "Thank you," I said. "I don't know what to say, thank you." I was flabbergasted, the twenty was in my left hand. When he saw it he laughed. "Ah, they don't make them like her anymore," he said to me. Then to her, "You didn't go to Church today, that was your good deed for the day." I had to make some explanation as to why I accepted the money. "I, well, I'm a writer, so it is appreciated." They smiled at me once again, they believed me, perhaps they were writers or artists or collectors themselves. Perhaps the man was a professor, there was something academic about his nattiness. "Have a wonderful day," he said before he began walking up Third Street out of my life forever.
I slipped the donation into my pocket, into the Loomstate jacket that the hipster had complimented me on. I sat there. I was giddy from the Bloody Mary and not-quite-sure how to deal with the notion that I had been panhandled on the street. I say panhandled because yes I was given money. Yet I had not "Stepped into that line of work," it was put onto me.
A few minutes later the young blonde, husband and bevy of children (TWO little boys mind you!!!) left the store. I was free to renter. The twenty in my jacket pocket I withdrew it. "Did you see what happened? Out there," I turned around to see what Lauren's vantage point was from her desk. No, she would not have seen any thing, except perhaps the man's head (he was quite tall) as he approached me. The sign he worried about was not within her field of vision at all, I noted. "What are you talking about? Why do you have a twenty in my face," she asked. "Thanks," I replied, feeling like a panhandler. "I guess you think I'm too broke to have a twenty." Which is partially true, the rest of my cash was in the bank and in a dresser drawer; not in abundance. "No, but why are you waving it around?" I told her the story. I went into the mirror. "God...I'm a panhandler! In this jacket," I screamed. "Calm down, you're not a panhandler. You just need to wash your hair," she assured me.
I went to the window of the store. I replayed the scene in my mind. Then, I looked out to their car. They were totally within their rights to be parked there. I smiled. Then I noticed something. They had forgotten to put up their disabled tag, and they were parked in front of the low, blue meter for the disabled. "When do you close," I asked Lauren. At six, less than an hour away. "Good they forgot to put up their disabled tag. I'd have to give back the money if they get a ticket and come looking for me." Although I fantasized with Lauren about becoming a panhandler, maybe even enlisting a friend to begin a panhandling company, clearly I would not be successful at it.