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Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?

"Hey, miss! Hey miss! You got 75 cents so I can get home on the bus?"
The woman at the corner of Vermont NW and K Street looked quite respectable, holding a yellow umbrella over her head and peering at me with a worried frown.
Just the day before, a man had stood in the Capital South Metro Station entreating passersby for money to get to Falls Church, Va. He, too, looked far from homeless.
When I came to Washington, D.C., I wasn't ready for the multitude of beggars leaning against walls, running after me and rising from wheelchairs to rattle cups at me.
Coming to Washington made a beggar out of me, too, for awhile.

At first, it was shocking that someone would think that I -- a struggling single parent -- would have a surplus of cash. Sometimes, it was irritating to navitage by an aggressive beggar, perhaps about as well dressed as I was.
My initiation into the ways of those looking for a quick buck came at a bus stop up the street from the seedy D.C. hotel I'd landed in.
After my new employers told me I'd gotten the job, they wanted me to stay in D.C. a few days to look for my new home. I had to check out of my hotel, thanks to a police convention soaking up rooms.
In my ignorance, I switched to a hotel where ladies of the night paced up and down nearby, plying the oldest trade in the world after dark.
It was perfectly safe during the day to walk up the street to the bus stop, but, at night, the preferred locomotion was taxi.
The sun was blazing on me and a kindly, elderly gentleman at the bus stop one morning. We had a pleasant chat during the wait for the bus about his new job and my new job.
Then he said, "I'm not getting paid for two more weeks. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Do you got a dollar to help tide me over?"
I, in turn, explained that I only had cash for the bus.
This wasn't a dodge.
The second day I was in D.C., I lost my debit card. This meant no cash -- at all. D.C. is not a city easily navigated cashless. I'd already spent hours waiting for more than one "credit card cab" to come pick me up and was parceling out the $5 I had left for the bus.
As a new employee, it didn't seem like a show of responsibility to announce I'd lost my debit card and seek help.
Oh you lost your debit card? Well, how about we entrust you with covering D.C. for four newspapers in Texas and more than 150,000 subscribers -- NOT! I imagined my new bosses saying.
So I struggled through, hitting bottom one night after a long, hot day searching for an apartment.
I sat at my new desk in my bare cubicle and waited and waited for a credit card cab. I called the cab service operator repeatedly and was periodically abused over about 90 minutes.
The night editor, a young up-and-comer named Paul Williams who's since moved on, took an interest in my plight.
I told him my tough luck story and how I was forced to wait until a credit card cab became available.
He said he needed to leave and lock up, so I had to go.
I must have looked how I felt: Alone in a BIG CITY with no friends and no place to wait for the dang credit card cab.
"I can give you $10 and help you hail a cab," he said.
I was so happy.
"I'll pay you back," I said, visions dancing in my head of the seeming legions of beggars I'd walked by since my arrival.
Minutes later, a cabbie drove me past the ladies plying the oldest trade in the world, and I eventually snuggled down in the big bed in the wierd-smelling hotel, so happy to be "home."
The next day, another kindly guardian angel loaned me $50 to tide me over.
It was like a giant, cash-only weight had been lifted from my tired shoulders.
I paid both those D.C. angels back, but it's hard to walk by a beggar -- even while irritated that someone's trying to lift money from me yet again -- without remembering those cashless feelings.
I have, on occasion, given as much as $10 although I try not to give anything.
It was to a man standing near Dupont Circle smiling, his lower legs and feet grotesquely swollen to five times normal size.
A colleague says it's better to donate to an established charity so you'll know the money isn't going to drugs or booze. I see his point and agree for the most part.
But when I do cave, I comfort myself with the thought that giving straight to a beggar cuts out the middle man.
I was walking down K Street after work and noticed a tall man in front of me, almost shuffling. His shoulders were slumped, and he was carrying two plastic milk crates.
He stacked the crates and sat down on them. Then he held out a folded white piece of paper in lieu of the usual cup.
I walked by and didn't smell alcohol. I was going to keep on walking.
Something brought me back, and I dropped a dollar into his container.
I guess there's one born every minute.

Posted by Trish Choate at 06:47 PM | Permalink