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#91: That escalated quickly.
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Happy Friday 🎉 I met the kindest, most charming professor yesterday. While gleefully talking about his life’s work, he paused to emphasize how jetlagged he was. I swear, he fell asleep mid-sentence a couple of times. Before we got to the meat of our conversation, his wife walked up and stood close enough to him for her elbow to lightly graze his. It was a signal for home time. He knew it. I knew it. We knew it. He vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving his business card dancing in the air before it landed in my hand.
This is why you should always always eat the burger before the fries.
LIFE & WORK
That escalated quickly.
A homeless man got me this week, man.
When going up an escalator, the world above reveals itself in stages, at the mercy of the escalator's mechanics. Union Station’s ornate concrete ceiling, the large arches, the pillars that prop the ceiling up, the light fixtures on the pillars, the exit sign above the door, the homeless man at the top of the escalator.
Sitting in his wheelchair five hefty steps away from the point where the escalator disappears into the concrete, he yelled indiscriminately.
“HELP ME!! HELP ME OUT!”
Swiveling in his wheelchair, he sought eye contact, but everyone here is conditioned to avoid eye contact.
But then…he looked at me. And I looked at him. And my legs wouldn’t move.
“How can I help you?” My dumbass asked him.
He seemed irritated by my question, and I immediately understood why, but it was too late. If I could intercept the words mid-air and swallow them, I would. But alas, here we were in a stand-off. Close in proximity but distant in status and agency.
He responded in a rude—but not rude because he wanted to be rude, but rude because duh—kind of way:
“I’M HOMELESS. I DON’T HAVE A PLACE TO STAY. I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO EAT. IT’S RAINING ON ME. I NEED HELP!”
My armpits were sweaty at this point.
I offered to get him food because of the [arrogant and ill-informed] bias that money goes to drugs or some other untoward end.
He asked me what food I wanted to get him.
“I don’t know, Chipotle? Anything around here,” I said as I gesticulated toward the blinking Chipotle sign a few feet away.
He scoffed at Chipotle and asked for a number 7 from McDonald’s.
“It’s cheaper, too,” he said.
I know what you’re thinking: this man is begging, and he’s dictating what food I should get him?!
“B*tch if you don…”
Well…one of the things I’ve learned interacting with homeless people in D.C. is they’re specific about their needs. It might be a desire to claim a little control in a world where they have little to call theirs. Or, perhaps he just likes the number 7 at McDonald’s.
I dashed into Union Station to find the McDonald’s and got lost. Several times.
15 minutes later, I found McDonald’s, got the number 7, a medium-sized Coke, extra napkins, and extra straws in case his friends were anything like us in primary school, and ran back outside.
He was gone.
People probably say they’re getting him food all the time and just go home.
So there I was—cold but sweaty from running, with this brown bag of McDonald’s that smelled so good that I almost changed my dinner plans.
I circumnavigated the perimeter of the station and saw many other candidates who could use the food, but I bought it for this man. I walked to one end: the business end of a cigarette interrupted the darkness, and the cigarette’s smoke and embers traveled as the cigarette moved among what looked like three hooded men. I looked at them. They looked at me. Any second longer, and we’d either get married or fight. So I left.
At the next corner, four young hooded boys huddled together with the glow from a phone in their midst. There was a baddie on that screen. I know it when I see it.
I turned around and walked to the end.
Behind the giant pillar, wrestling to his feet and mustering the energy to cross the street, I found him!
I gave him the bag. He cracked a sparsely-toothed smile, and his eyes lit up before shining with tears.
“God bless you, brother!”
I said the same and left.
DC reminds me of Cape Town.
Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. But if you walk 10 minutes in any direction and take a left, you can get robbed in broad daylight.
Drive down a major street in D.C. for 20 minutes, and you’ll see pillars of power; big, shiny, glass-windowed headquarters of every conceivable conglomerate, and several tents for homeless people. I have never seen excess and lack co-exist so comfortably as they do here.
I’m convinced people with mental illnesses are the normal ones, incapable of existing in this duality and considering it normal. You’re mentally ill for compartmentalizing so well. For tossing a coin in a homeless person’s outstretched arm before entering a bar to squander money on shots.
It’s not bad, but it’s not normal.
The next day, I braved the escalator at Union Station again and saw the man again. Same outfit. Same indiscriminate yelling. But this time, I ignored him, averted my eyes, and quickened my steps.
When I was out of his peripheral, I looked back. Everyone seems so used to it. Perhaps they’re all quietly wrestling with it like I am, but it doesn’t seem that way. If we were in a living room, the man would be a sofa or a coffee table—right where it’s expected to be. Necessary, even.
I hope I never get used to that.
I hope you never stop feeling the sadness you feel for those in need.
THINGS.
A quote.
In nature, nothing stands alone.
A tweet.
To whom it may concern.
I will hold your hand when I say this:
Men are intentional about everything, and it's best to treat EVERYTHING a man does to you in a romantic relationship context as deliberate. If he wants to love you properly, HE WILL.
He is just not (THAT) into you.
— ThatPortharcourtBoy aka Entitled Uppity African (@ThatPHCBoy)
10:20 AM • Aug 19, 2024
A picture.
I’m that friend who goes to a place once and talks your ear off about it. “I remember when I was in Accra…” Ok, not really. But apparently, Queen Elizabeth II was the last person to sleep in this bed at Osu Castle in Accra, Ghana.
WORK.
A podcast for work and life.
One of my favorite podcasts, Life Kit, is very America-centered, but some of their episodes are “border busters.” The episodes are pretty short, too!
This episode on organizing your photos and this one on networking are helpful.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ A quiz to determine the best country for you to live in.
✅ Test your knowledge of history
✅ This site has everything you want to know about food.
✅ How the original Kodak camera changed photography.
✅ A guide to every wedding dress code (minus African print)
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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