The other night, I was approaching Broadway and 98th when I passively registered that a woman walking with her two dogs toward me on my left was thanking a tall black gentleman who was on my right. I was breezing by, in between them, crossing the street going north to south.
It was dark, but my eye caught a fleeting glance of the gentleman. I’m not sure why, but after I crossed the street, something made me stop and turn back. By now the gentleman had crossed his part of the street, walking from west to east, already on the other side of Broadway, just making his way up 98th Street.
I saw the back of a tall man, in black shirt and pants, walking slowly, aimlessly, almost limping a bit. Something in my heart told me he had nowhere to go. That he was homeless.
I’m not sure why, because he certainly did not present as the fair or unfair — but conventional — perception you would have of someone homeless. In the mere seconds I’d passed him by, it was enough time for me to register that he was clearly clean and dressed very normally. Of course, many homeless people have life hacks mastered to perfection so as to ensure their homelessness goes undetected. But it was something else, an intangible, an incredible dignity he possessed.
You have to understand, the atmosphere here in the Upper West Side community has been tense. First it was coronavirus, then the rioting against police, and now, unfortunately, there is a terrible homelessness problem that has been recently racheted up to unsafe levels. The truth is, I don’t know if there is ever such a thing as a straightforward homelessness situation, but the current crisis here is very complex and layered. In fact, it seems a sizeable portion of the hundreds of men who, overnight, were recently placed in local boutique hotels en masse in the neighborhood are drug addicts, or severe mental illness sufferers, or have criminal records.
Walking at night is no longer safe. (That night was my exception; normally I no longer venture out at night) Even during the day, yesterday, there was a shooting on Broadway in broad daylight. Passing someone on the street snorting cocaine is unfortunately not uncommon. Crime has risen.
I can’t quite explain the feeling, but as I stood there on this deserted corner, I felt pulled to approach this person who was slowly receding from my view. I rushed across the street, quickly scanning the addresses of the buildings awnings, whipped my phone out and as a safety measure I put it to my ear pretending to be speaking to someone so I wouldn’t come across as disconnected from people, and said to him, “excuse me, sir, do you know this neighborhood well?” The man turned around, and we stood face to face. As soon as I saw his eyes, I immediately felt safe and knew he was a good person, nonetheless, I kept the phone by my ear.
“Yes as a matter of fact I do, can I help you find your way?” he said, as he quickly put out a cigarette.
Suddenly, I felt the weight of my foolishness. I froze. What was I thinking, I told myself? My little ruse to pretend he’d help me find the “address” of the building I was looking for so I could enter into a brief dialogue . . . and then what? Help him? Like I foolishly thought I would? What could I do for this person? I was driven by an intuitive sense he needed help and by an empathy to help him, but now that I stood across from him, I felt helpless.
“Oh, thank you,” I said. You know what, I just realized my error, that I’m on 98th street, when I need 97th Street.” I see where I am. Thanks.”
“So you know where you’re going?” he asked. And I said, “Yes, thank you,” like it was the end of the conversation, when suddenly, I heard my own voice say the next words: “And you? What about you . . . you know where you’re going? You have somewhere to go?”
“No . . . I’m homeless.” he said sadly but matter of factly, as it got quiet between us and in those moments both of our eyes were shiny and wet.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. I wish there was something I could do. I wish I was in the position to help,” I told him.
“Are you from the new neighbors who just moved to the community,” I asked? As I said the words I sensed there was no way he was because: a). it would mean he is housed at one of the local hotels and not currently homeless, and b.) because unlike the recent influx of people who have been moved in here, this gentleman’s vibe was different.
“Oh no, no, no, not at all, he made a face and quickly continued, “I’m not part of that.”
Interesting, I noticed.
None of us, no matter what community we are from, even the homeless community, are monolithic. Being part of a group from within, there are so many nuances, whereas as outsiders, it’s so easy to look at a community and paint them all with one brush stroke.
He’s a singer, he said. He introduced himself personally. He shared that he had once had a scholarship to music school and promptly burst into song with “You Raised Me Up” beautifully flooding 98th Street. This guy can sing!
We got to talking and he explained that if he had the cash, there’s a motel he can try to get to after midnight where the price then drops to $40 and allows him to remain there until noon the next day.
I said I didn’t have cash on me, but I could go to an ATM. I usually never give money to people on the street. As a rule, I buy people food or other items they may need, but never cash. In my early years in New York someone had explained to me, never give cash. It’s money for drugs. But something felt different with this person.
We started walking toward the ATM as he was lecturing me, “You know you can’t just talk to strangers; there are bad people,” as I realized I still had my phone to my ear — what a joke.
We chatted about his singing. The truth is, he said, he doesn’t want money. What he prays for is to somehow get a hold of a portable piano keyboard with a microphone so he can sing in subway stations or central park, and make his own living. By the way he spoke, it felt like this is something he’d done before and knew well.
I asked him nothing about his past or how he came to being homeless. He implied he’d been in worse shape in the past but was now on a path to taking better care of himself and keeping the faith that G-d will help him past this difficult current time.
I went into a store I knew had an ATM inside, so as not to enter the closed area of a bank alone, and got this kind gentleman the modest funds. He told me his email address and as we reached the northwest corner of 97th Street and Broadway, he sang an encore of “You Raised Me Up,” and then we bid one another goodnight.
I reflexively turned to the right, toward my apartment, when he helpfully said, “Oh, this is 97th Street,” and pointed to the left across Broadway. “This is where you want to go.”
I paused. He paused. “Oh, I see, you know where you are going . . . you know where you are,” he said.
In that moment, he understood I had sought him out, that our meeting was not, after all, serendipitous.
Our eyes met quietly yet emotionally again. For a moment there I was nervous. I’d been exposed. But instead, he was moved that someone cared enough to follow him and felt it was G-d’s hand.
I then told him the whole tale from the beginning.
And for the third time, he sang “You Raised Me Up,” this time, the melody flooding Broadway and 97th Street.
Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News
