Panhandling

 A few weeks ago, during my stay in London, I was walking down a deserted street in the early dawn. It was somewhere in Bloomsbury, near University College London, and so far I had encountered no one on my walk. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a strange man approached me. He launched into a speech—something about desperately needing a few quid to buy a train ticket, and how he'd pay me back if I just sent him my address. 

I have to admit, it was a masterwork in the panhandler's art. Not because his story was convincing: it wasn't. I didn't believe it for an instant. But he had captured the element of surprise. He was introducing a familiar set of techniques—the patter, the sob story, the ask—but in a context that took me off-guard. This was not a crowded street corner; he did not have a cardboard sign and a tin can; and so—something about this familiar routine playing itself out in a new place ensured that I could not simply say no and pass on. I could not default to my own usual repertoire in such circumstances—the awkward downcast eyes, the muttered apology as I decline, the slightly-quickened shuffle past. 

I knew, as the man was talking, therefore, that I would give him money—even as I said to myself that most likely none of the story was true. This was a simple con. I knew that, but I found myself reaching for my wallet anyway. "How much do you need for the train?" I asked. But he was too practiced for that. I forget what he answered to my question, but he somehow managed to avoid naming a figure. Better to wait for me to draw my hand out of my pocket, see how much was coming, and then ask for more. Why artificially anchor the number at a specific point, before you see how much the other party might be planning to offer? That would be poor negotiating.

I had a few bills in paper currency in my pocket that I had obtained weeks earlier from the airport currency exchange and never used. The UK turned out to be a largely cashless society; so I had figured the bills would end up staying in my pocket until I got home. Maybe I'd save them as souvenirs, since there seemed no reason to ever spend them. But never mind—here, I had to admit, was, if nothing else, something to do with them. I pulled out a twenty pound note. "Is this enough?" I asked. Fool. He, of course, did not pause for gratitude. That could wait. Instead, he pressed his advantage. He named a figure a few pounds higher than what I had just extricated. And so, of course, I gave him the remainder of my bills as well. 

He had cleaned me out. And all without actually deceiving me. I did not expect him to ever buy that train ticket. I figured I'd see him again a few days later working the same neighborhood. But I forked over the money anyways. Nor did he intimidate or coerce me in any way. It was all perfectly voluntary. I was never deceived; I was never forced. 

Maybe he needed the money more than me? Maybe he was actually forced to this low and humiliating act by some real desperation. Or maybe he did it just because it was as good a scam as any. It's impossible to know. At any rate, this was not why I handed over the money. There was no humanitarian assessment of our relative advantage or disadvantage on my part. I didn't do it for that. I did it just because... I'm not sure; but I guess it had something to do with the sort of person I want to be. 

As I was walking away from him, I thought back to a passage from Stefan Zweig's novel Beware of Pity. A sharp-dealing sales agent has just pulled off the coup of a lifetime: he has managed to convince a hard-working servant to part with almost the entirety of a fortune she had just unexpectedly inherited from her dying mistress. But, no sooner has he managed to achieve this improbable victory, than he begins to regret it. More than pity, he is moved by admiration. He starts to respect his victim's credulity and trustfulness more than he does his own powers as a negotiator. "Yes, that was the kind of person one ought to be," he realizes: "a person who'd rather be betrayed than betray." (Blewitt trans.)

Many people take pride in their ability to spot a con a mile away. They like to think that no one can get the better of them in a deal, or pull the wool over their eyes. But it seems to me that it is at least better to be someone who is duped than who dupes. I suppose I would rather be the former, if I had to pick between the two. 

In our present society, with its fraying institutions, its breakdown of social trust, its sky-high housing costs and its lack of affordable mental health treatment—this is no academic question. We experience more panhandling on a daily basis than we did even ten years previously—especially if we live in a major city—and we have to figure out how we are going to respond to it as a part of our ordinary routines and habits. 

Most of us develop strategies of avoidance. We pretend we didn't see the cardboard sign. We roll up our windows on the highway and lock our doors. We cross to the other side of the street. And, when we feel bad for doing so, we tell ourselves certain stories to salve our conscience. "They don't really need the money," we say. "If I gave to every one of these people, I'd be right out on the street with them; I can't afford it." (Or—the progressive version: "We need structural solutions; not individual ones. Charity's not the answer—we need social justice!") Some of which may in fact be true—up to a point. And so, when we see someone with a hand out on a street corner, we manage to square our shoulders, avert our eyes, and slink by, without totally feeling like a terrible person—like the men who pass by on the road in the parable, before the Good Samaritan finally stops to help. 

We are like the speaker of a poem by Bertolt Brecht who, driving down a country road one night, spots a "raggedy man" asking for a ride. (Constantine/Kuhn trans.) Even though, he acknowledges, the car has seats to spare, the speaker says "no/ We can't give anyone a lift," and drives on by. Only when he has gone some ways, and the man is no longer in sight or able to catch up with them, does the speaker relax his shoulders and second-guess his decision. He is suddenly disturbed with himself. But his choice is the one we all learn to make every day, as we walk by a thousand strangers asking for assistance. The only reason I didn't do it, on the occasion recounted above, is because—as I say—he had surprised me in an unfamiliar setting. I didn't default to the usual "No/ We can't give anyone..." ritual, which is what I do under ordinary circumstances.

But would it actually help anyone, if we did give? Do people need that money? What are they going to spend it on? Are they just trying to scam us? Are they the ones taking us, metaphorically, for a ride? (In Joseph McElroy's novel Cannonball—which is, among other things, a satire on American "Prosperity Gospel"—characters purport to discover a new Gospel under the deserts of Arabia. In this one, Jesus tells us that beggars who could work, but don't, are the true violators of the principle of brotherly love. This version of the savior says that we should emulate the coldhearted people who pass by the robbed and beaten man on the road, rather than be the Good Samaritan who stops to help him. And, while McElroy is mocking this moral theology, it is plainly one that is embraced by a good many Americans.) So which is it—should we avoid giving so as not to reward scamming and deception? 

A friend was telling me the other day that the Pope himself had recently weighed in on this perennial subject. Don't overthink it, he said, in effect; just give. Give anyway. 

This seems, at last, to be the right advice. Maybe the panhandling is a scam. Maybe it is a cheat. I'm almost certain the one I experienced on the streets of London was one, after all. I was gulled. But so what? I'm still not sorry I gave. Even if it is a scam; it is better to be cheated than to cheat. Better to be betrayed than to betray. Such, at least, is Zweig's advice. And Brecht's. And the Pope's. Let's take it, the next time we pass someone on the street who asks for help. We don't have to wait until they catch us by surprise.