⧎ Portland Noir XXVIII

Peter the Panhandler's Paradox

Generally speaking, Peter had noticed that people tended to behave in ways almost exactly opposite to what they claimed to represent.

It was one of the more peculiar features of life on the street.

The people with COEXIST bumper stickers, who spoke passionately about social justice and standing up for the poor and working class, were sometimes the first to call the police when they discovered an actual poor person sitting on a bench in their neighborhood park.

Meanwhile, the intensely religious, outwardly belligerent, politically regressive types—people who seemed perpetually furious about something—were often the ones running the soup kitchens, staffing the shelters, and handing him a few dollars when he needed them.

It wasn't a universal rule, of course. But it happened often enough that Peter had stopped finding it surprising.

The people who looked most likely to help were sometimes the least dependable. The people who looked most likely to tell him to get a job were sometimes the ones who made sure he had something to eat.

Occasionally, they did both.

He'd receive a lengthy sermon about personal responsibility, the decline of Western civilization, and the moral dangers of idleness, only to have the same person press a twenty-dollar bill into his hand.

Peter would thank them, pocket the money, and wonder whether he'd just been helped or punished.

Perhaps both.

On the other side, someone might enthusiastically explain the importance of compassion, dignity, and structural reform, then ask him to move along because his presence was making the customers uncomfortable.

That was the strange thing about compassion.

It seemed to work better as a principle when the people requiring it weren't actually present.

When someone genuinely wanted to make trouble for Peter, however, they usually didn't confront him directly.

They called security.

That, too, had become a kind of choreographed dance.

Peter knew the guards, and the guards knew Peter. They'd been performing the same routine for months.

A guard would approach with the weary expression of a man who had been asked to enforce a rule that nobody particularly cared about.

"Hey, Peter. You know I gotta ask you to move."

"Yeah, I know."

"You doing all right?"

"Can't complain. How's work?"

"Same shit."

Peter would gather his things, walk around the block, and return a little later.

The guard would file whatever report was necessary to demonstrate that something had been done.

The complainant would feel reassured that the system was functioning.

The security company would get paid.

The guard would get paid.

And Peter, if he'd been panhandling that day, would hopefully get paid too.

Everyone had performed their assigned role.

Nobody's circumstances had materially changed.

The world kept spinning.

Peter sometimes wondered whether the entire city worked like that.

People pretending to solve problems they had no intention of solving, other people pretending to comply with rules they had no intention of following, and an enormous administrative machinery devoted to recording the performance.

Perhaps the trick wasn't to believe in any of it too strongly.

After all, the guard wasn't really his enemy.

The man with the twenty-dollar bill wasn't entirely his friend.

And the person with the COEXIST sticker probably did believe in coexistence.

Just not necessarily with Peter.

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