Tortilla soup, tonight.

Every Sunday, our house hosts a vegan potluck. Due to household negligence, it’s been a weak couple of months… Weak enough that last week’s attendance of three non-residents seemed like a resurgence. I think we’re coming back, though: I’ve heard six confirmations for tonight, already.

I lost the recipe I’ve used before, which made a really excellent soup. It’s been months since I cooked this, so I’m working from shaky memories and guesses, here: Whole tomatoes, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, vegetable broth, red bell pepper, poblano, serrano, chipotle, canned green chillies, onion, garlic, cumin, cilantro, salt… Tortilla chips. I did my grocery shopping, per usual, at Golden Produce on Church St., between Duboce and Market.

If I’ve got change beyond bus fare, I always give to anyone I pass who’s asking. Not always, I guess, but usually. Coming out of Golden Produce, the first guy I passed was an older white guy — maybe in his late fifties or early sixties — a guy I see hanging out in that corner of the Castro all the time. He’s effusive, absurdly polite, smily. He asked for change, and I gave him the forty-some-odd cents I had in my pocket.

Twenty paces down, a black guy selling the Street Sheet, probably the same age. I had nothing left in my pocket — no change, no cash — and I didn’t make eye contact. Passing him, I said ‘Sorry, man. I just gave away my last change.’ ‘I didn’t say nothing to you.’

I looked back over my shoulder toward him, but not at him, while walking away: ‘Well, I saw the—’ ‘Yeah, yeah… Didn’t even say Good day.’

I think — I’m not sure, but I think — that it was me who didn’t say Good day, not him.

I walked back home on the defensive: People don’t sell the Street Sheet unless they’re homeless, and I’ve never met a Street Sheet vendor who didn’t welcome a donation, or a little extra for the paper. Couldn’t I apologise for not having anything to give an obviously homeless person?

Now, later, I’m a little more comfortable with feeling ashamed. I don’t presume to know what inspired this guy’s ire — I should have apologised, stayed to ask him a couple questions — but certain obvious possibilities occur to me:

Different times, different races, probably different places, but broadly speaking, we grew up in the same culture. It would take a lot for me to ask for a loan from family or friends. If we’re talking about money for daily bread, there’s a good chance I’d sooner steal. Perhaps I offended this guy’s dignity: He didn’t like to beg, didn’t want to beg, perhaps begrudgingly accepted selling the Street Sheet as a way to make money — the Street Sheet has an unsavoury association with begging for him (for most), but it was preferable to making the direct ask, and allowed him to keep hold of some level of dignity. I scuffed that pride by assuming that, because this guy was homeless, he was also a beggar.

But that’s pure speculation. Maybe the guy’d had a bad day. Maybe the cops who regularly harass the homeless along that section of Church had given him a hard time. Maybe he was tired and cranky. Maybe he was upset that I saw him as a parking metre in which to deposit change, rather than as a human being who merited a greeting. Who knows? Without having made the effort to ask him, I certainly don’t.

His vexation reminds me of Malibu, in a way. In past conversations, Malibu has hinted at need, but rarely has he actually asked. The first couple times he played his CD for me, he informed me that he was selling, but he didn’t ask me to buy. The third time, not recognising me (we “met” several times before he began to remember who I was), he introduced himself, introduced his work, asked me how I was doing, and in response to my asking the same question of him said ‘All right, man. All I need is for you to buy this CD, and then I can call it a night.’ I had no cash, and he didn’t press the issue.

A few days ago, I met Malibu on the corner of Haight and Fillmore, and we talked briefly. He told me that he needed to find a place to stay soon, as he wasn’t getting enough sleep, ‘and we don’t do our best work unless we fully rested.’ He didn’t ask if my house could provide a temporary bed, but I got the feeling that he was hinting at something he couldn’t request. He then asked me if my new workplace (I start full-time temporary work in an office down in the Financial District Monday morning) had any need for a mailboy (’boy‘… ‘Bu’s somewhere between 35 and 50 years old… I suppose the term ‘mailman’ has another meaning in our culture, but I was still thrown by his word choice… does homelessness emasculate?). That sort of question is very close to a direct ask, but it’s not quite the same thing.

I’ve seen ‘Bu a few times since then, but we haven’t spoken. Friday, he set up shop across the street from my house, playing his poetry from his boom box. I set my speakers in the window, and played some of his work back to him. It seemed funny at the time. Now, the divide of the locked door between the homeless guy playing his own work from a portable stereo and a well-to-do guy playing the same work back through a subwooferษ it makes me a little uneasy.

If you read this blog regularly, you might note that I’ve been bad about keeping this section up to date. I’ve done no active research, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s happened: The above conversation with ‘Bu should have been recorded on Wednesday; the Friday box-booming, on Friday.

I just purchased a digital voice recorder for conducting interviews and taking rapid, spontaneous fieldnotes. Even if I don’t update this section of my blog daily, I’ll at least have fresh notes to work from when I do. (More on the voice recorder in a coming post.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 June 2005 at 17:47 and is filed under San Francisco Streets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.