Lately, there have been a rash of burglaries in Beverly Hills. Someone comes to the front door and distracts the homeowner while accomplices sneak around back and steal valuables. In the case of our house, this wouldn’t be much of an accomplishment since the back door is always open, at least during the day when Cordelia is out and about.
I heard a knock on my door the other evening. I often have students in the evening so I didn’t think twice, I just opened the door. There stood a young Hispanic man of about twenty in a sports jersey and baseball cap and his first words were, “I need three dollars for the bus.” I was shocked first that I didn’t know him and second that he was so cheeky that he asked for money without even an, “Excuse me…” I looked at him and said, “Why should I give you three dollars? Why are you asking?” He looked a little sheepish and said, “My friends left me. I don’t have any money. I just need bus money to go back to East LA.” I had a student in the living room waiting for me, Cordelia with me at the door, and Ray was upstairs in the bedroom. I said, “Okay, just a minute,” and closed the door. My first thought was what’s three dollars? That boy needs to get home.
Now, I must digress a moment and explain Ray’s next reaction. He called from upstairs, “Len, don’t you give that boy money.”
The reason he could mind-read my actions through several walls and from a different floor is that I am the perennial easy touch. I am definitely the one you want to tell your sob story to. I will be in the kitchen making you chicken soup before you’re done and probably heading for my handbag, as well. Ray loves to tease me about this, but he also gets annoyed. Like the time that I bought a magazine subscription from another young man from East LA and then never received any magazines, or when I ordered gift wrap from a young woman from Compton and we never received that either. I know I need to be careful. I know I need to be tougher. But there’s something about someone walking door to door that hits me somewhere deep. Maybe it harkens back to the time that my dad was a Fuller Brush salesman when he was a very young man. I can imagine how difficult it must be to face rejection time and time again.
This time, however, I was still slightly bothered by the presumption from this young man that I should give him money. Granted, I was still going for my purse when Ray called from upstairs. “Len, tell him your husband says no.”
Now to me there is nothing wimpier than blaming things on my husband, as if I don’t have enough of a brain to come up with a decision on my own, but my student was waiting and I didn’t like the boy’s thinly veiled demand, so I opened the door and said, “I’m sorry, but my husband says no.” The boy stepped back and nodded. I added, “But good luck! I hope you find a way to get home.” After I closed the door, I returned to my student – a teenage boy – and he said, “Len, you should never open your door like that. My parents talk through the window when someone comes they don’t know. They would never open the door to a stranger.”
Ray arrived downstairs about this time with a smug look on his face. “That boy – the one you were about to give money to – just walked across the street to where two of his friends stood. His friend didn’t leave him, they were waiting to see what kind of money they could get so they can go buy booze.”
I sat down after all of this and thought, “So sad we’re at a point where casually opening your door is cautioned against and when you do, you have to watch with special care.
I did think about those burglars who use the distraction method to steal. It’s possible they were part of that ring but figured out fairly soon that we have a system, aka Cordelia.
Still, I can’t help but hope that my kindness to that boy – even without the money – might have registered with him. When I told him I was sorry, but I wasn’t going to give him money, he looked at me and said, “Don’t worry. It’s okay.” One second of human on human intimacy. Who knows? That just might help make a tiny difference to him one of these days. I surely hope so.
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