bumming around

When I first got to Portland, I was very empathetic to the homeless here to the point where I once gave away my bus money everything I had including my bus money and had to walk home to southeast Portland from Downtown.

I realized that I was ‘fitting in’ more when the ‘spangers’ (people looking for spare change) stopped asking for money from me and started asking for cigarettes. I didn’t ever get to the point where other people would give me money though…until yesterday.

I was sorting the donated clothing with a friend. Normally we would sort it in a van but the van wasn’t there. I pulled my car over across the street from a church where the light is better. Then we took the garbage sacks of clothing out of the car and began to sort them in the street. A car drove past us and pulled into the church parking lot. Nobody got out and it backed up towards us. I figured it was someone wondering what we were doing or someone looking for directions. Instead, the driver called my friend over and handed her $18. My friend asked what it was for and she was told to “Just take it,” with pity and sympathy in the driver’s voice. So she did. Before we could say anymore, the car drove off. I asked my friend why she gave us $18 and she said, “Look at us.” We were on the side of the street, garbage bags filling up the car and spilling into the street across from a church. “We look pretty bad.”