Kindness

I was standing outside at work yesterday, getting my puff on, and this homeless guy wanders up. We get a lot of homeless people wandering around my j.o.b., but I think it's mainly because we have public restrooms and you don't have to buy anything to use the shitter. I'm standing outside, and this guy wanders up and starts digging through the butt can. He comes up with two half-smoked smokes, while I'm kind of checking him out because some of those guys are sketchy. When I say guys, most of the homeless folks making use of our facilities are men. And they are indeed a sketchy crew. This has been best demonstrated by the one guy who was wandering around with nunchucks in his back pocket a few years ago. Now, I've never been hit with nunchucks, but I bet it hurts like hell.

Some of my co-workers buy these guys food, give them lunch, give them cigarettes, money, what-have-you. I am constantly telling them to stop, because damn, that's why they keep coming back. We keep giving them shit. It's plain and simple classical conditioning. Here is the most elementary explanation I can provide: if there is a reward for some type of behavior, we as humans, will usually continue to exhibit that behavior because we want the reward, i.e., Pavlov and his dogs. We give food, cigarettes, money, and so forth away to these homeless people, and they keep coming back because they have a reward. In fact, like Pavlov's dogs that salivated at the site of his assistant even without the food, I can't even figure out who is salivating first here - the homeless dudes or my co-workers. It's a strange cyclical relationship. And then I step in with my operant conditioning, which is I refuse to reward that behavior because it's not behavior that I see as productive or whatever. I don't reward the homeless guys with anything but a pretty smile, which you can't smoke, and they don't reward me with feeling good about giving them something. But no one else is feeling my operant conditioning, despite my repeated attempts to enlighten them.

So I'm checking this guy out, and it's odd, because I haven't seen him before. He looks familiar, but I know I haven't seen him digging through our butt can before. But then in my profession, everyone looks familiar after a while. Actually, I just realized he looked a little like Sean Connery. I would guess this guy's age to be in his late 50's or 60's, and he's got grey hair pulled back in a ponytail, but it's a neat ponytail and his hair isn't really that long. The ponytail holder was a regular rubber band, but it had broken and so he'd tied a little knot in it so he could still use it. Stickman is wearing a button down shirt, but it was completely unbuttoned, and he had on some navy blue work pants and some tennis shoes. He looked to be about that age when a man's chest hair kind of turns from hair to fuzz, which made me believe he was actually in his 60's. His clothes were grubby, but he wasn't dirty, which was kind of odd. There's a big difference between wearing some grubby clothes for three or four days, and just picking yourself up out of the gutter (literally) after a three or four day bender - and I know the difference. He's asking where he can get some bus tickets at while he smokes one of his half-smoked butts, and kind of rambling on about living down at the river and getting his general relief if he can make it uptown somewhere. I know where general relief comes from, and it's not where he's talking about, but hey, maybe he knows something I don't know. And I know about the homeless encampment down at the river, which is an island in the middle of the James that I'm pretty sure is only accessible by walking across the train trestle near the Manchester Bridge and then climbing down a ladder to the island. This guy does not look like he's been living on the island, because I know what that looks like, too. I wondered while I smoked and listen to him talk, what his story was. Who is this guy? What's he doing here? A vet, maybe? Something was just off, but not off in a bad, or even sketchy, way.

I finished my cigarette, and got ready to dart back in the building, and turned around and told him, "Hang on, man, I'll go get you a smoke". So I run back to my office and grab the whole box of cigarettes, and looked inside. About 8 left, and I have two new packs in my purse. I run back out there and give it to him, and tell him to have a nice day. Uhhh, what the fuck just happened to me? How did this happen? I've spent the last day thinking about it, because in all the time I've worked at this place, I have not given away ANYTHING EVER. Except a hard time. I give that away all the time, baby, all the time.

I saw this group on facebook not too long ago, but I didn't join it because I want to be somewhat selective with my groups. I mean, I can't be giving away the farm, you know. But the name was something to the effect of 'Be kind to everyone you know because everyone's fighting some kind of battle' and that's really stuck with me. Oh, wait, I just checked and I did join that group. It's true, though. We are all fighting some kind of battle, and you never know what someone's got going on. I went to some training not too long ago, kind of a touchy-feely training thing, and the people doing the training were talking about how great we all are, and what a good job we do, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and blah blah blah. Someone said something about taking time out for our clients, because maybe no one else has taken that time out to make them important that day. And no, I don't call the clients clients, but I'm trying to keep my job pretty anonymous on here. But anyway, maybe we will be the only person they've come into contact with that will take that extra five minutes to really listen and be supportive, because, really, don't we all need that sometimes? And so that's been hanging in my head, and the facebook group because I really want to be a different person.

I think I've spent most of my life being an asshole. School, work, marriage, in general. Maybe because that's what I've been exposed to most of my life from my parents and various step-parents, supervisors, clients, relationships, The Ex, so on and so on. My favoritist person on TV when I was little? J.R. Ewing. I think that's indicative enough of me being a bully and an asshole. I blame my parents, some, because kids will act in the same manner that they are treated. But since being an adult, I blame myself. I want to correct this, fix this, because I don't want my children to think this is okay. I don't want to be a party to raising two children who will grow up to be assholes. That's not okay with me.

Some people will stumble into our lives in a very happenstance manner, and then some people will just kick in the door to our lives. We lose people, we disconnect with some, we gain people, we reconnect with others. Karma, kismet, predetermination, sheer coincidence, maybe everything happens the way it's supposed to. Sometimes, everything is going right for them and you cheer them on. Sometimes, everything is going wrong for them and you want to help. You want to be kind. You want to do something for someone for no other fucking reason than concern, and care, and just a basic human kindness. But for whatever reason, you can't. Your kindness is very nicely, or not so nicely, returned unopened. This credit card is no longer accepted at this location. I'll stop being enigmatic. I tried to do something genuinely kind and sincere for someone who broke into my life, got pushed away because they had issues, and I am left holding the bag of kindness. But I have to be okay with that. I have to just take it like a woman, and not be an asshole. I'm working hard to be a different person, a better person who can just roll with it.

So I gave a little kindness away, in the form of 8 cigarettes. It wasn't the kindness I set out to give away, but I guess it's okay, since I have some extra.