Mike Vitale

The first car I ever drove was a 1987 Chevy Camaro.  I remember the doors being really heavy and making a jarringly loud “clunk” every time I exited the car.  This particular memory strikes me the same way.  In fact, there I was, exiting that Camaro of mine with my first girlfriend, Lauren.  We had just pulled into a rather large and deserted parking lot that stood along the outskirts of downtown Visalia.  We were en route by foot to my favorite local coffee shop haunt about a block away to hang out and pass the time with friends.  While walking from my Camaro to the coffee shop, we were approached by a man who looked as if he could have won first place in a contest for dudes who wear the street professionally and smell like vomit.  He explained to Lauren and I how he was from out of town and had arrived in Visalia a few days ago in such dire circumstance that he described this sudden inexplicable chain of events as “hella lame.”  He explained how he had no money and not enough gas to get back to his home in Northern California.  Having seen him around town for a number of years and feeling the pangs of his make-believe grief (and the smell of stale Jack Daniels on his breath) I decided to contribute to his homeward bound cause after his rambling joke of a story finally came to the punch line, “Do you have a few dollars to spare?”

Now, at this point in my tale, it’s important to point out that I had just gotten paid from my job as a shipping/receiving specialist at the local sports store (I’m not sure what was so special about the shipping and receiving there), so this situation found me with a large fold of money in my pocket.  As I gingerly thumbed through the half-folded earnings (from my days spent counting the contents of boxes full of blank t-shirts) it later occurred to me that maybe that maneuver of mine was not so smart, mind you, in the present company of our new homeless friend; this realization (especially) became increasingly apparent in the company of a starved glare fixated on the contents of my hand.  Having traversed through a cornucopia of twenty-dollar bills in order to arrive, at last, at several smaller dead presidents, my fingers finally settled slowly on three or four one dollar bills; I hand him my small Sally Struthers’ Donation to his self-serving humanitarian effort with a smile that would have illuminated a candle-lit-rural home during the turn of the 20th century with the electricity of my contribution; and I suppose I wished he would have felt something like that farmer turning on his porch light for the first time, illuminating that slow and cold early morning jaunt between his house and the dairy stall to milk Bertha.  No such luck though. As it turns out, I was Bertha, and he could care less how either of us had arrived at that milking stall.  What I received instead was a slow pause, a long look at the new shade of green in his right hand, and then a strong and cold stare back with the expression of someone who was just handed a Ziploc bag full of diarrhea.  He sort of mumbles something under his breath and then exclaims with the passion of a true professional panhandler: “Is that it?”

There’s nothing quite like someone looking a gift horse in the mouth.  I then handed him a ten-dollar bill before he said one of the most alarming things in the history of my existence on this, sometimes, cold and dark planet, “You better pray that I don’t see you again tonight.”  The words rolled off of his mouth with the grim expression of someone who felt the world had turned a cold shoulder on him a long time ago, and he was out to get what wasn’t coming to him willingly.  His intentions with that phrase were veiled in a Wizard of Oz-type mystery and I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant with such a cryptic response to what I thought was a kind gesture.  Did he mean that he would beat me down and rob me blind if he saw me again OR was it a joke to express the fact that he thought I was a pushover?  Either way, it wasn’t meant to be flattering and I felt the sting of an open hand across my face, as I had been bitch slapped by his parting words.

This experience tarnished my outlook on contributing to the community for a long time.  Now, it’s not to say that I haven’t given money to someone on the street in the meanwhile: quite the opposite.  I just find myself exercising a lot more scrutiny (if you can’t already tell by the tone of my story) and I’m ashamed that this is the case.  Yet, exclusive of the circumstances described above, I had an experience yesterday that reminded me of how beautiful giving can be.

I was outside of Ralph’s, in the parking lot (on my way to use the Coin Star machine inside the store) when I saw a woman, her adolescent child, and small puppy sitting in the back of a Chevy Trailblazer hatchback.  The mother was holding a sign that said, “Stranded without gas, food or money.  I just want to get home to Texas.  Please help.”  I saw that her car had Texas license plates, so I handed her a few dollars shyly and started to walk away; she tried to thank me as I headed towards the entrance of Ralph’s, but like a complete jerk, I kept walking (I wish that I had a do-over for that moment).  The Coin Star machine inside the store faced towards the parking lot and as I was cashing in my change, I noticed that her dire situation changed dramatically within the short amount of time I was inside the store.  She had several people walk up to her and hand her money.  I thought more on what I had done (walking away like that when she was trying to thank me) and decided to strike up a conversation with her and find out her story before I went to grab something to eat.  In our conversation, I introduced myself and found out that she and her daughter were planning on moving to California (as I could see from their car full of possessions), but that it didn’t work out and she “just wanted make her way back home to Texas.”  She explained to me how this was her third day sitting outside of Ralph’s asking for help.  She said that the last two days of asking for assistance had brought her nothing but empty stares, or worse yet, not even a glance from the people who passed her by, but that her luck had changed just a moment ago when I handed her a few dollars.  She told me complete stranger came up after me and handed her a $100 bill shortly after I walked into the store.  She had a fist full of money that she was clutching to with desperation and started to sob, not from pain, but from joy.  She thanked me a told me that God was with me.  Just as she did so, another woman stopped in her Lexus and handed me $20 to give to her.

Perhaps the world isn’t such a cold place after all, and that the people who need help, still get it.  This goes out to Matilda and her family.  I wish her a safe trip home.

- Mike