nice jacket, man
Last night I stopped at the convenience store near my friend’s place to pick up a six pack to split with said friends. I’m in the aisle, making a decision about what kind of beer I want. For me, when purchasing a beverage, there’s one argument going on in my head: cheap vs. tastes/flavors. See, I like my money, so I don’t like to waste it on alcohol. At the same time, if I’m going to have a beer to unwind at the end of the day, I certainly don’t want it to taste like donkey piss. I ended up with Modelo, a classy split down the middle.
Anyways, I’m choosing the beer, and a man comes up behind me and says something I couldn’t understand. I go “huh?” and he repeats himself: “Nice jacket man.” He’s also wearing some odd grin which I overlook and say “cool, thanks” and squeeze past him to the cashier to purchase my goods. The purchasing goes off without a hitch and I leave the store, get in my car, start her up, start to turn around to exit the premises when the same dude walks out of the convenience store waving his arm at me.
I stop and roll down my window just enough for him to stick the barrel of his gun in the window. Luckily he doesn’t have a gun though and he just says “Hey man, I’m out on the streets tonight can you help me out?” Breathing a sigh of relief that I didn’t just have another close encounter with a crazy man and a weapon, I go to hand over some change when he says “Actually I could really use a jacket more than change.”
Whoa, what? Did you just try to upsell me to my thirty dollar hoodie instead of the $2 in change? I admire your candor, sir, but nay I say. “Sorry man, my moms got this for me a while ago. No can do.” So he takes the change, and then says “Take care of your family, man. They’re most important.”
That gets me thinking, hey he’s right. He’s just a dude with bad luck who ended up with nothing in this world, the least I could do is give him this jacket in my trunk to keep him warm in the winter (LA winter, but still it gets chilly at night). It is the holiday season, after all. So my sympathies are growing, and then he keeps talking. “I’m trying to get back to mine right now.” He holds up a can of malt liquor in a paper bag. “But I’m an alcoholic, you know.”
That’s when I got angry. What the hell is this guy doing? Why is he spending what little money he has on booze and then coming to me asking for a jacket and telling me to take care of MY family? Dude has a family, presumably a wife and kid, and all he can do is show me a can of beer and say “hey, i’m an alcoholic, what can I do?”
I threw my car in drive and said “Get your shit together man. Use my money to buy food. Go to an AA meeting, there’s a church on the corner that does them on Tuesday nights. Be well.” Then I drove away.
You might be thinking why do I know there’s a church with an AA meeting? There’s a damn sign in front, one that this dude has probably passed many times. Let’s hope he goes.
