Bum Fight

The brick-paved area surrounding Bleecker Playground has its share of bums. I recognize most of them now. They are generally harmless people, mostly men, mostly down on their luck and intoxicated into oblivion. All day long they lounge on benches and talk about god knows what.

Dogmatic and the Bleecker Bums have an unspoken code: live and let live. We hadn’t had any problems so far, except for the time this tattooed-face guy dressed up like a leather pirate (complete with gauntlets studded with three-inch metal spikes) demanded a free Coke because he was crazy and had just returned from Iraq. I’m sure deployment in Iraq can mess you up, but I’m not sure such it would result in such rapid, visible mental and physical decay.

We haven’t seen the Leather Pirate since, thank god. Bums are like pigeons: if you feed one once, you’d better get used to it pecking around your feet. No one should go hungry, but the bums do what they have to do to get by, and so do we.

Last week, though, I messed up. This new bum I hadn’t seen before came up to us during a very slow spell. I was just entering the tip of my 24-hour flu, and I was sitting on the rear tire of the cart, yearning for some Advil and a nap. “Hello ladies,” said the bum as he sidled up. He looked fairly tidy, in clothes that actually fit him. He babbled for a bit, saccharine pleasantries about how lovely our smiles were and all that crap. I smiled mutely just to humor him, but he didn’t go away.

“I’m just wondering, ladies,” he continued, “if you happen to have a little bit of food you could share with a hungry man. I haven’t eaten in a long time, and I’d appreciate any little bit of food you’d throw away otherwise.”

We don’t throw food away. Throw sausage away—that’s a sin! I shook my head at him. But he persisted. “I’m very hungry, ladies, and God said never to turn a hungry man away.” This evocation of God did me in. I never help anyone. I’ve worked in close proximity to bums at several jobs, and I feel that giving them spare change and/or sausage is not the best way to help them. I prefer to save my change for tipping barristas and clerks at bagel shops, people who work hard.

But that’s all I do. Tipping junior college students hardly qualifies as charity. I used to donate money to good causes, but that’s when we had money. Nowadays the difference between me getting a black coffee in the middle of my Dogmatic shift is if I get a dollar tip or not. I hate having nice things like a warm apartment and a car and stable parents and yet not doing anything to help other, less fortunate people. Like the bum hounding us—even if he was annoying, he probably was hungry.

Early that morning I’d made a tuna sandwich at home to eat for lunch that day. But sitting there on the cart’s rear tire, the thought of eating lukewarm canned fish was revolting. Why should I waste my lovingly made tuna sandwich? Our passivity wasn’t chasing the bum away—we’d either have to be nasty or generous to him. I chose the latter.

The bum was overjoyed. He thanked us about five times and requested another set of smiles. I wanted to tell him he was pushing his luck, but I didn’t. As he finally loped off, I regretted giving him that sandwich. We were not seeing the last of him.

I went home sick later that day and didn’t come back to the cart for another two days. Upon my return, I discovered that there’d been unrest among the bums of the park. My tuna sandwich guy had been bragging about his food score to all the other bums. And one of the bums had stolen the backpack of Michael, my Dogmatic co-worker who had the propane fireball in his face. Michael had no valuables in his backpack, nothing but his Dogmatic uniform—which we saw the next day, hung up on the gates of the playground.

One the day of my return, one of the bums was particularly belligerent and vociferous. He swore a lot and had a pair of boxer-briefs on his head. I eventually recognized him as the tuna sandwich bum. That bastard—bragging about my sandwich! That’s the last time he gets anything from me, especially if he’s going to sit around with boxers on his head and threaten the other park bums.

The next day was quite chilly in the park. I finally got a tip and I went over to get a cup of coffee at the corner market so I could have something warm in my hands. When I got back, Jes, the car supervisor, excitedly told me that one of the bums had just beaten another bum to a bloody pulp. I was both glad and bummed to have missed the fight—I’ve never seen someone beaten to a bloody pulp in front of my own eyes. That’s okay, I guess. The triumphant bum—the beater, not the beatee—was strutting around the park with a menacing gleam in his eye.

The bums have been agitated lately. There’s something in the air. Deborah, the park attendant, came over and told us to get her if any more bums cause trouble. That’ll put at least a temporary end to these eruptions of bum violence—even the Leather Pirate would be a fool to mess with Deborah.