Antagonizes: Tortured Helping

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Rhonda.

I remember the day she and I first interacted. It’s 1999. I would watch her from the distance … she always seemed like she didn’t want to be bothered. She’d walk through the mail room, and the guys in there would get silent. I was usually back there chilling with them … bullshitting to make the time pass. She’d scoff at them, on her way into the main office. The moment she’d leave the room, they’d immediately start talking about her. Their conversations were hilarious. I’d laugh as they’d start telling stories about the shit they would do to her … but I never interjected. An very attractive light-skinned Jamaican woman … 28 at the time, 5′10″ about 155 … thick in the right places … nice professional sense of style.

Not my type, but attractive nonetheless.

One day she walks through the mail room, and Chris gets into an argument with her. I’m in the main office at the time. So I walk to the mail room … everyone gets quiet, except for her. She’s cursing at the top of her lungs. I ask her to calm down … and go back to work. She hesitates, then complies. When she leaves the room I ask the guys … why they are always messing with her. Chris says something along the line of, “She’s psycho. Fly but psycho. You just started working here so you don’t know, but you’ll see in time.” Rafael agreed … I didn’t know him from a hole in the wall … but I grew up with Chris. I leave the mail room, and go back to the main room. She’s at her desk … it’s opposite of mine.

Her back is to me, but I hear her quietly sobbing.

I grab the box of tissues off the desk next to me, walk over to her … put my arm over her shoulder, and place it in front of her. She grabs a couple tissues, and I say “don’t let them get to you.” The tears coming pouring out. She says that she tries to, but I can’t understand what it is like to be ridiculed all the time. I was in the middle of writing a poem prior to their argument. It conveyed … the days … of ridicule … through … the eyes … of a child. I read … it to her, and instead … of writing the ending … it was freestyled verbally. She … smiled at me, and told me her thoughts on what was said. I crumpled up the paper, and threw the poem into the garbage. She reached into the garbage … took it out … and asked me why I did that. We conversed for an hour or so. Every day after that, we would go out to lunch together. We’d walk down the street, during the afternoon rush … having the typical conversations about perception, and life. At night …

Conversation anointed by fermented libation.

After work we’d sit in the bar in Port Authority. The conversation was more casual … with liquor in our systems. Things weren’t always sweet between us … it is her nature to perceive the negative. She had been hurt so many times before. She saw me as if I was one of those guys. Always on the defensive. Even though I wasn’t trying to get with her. Carrying the pain with her like a badge of remembrance. Unable to let go, using it to strive for tomorrow. I’ve heard the same song being sung by hundreds of people, I know her story well. Although my story was very different … there were some parallels, like with any situation of pain. She was willing to at least … truly listen to what I had to say. We’d make up … and eventually things would return. During one of our transitional phases, when the chairs were returning to the upright position.

She comes in from lunch … alone.

She has the look of frustration in her eyes. Locked tears welled up, unable to release. I asked her what was wrong. She begins to tell me about an encounter with a homeless guy, on her way back to the office. She said that she saw him sleeping on the bench, as she stood outside of this store. He peed on himself. She could see it drip to the floor, but he did not move. His piss, seemed like it was a tint of yellow and lime green. He scratches himself, and turns over … facing her. She describes him as looking sickly, like at any moment he could’ve died. With holes in his face, as if it was deteriorating. At the time, the words she used to describe him were kinda harsh. However, it was understandable because she was heated. She searches through her pocketbook for some money.

She walks over and tries to give him ten dollars.

In her exact words she then said, “Do you know he had the nerve to catch an attitude with me? So I say to him.” She continues to tell me the story. Expressing that she was just trying to help. She’s standing on 42nd Street and 6th Ave, arguing with a homeless man. Upon completing her story she asks me, “if that happened to you wouldn’t you be upset?” I told her no. She asked why … so I said, I used to sit with homeless people all the time, and one thing I’ve learned … is most do not want pity. Your pity is offensive, and degrading. You weren’t trying to help him, you were trying to help yourself. Of course she got upset, and disagreed. She asks me what I would’ve done.

I tell her … I would’ve let him die.

She thought that was crazy. I asked her if she could imagine what it would be like, to almost starve to death … but at the very last moment a person gives you a sandwich. They are just trying to help. However, as you bite into that perceived salvation … each bite brings you closer to the end. Knowing that there will not be a sandwich tomorrow, you savor it. Each bite would be agonizing. Yes he could try to be optimistic, yet in his situation it wouldn’t be realistic. Do you realize that the person who gave you the sandwich tortured you to death with their “kindness”? She said, “but I didn’t give him a sandwich, I tried to give him ten dollars. That would’ve lasted him awhile.”

She didn’t see my point.

So I broke down her money. You buy potato chips everyday, or anything that doesn’t cost much money … because you want to last long. You can’t afford anything filling, because filling items would mean less food. I elaborate on each day, what was ate … what was done. We get down to the last day. That last meal. I tell her that the outcome is the same. He could be optimistic, and happy while it lasts. Yet, the reality is he faces death everyday. He’d have to be naive to forget that … to be lost in bliss. If he doesn’t want to die, he’ll do something about it. He can go to a shelter, pizza shops give away the unsold pizza at night … I know I was homeless, and living on the streets. You say you were trying to help him, but did you ask him what he wanted?

You were only concerned with what you wanted.

You felt bad, and wanted to feel better. You weren’t helping him, you were helping yourself. She asked me, “is it so wrong to feel bad for someone?” I said, “no, but you pitied him.” If you want to help, help someone that wants it. He didn’t ask you for it, and when he rejected it … you basically tried to shove the money down his throat. Yet, you perceived yourself to be helping? If you want to understand what someone is going through, you must put yourself in their shoes. You can’t understand their perspective, if you merely try to look at their situation through your own perception. You must think like them, act like them, be them … only then will you begin to understand. She catches an attitude, and turns away … but before she did I could see that she clearly understood. Before I went back to finishing my work I said, “Sometimes we help more, by not doing anything.”

Does only the pain matter? I’ll tell the story … soon.

- Prasand