New York Minute 187 - From Bad To Worse
The other day, I crossed Park Avenue at 79th Street in the most upscale of upscale neighborhoods. A tall, middle aged, African American man was standing on the corner. From the way that he looked at me, I sensed that he was going to ask for money. He held a single business card in one hand, but I didn’t look at it. I looked at his face.
“I don’t mean no harm,” the man said as he took a step toward me. My immediate thought was that this was a horrible way to start a conversation.
“I know you’re busy,” the man continued as I walked past him. I never give money to panhandlers, so I didn’t slow down. “I just got out of prison today.”
By this time, I was already past the guy. The best strategy in most cases is to keep walking and say nothing, but when someone is persistent, it helps to do something that they don’t expect.
“That’s great news!” I said as I turned to look back at the guy. “It’s your lucky day!”
I continued walking. The panhandler said nothing more to me. A few paces later, I heard another man’s voice coming from behind me. “What was he selling?”
“Oh, he wasn’t selling anything,” I said before looking to see who I was talking to. “He’s probably just asking for money.”
A well dressed, middle-aged white guy with gray hair walked beside me with his small gray dog. It seemed that we were all heading toward the park.
“He had something in his hand,” the well-dressed man remarked. He looked vaguely familiar. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but as I think back on it, he looked a bit like Geoffrey Epstein. They could have been brothers.
“It’s probably just a prop for his scam,” I said.
As we walked, we chatted for a moment about the increase in vagrancy over the past decade. The guy asked if I’d heard about a violent mugging that had occurred outside of a nearby restaurant a few nights earlier. I said that I hadn’t heard about the mugging, but I was familiar with the restaurant. A gang of three men took a man’s wallet after beating him in the head.
I remarked that I had hoped that the new mayor would help turn things around given his background as a police officer, but I added that things didn’t seem to be getting any better.
“Oh, he won’t do anything,” Epstein Junior remarked with disdain in his voice. “All of his supporters are Black and brown. They don’t want law and order. They want to turn this into a Black and brown city.”
I didn’t acknowledge the comment, verbally or otherwise. What do you say to something like that? I didn’t feel like expending energy to argue with a racist jerk.
The guy ranted a bit longer. I didn’t even look at him. Thankfully, our paths diverged, and I didn’t have to listen to his racist spew anymore.
