After I sat down, I told him "I got nuthin'", my standard response to most of the creeps in these parts. Then, I asked him if he wanted a banana. He responded in the affirmative, so I gave him two. Not a word of thanks.
As he housed the first banana in about 30 seconds flat, I was left to ponder the nature of the gift and had the following streams of thought:
- "Giving a man a fish" is a really good thing, even if you can't teach him to fish or help him create a fishery.
- The gift is not done for the reward of thanks. What is it done for, then?
- Was the gift self-sacrificial? Not in the least. I had bought too many bananas and a couple would go bad before I could eat them anyway. If I had given him $20, I wouldn't have noticed it gone.
- Is it selfish to give my money to Retired Matt Bugaj and his family instead of charity? Isn't he a whole other person from me, just one I happen to like a lot right now?
Then, Eddie asked me my name and told me his as he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. I asked him why he was trying to bum cigarettes if he already had a pack. To get a different taste?
"A different feeling in the head." Sure, I don't smoke, but I was left to ponder different beers, wines, and liquors and their effects as I rode the bus back home. You can learn something new every day if you look for it.
As the bus approached, He began to pull apart a Milky Way candy bar and shove the caramel-dragging pieces into his mouth. Strings of caramel on his coat and in his beard. By that time, the cigarette had already been sucked to completion and discarded on the ground next to the banana peel, the plastic wrapper covered in red sauce, and the garbage can.
A civilized world demands of my sensibility that I am a little put off by the whole encounter, while my savage understanding can see the reasons behind everything he did. Right now I feel a little like Ed Tom in No Country for Old Men (the book not the movie), failing to comprehend but knowing it's me I'm looking at.
"Seek, and ye shall find."
