Help for the Homeless

There was a guy standing outside Au Bon Pain soliciting customers on their way in.

"Do you have a moment to help the homeless?"

He caught the person right before me, so I was off the hook. I watched him while I sat in the front window of the shop. He stood in a ski jacket under the falling snow, with hat and mittens and clipboard. After a while, he was approached by a rugged man in a cotton army jacket, with a sand-colored bag spilling out over his shoulder. He was unkempt and under-dressed. I watched their confrontational body language at first, but eventually I could hear their conversation through the thick glass wall.

"So you have some money for me, then?" Asked the self-declared homeless man.

"That's not how it works," answered the canvasser.

The homeless man proceeded to ask him exactly how it worked, how a homeless man was to get this "help." But I don't know what he was answered.

I had watched the man pocket cash from all sorts of people, the way a beggar would with a paper cup - but in this case, it had to go through envelopes and bank accounts and many other hands. And he couldn't lose it to an unapproved homeless man. Especially not in its rawest, most delicate form.