People of Need

Sitting on the train on my way home from a long night of working overtime, I and everyone else on the train of my car was besieged by a homeless man begging for food and money to subsides until his Social Security check came through this Thursday. It was officially Wednesday morning, 12:30 AM and I look at him, I am sure like many of the passengers, like he is absolutely crazy. We did this because on the first instance of him telling of not having funds until his next check, there seemed to be a consensus on the train of, "Join the club." For others on the car who are better with budgeting their money, I am sure the thought process was why in the world did he not budget the money from his last check to last until the one he is currently awaiting arrives. With the looks of incredulousness gazed upon him, he tried another method of begging and that was to tell of his need to wear adult diapers, one of which he was wearing at the moment, because he had The AIDS Virus which contributed to him being unable to control his bowels. Of course, he made this statement when he was standing in front of me. Many were thoroughly grossed out on the train, and threw money at him to get him out of the car before an involuntary bowel movement happened. Before he moved through the car, collecting his bounty the whole while, a fellow entered the train on the other side of the car and proceeded to give his spiel on why he is begging and why we should give him money. The guy who had just begged for money looked back with a look of contempt as if he were offend by the guy coming upon his territory before he vacated. Meanwhile many of us on the train car just shook our heads at the ridiculousness of the situation. Times are hard, and many on the train are coming from low paying jobs that we work long grueling hours at and these beggars come on the trains and treat them as a playground that rewards them with money for playing at life.

I have sympathy for all who hit hard times, but have none for those who do not take appropriate routes in which they can get back on their feet. Social Service Agencies, unemployment benefits, and the budgeting of such are that which allows for some dignity in paying bills and living life in a upstanding way when times are down financially. The transit system is not the way for one to rebound financially.

The Season of My Discontent

Spring is in the air and I am excited at the possibilities it brings. On the first warm, clear day in NY I was ready to embark on an excursion to Manhattan and got dressed and was thankful for the day. It was bright and shiny outside, and I felt limitless. I have always appreciated the changing of the seasons and thought of them as progression in my life. The winter winds, the April showers, the brightly colored leaves of fall, the steamy air of summer are the things that represent that I am moving forward in my pursuit of being an adult. I appreciate the changes as they represent little milestones and I am happy when they manifest in glorious days. Spring is the season I look most forward to in its brighter days and signs of things about to bloom. Hope is eternal, but with spring there seems to be a fruition of that hope. A new beginning awaits.

I recently walked down Fifth Avenue and walked by The Plaza Hotel on a 86 degree day and it felt so good. Hope springs eternal for me when weather is like that. I feel anew and refreshed. Ever since I can remember, the changing of the seasons gets me excited, and of the last few years, it magnifies my feelings of life, as a whole. I don't walk in fear of things not going right, knowing that if they do I can rebound. The confidence of being an adult and seeing things and knowing that whatever the end results will be I will be able to handle them has allowed me peace, but has also added an element of cynicism.

When I was younger and growing up in a highly dysfunctional household, I imagined that when I got away from my parents I would be out and about in the world among people who were nothing like my family. I never imagined the possibilities that people, every day people, people that I see in the periphery of my life - delivery people, people on the subway, and people I spend more time with than family, the people on my job - would be as dysfunctional as my family, as that would mean the world is a potentially cruel place, as cruel a place as the home I grew up in. I felt, when I left home at 16, people could not be as dysfunctional as those I was leaving behind as they were an aberration who were victimized themselves as children and visited their pain on me. All that I saw on TV and read about in the thousands of books I perused to take me away from the drudgery of my home life told me life was beautiful on the outside of my parents' home, and that once I ventured forth, I would bask in the goodness that was society and the life I could provide for myself. On this day I know I have worked hard to provide for me what I know is a good life. I have fulfilled what I set forth to do all those years ago when I left home, but what I did not find was the society I thought was outside that door.

When I was sixteen and on my own I always had a smile on my face and looked at people as potentially good people as I was hopeful at the odds those I encountered would not be dysfunctional as the people I left behind. Some 20 odd years later when I walk from my home and enter society, I know that many are as dysfunctional if not more than my parents and the rest of my family could have ever been. I get on the train and see faces, many faces ravaged by what I know are the effects of drugs, whether they are now on the straight and narrow after drug rehab, I have always clung to the adage, "Once a drug addict, always a drug addict". Though someone may have gone through "program" they will always have the sensibilities of a dope fiend. I try not to be judgmental, but only knowing that dysfunction brought them to that edge of drug addiction. I have a financial service job that the workers of which advice shareholders of various companies how to handle their stock, but meanwhile these same workers, I hear on the phone, make drug deals with codes they think those of us within listening range can't decipher as such, and those same people have bill collectors calling about late rent payments. I work with mean and disrespectful people. I take the train with people who I sometimes inquire if I am invisible to them because they push into me as if I am not there, thus the need for them to answer my question and put forth an apology. There are so many incidences I have experienced in my life since I have embarked on being an adult that have darkened my thoughts on the luminous society I thought I would find.

As I get ready to go to work everyday and walk to the subway, happy to smell the air of Spring, and I look around at the various people I encounter, and I know I was right to believe that there were better things outside of my parents doorway. I still know that there are good people in society, but I have an edge to my thoughts that makes that thought process delayed. I am cynical upon seeing and meeting people. I don't approach them as if they potentially are good people. I approach them as if they will be dysfunctional. I have become jaded. I read people like I do a book, and don't doubt that I am wrong. From the first meeting or viewing I believe in the possibility of bad, and should I have met and been introduced to them, I wait for incidences that may prove me wrong, but certainly don't hold my breath. I believe in decent people and know they exist, but also know they are few and far between.

Essentially, I am disappointed in people. I had hoped all those years ago to meet and be around confident, well adjusted people, who may or may not be friends, but who were people who viewed me the same way and therefore had respect for themselves and for others. But everyday I see stupid actions from people who are not self-loving which then manifests in them being rude to those around them, be they strangers or people they know. And I am now detached, and no longer have a ready smile for people, as I did those many years ago.

I love the changing of the seasons as they represent newness. The seasons have always represented newness to me, but during these most recent years there is an edge to the thought process of newness as I am jaded toward people upon first glance, but have the hope they will prove me wrong. I love life and people, but have a certain solumnness about and during that process of loving. Because I am older I am more aware of the dysfunction of people in society at large. This is the season of my discontent as it brings forth a newness of knowing life is good for me and it must be shared with many around me who do not know it nor appreciate it, and sometimes have the manifestation of that non-appreciation imposed on those around them.

Move to New Jersey

The department I work in has been deemed transient and as such my job transferred its operation to New Jersey. Mind you the distance via train takes workers about 5 to 10 more minutes out of the way of their usual way of arriving to the old location, and of course there is the extra expense for the New Jersey leg of the trip. We can view the old office from the windows of our new location. We are across The Hudson River from each other. The new excursion is not any more strenuous than the old except for the added trips to the pocketbook for the transportation. But from the reaction of the workers you would have thought we were being sent to Alaska.

It amazed me the lies people came up with to say they could not go to New Jersey and thus had to stay in The Wall Street office. One woman, an almost 6 feet loud mouth, who once said loudly on the floor that she knew Geraldo Rivera in the biblical sense and laughed heartily about it while some looked on in horror, that her husband would "not allow" her to go to New Jersey to work because it was not "worth it" financially for the family budget to go. Meanwhile, for all of the years we worked the job, she exclaimed often the various episodes in her household that told every one in listening distance who had no choice but to hear her boring stories, that she ran it. She finagled a way to stay in New York, and bragged that she wasn't going to Jersey. She manipulated the situation which she has a history of doing and the director of the department was given an earfull about the inappropriateness of her staying in The New York Office. He was told if her husband has her best interest at heart than she should act upon those interests and start looking for a new job. The director has stated that as soon as the floor in NY that we occupied is eliminated, so would she. He was reminded that should that not happen and she was snuck into a position in The New York office, there would be a mutiny among the troops of NJ who made the move, and did so in a dignified manner. If she was able to maneuver a position in NY because of her loud mouth, he would have several formerly quiet workers loud mouthing him and all others as to the unfairness of the situation and then demanding her getting on board and coming to Jersey or getting out of NY and going home to her husband who thinks the move is not financially solvent. One guy said his mother was deathly ill and could not take the chance of being in NJ should she take a turn for the worse. He said he therefore needed to stay in the New York office. He was immediately told he could take a medical leave of absence to get things straightened out and would have a job waiting for him whenever he was ready no matter how long it took. He was informed that to make it official and in adherence to "The Family Leave Act" paperwork regarding his mother's illness would have to be submitted. He quit the same day. The train to Jersey, The Path, cost $1.50 each way and if 20 rides are purchased at the same time there is a discount to $1.20. The job offered everyone who didn't live in Jersey a $75 dollar travel expense, that would be taxed, for three months to offset the extra expense for those who decided to come to NJ. Everyone grumbled, but most got on board with the move. What was one to do with the job market the way it is in the financial services industry, and why give up the longevity of a position one has had for at least 5 years, as is the case of most of the employees of my department.

What was most evident in the move was the attachment to New York many of the workers had. This attachment was derived from the elitism of working in The Wall Street area and having the address of the job change to a New Jersey address had many in an uproar. Even those who lived in New Jersey and made the trek to the job on Wall Street did not want to work in New Jersey though their commute may have been easier. It is simply the supposed prestige that a Wall Street address provides to those who can quote the such, and having it eliminated and replaced with a New Jersey address seems to have non-plussed many a person. Some of my co-workers were outraged at the suggestion of the job moving to New Jersey when first told, but many have gotten with the program after a month of being there.

What other reasonable choice do they have?

The Times

NYTimes.com


OP-ED COLUMNIST

Black, Dead and Invisible
By BOB HERBERT

Published: April 8, 2005



I once had a young black girl, whose brother had been murdered, tell me she was too old to dream. She was 12.

I remember a teenager in South-Central Los Angeles a few years ago saying, in a discussion about his peers, "Some of us don't last too long."

Don't bother cueing the violins. This is an old story. There's no shock value and hardly any news value in yet another black or brown kid going down for the count. Burying the young has long since become routine in poor black and Latino neighborhoods. Nobody gets real excited about it. I find that peculiar, but there's a lot about the world that I find peculiar.

Tafare Berryman was born on Feb. 16, 1983, in Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. He debuted at 9 pounds 7 ounces. His mother said he was perfect, and she was still saying it this week as she prepared for his funeral. Tafare grew, as they say, prodigiously. When he was murdered early last Sunday morning, just five weeks short of his college graduation, he was six feet seven inches tall and weighed 240 pounds.

His massive size was no defense against the bullet that came out of the predawn darkness. It was like an instant replay of all the bullets over all the years that have ended so many young lives for no good reason whatsoever.

The fact that he had stayed out of trouble, and that his parents were strict, and that he'd graduated from high school in three years and was serious about his college work - none of that afforded him any protection, either. The fact that he was a popular basketball player at the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University, and that his classmates, teachers and coaches all swear he was a lovely person, counted for nothing. There are a lot of good kids who don't last too long.

The shooting happened on a street in Nassau County on Long Island. There had been a fight at a club, and a friend of Tafare's suffered a knife wound to the head. The two young men left the club in a car, with the friend driving.

After a couple of miles, they had to stop because the friend was bleeding profusely. As they were switching seats, with Tafare climbing into the driver's seat, a car approached. A shot was fired, maybe two shots, and Tafare's life was over. His friend was not hit. The police said they did not think that Tafare had been involved in the fight and that the gunman might have mistaken him for his friend, or someone else.

Tafare's mother, Dawn Thompson, who lives in Brooklyn, got a call about 6 o'clock in the morning. All she was told was that her son had been shot. She and three carloads of relatives rushed to Long Island. In the town of Long Beach, the family was given directions to the morgue.

"He was laid down with his eyes open and his mouth open, like he was saying, 'Oh, God!' " said Ms. Thompson. She began to sob. "He was just tall and stretched out. He's very tall, you know. And his eyes were open like he was looking for somebody. And I started crying. And I said: 'Yes, that's my son. That's my son. He's dead.' "

When I was growing up, I didn't worry about getting shot or getting stabbed, and, frankly, I thought I would live forever. But there have been many cultural changes since then. I've talked to hundreds of youngsters over the years who have either witnessed homicides or been very close emotionally to young people who had died violently.

Entertainers sing ecstatically of rape and homicide, and rappers like 50 Cent and The Game brag about the number of bullets their bodies have absorbed (at least 14 between them). Street gangs have spread from the cities to the suburbs and beyond, moving into those places in the hearts of young people that have been vacated by parents, especially fathers. Guns in some neighborhoods are easier to get than schoolbooks.

None of this is new. Two days before Tafare Berryman was killed, a 17-year-old freshman named Sequoia Thomas was shot to death outside Jamaica High School in Queens, apparently by an acquaintance. Her last words were: "Help me. Help me."

The big shots have other things on their minds. In New York there's a football stadium that the power brokers want to build. In Washington, the focus of presidents of the United States, past and present, has been on who would get to go to the pope's funeral. In Los Angeles the other day, the black celebrity elite turned out en masse to profile at Johnnie Cochran's funeral.

Youngsters dead and dying? Nobody of importance is much interested in that.


E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

Dreaded N.Y.C. Transit

Thursday night I took the train home from work as I always do, and as always, asked that I be delivered safely to my family. Well, the going that night was such that I thought some of the peril I witnessed on the train may have impeded that wish. Upon the car that I normally take pulling in front of me in the station, I noticed three people in the usual seats that I sit acting rather haphazardly, leaning and gesturing aggressively. When entering the train I made haste to the opposite direction of the acrimonious noise they propelled for all to hear. After listening to what anyone with any sense could decipher was the babble of drunk people, I settled in for the ride with the knowledge that though drunk persons were on board my car it would not effect me.

Others on my car, however, were intrigued by the spectacle of drunk people on their train and wanted to take in all their antics, and trust, their were quite a few. I have seen much on The NYC Transit so what was going on was nothing new, but I guess to the guy sitting a seat from me it was. He stared at them so much that they asked him why he was staring. He then averted his gaze, but when one of the woman of the group kept loudly insisting that she had to relieve herself and took measures to do so between the two cars of our moving train with an assist from the other woman who stood steadfastly in front of the windows of the door of the car to block anyone's view of her friend, he started to stare again. Why, oh why did he do that? The friend acting as a shield to the disgusting act her friend was performing asked the guy, again, what he was staring at and why. When the woman performing the lewd act finished and came into the car pulling up her pants, she was told by her friends that the same man who stared before was staring at her again while she was performing the act, and so she ran up to him, and after being egged on by the members of her party, slapped the total stranger for doing something he has every right to do considering the spectacle presented to him, and did so four times in the face, hard. Her companions, screaming support, laughed hysterically. The occupants of te car including myself, were horrified as we did not know what to do. The man, a Latino, kept saying he did not speak English which seemed to infuriated said vile group of persons to a frenzy. He finally stopped talking which in turn seemed to satiate the group into leaving him alone. Finally, thankfully, their stop came and they proceeded off the train.

Upon their departure many on the train exhaled. Some laughed, and questioned the man as to why he didn't fight. One guy actually said, "Poppi, why you let that girl do that to you. I would a choked that B, yo!!! Word!" The ride was surreal, to say the least. The man, now amazingly able to speak English, said he didn't want trouble. From this I assumed that the man perhaps was here in The States illegally and as such did not want to do something or have something done to him that would ultimately involve police and they then finding out his dilemma.

I was sitting one seat away from this man and felt the impassioned yearning that was his to have this terrible episode in his life stop. I wanted to do something to help him make that happen, but also wanted to go home to my family. To confront or not confront three drunk persons about their abuse of a small man who himself took no measures to stop the abuse was a dilemma. It has always been a question of mine of what I would do in similar situations, and seeing that no one else reacted, even the person being abused, I continue to ponder about my decision though, ultimately, I know I did the right thing that Thursday night. I did not becoming involved in a fight that wasn't mine to fight.

I need to look into purchasing a car.