An excerpt from Sherman Alexie's
Blasphemy:
And we laughed, you know, because sometimes that's all two people have in common. "So," I asked her. "What's my latest prognosis?" "Well," she said. "It comes down to this. You're dying." "Not again," I said. "Yup, Jimmy, you're still dying." And we laughed, you know, because sometimes you'd rather cry.
I combed over this for awhile, re-reading, re-feeling, mostly. The soft edges around the hole in my heart shivered a single tear from my eye. Then I laughed lightly, with Jimmy & his doctor, and I thought to today's lunch hour:
I briskly left the skyscraper for some alone time--lunch in the Loop of Chicago. Famous joints filled to the brim shoved suit-and-tied lines out of the waiting areas and into the lightly falling snow. I came to the corner fervently tapping away at Yelp's poor mapping app trying to get to the place that looked about a block and half away; spinning and holding my phone high in the air, aligning satellites so my blue circle might align with the corner streets signs.
As I spun in the city, a homeless man asked me something through my stress, and I replied the standard, "No, I don't have any cash on me." My mind slowly cleared as he asked me again--still inaudible--but this time with a look of earnest need on his face. I tapped into my subconscious, hunting for what he could have possibly said, greeted by fog. I walked closer, and repeated myself, this time with an apology, "Sorry, I don't have any cash." My chest heaved high in a condescending fashion.
He replied, "Where are you trying to go?". I shamefully uttered the address to him as he recited perfect directions to my $40 sushi bill, I thanked him and walked away thinking of Jimmy. I laughed, because sometimes I'd rather cry.
My work day resumed and ended quickly--I scrambled toward the drugstore for some semblance of capitalist sanity. I wanted to comb the aisles to find something to repay that man, who I knew I wouldn't find later. I would keep what I bought as a bandage to the wound of injustice I'd earned at lunch. That's what buying stuff feels like after all, like a Band-Aid.
Just outside the door, a woman stopped me in the street to compliment my haircut. She was raising money for children in need of everything: the commitment was 90 cents a day for a lifetime. Did I mention she loved my haircut? I took the bait, I was already feeling weak from earlier.
It's better than a product from the drugstore.
The thing about those working for a cause is you pitch it old-school. None of the flashy marketing wrought with some greedy man's fingerprints we see all day. They do the opposite of being yelled at by the corner newspaper boy, straightforward, shallow, he's heard, but not listened to. These people are more like the well-meaning cousin who's selling extra papers because poppop's in the hospital and he's too young to work a real job. Either route, you want the paper.
I want to save the children.
After her personal story, my replies ended with a list of all the projects I'd already funded this year and for my lifetime and a, "hey, I'll look into it. What's your website?"
Well, here it is, folks:
https://www.children.org/
She delivered the address and I thought,
to afford a domain name like that--they don't need my money. I walked away thinking of Jimmy and I laughed, because sometimes I'd rather cry.
