The Crying Beggar
Alice had been watching the man for some time. Quite likely, he
was homeless.
The man’s shoes had holes on the sides where parts of his feet
stuck out a little. The bottom of his trousers were frayed, and there
was a tear near one of the knees. The jacket he wore was soiled and
ragged-looking. His face had the sallow hue of a person who neither
ate well, nor did any of the other things which are necessary to
maintain health. His hair had an on-going wild affair with the wind
from which it only occasionally disengaged.
The man’s obvious poverty were not what had drawn Alice’s
attention to him. After all, there were so many homeless people these
days, and, for the most part, they disappeared into the background
as people became habituated to their presence – often on the
periphery of one’s awareness, but rarely in the center of that
attention.
No, what had attracted her was his behavior. She had been
surreptitiously following him all day long, and since she was a
student at the university she had both the time and the interest to
pursue the moment -- even when it was an extended one.
The man didn’t seem crazy. He wasn’t mumbling to himself, or
carrying on arguments with unseen assailants, or making bizarre
gestures with his hands.
For the most part, he was very quiet and well-behaved. He
wasn’t bothering anyone, stealing anything, or panhandling.
He was just walking about the city. Yet, every so often the man
would happen upon some situation or event and he would begin to
cry – not just a few tears, but copiously.
On these occasions, he did not wail or lament about anything. He
just came to a stop, observed whatever was going on, and, then, he
would begin crying.
The tears would fall for a minute or so, very heavily, and, then,
almost as if a faucet had been twisted somewhere, the crying ended.
When this happened, the man would start to walk again.
There seemed to be no pattern to the behavior. Both the walk
and the crying appeared to be random.
The last time the man cried, he had witnessed – and, therefore,
Alice, as well - a loud argument between a couple who had broken up
and were not shy about letting everyone know about it. The
argument had gone on for a few minutes and ended when the young
man walked off in a huff, leaving his former girlfriend behind in
tears, begging the guy to come back.
Before that, he had cried when there was a fender-bender at an
intersection. Although both parties involved in the accident were
fairly upset over the damage which had accrued to their respective
cars, they had been relatively civil to each other, exchanged
insurance and registration information, and moved on with their
lives.
However, as the two gentlemen got in their cars and were
preparing to pull away, the poor man started to cry. He continued on
with the tears until the two cars had disappeared in opposite
directions, and, then, the crying discontinued.
Prior to the accident, there had been a procession which was
being organized at a neighborhood funeral parlor. A casket was
being placed in the hearse to be transported to this world’s terminal
junction point.
The man began crying. One of the people who was standing
near-by tried to comfort the man.
Eventually, the procession got under way. The poor man did so
as well.
Before the funeral, there had been a little boy who had been
looking for his dog that, someone had managed t wiggle out of the
harness the boy was using to keep the dog in check. The boy was
crying, and the man joined him – until the boy moved on, and the
man started walking again.
The first event in this sequence had taken place outside a local
market. There was some sort of altercation between the proprietor
and one of her suppliers, and the two were exchanging insults and
complaints about someone cheating someone.
Alice had been sitting at a sidewalk café, reading a book, taking
leisurely sips from a coffee mug, and, occasionally, taking a bite of
the buttered bagel she had ordered. The café was across the street
from the market, and Alice had watched the whole scene unfold,
including the appearance of the homeless man and the first episode
of crying – at least during her watch.
Time was running out for Alice. She had a 5:00 p.m.
appointment at the university, but she also wanted some sort of
resolution concerning her curiosity about the man’s behavior.
She decided to follow the man for another half hour and see
what, if anything, transpired. Irrespective of whether there were any
further incidents of crying, at the end of this allotted time, she would
approach the man and ask him why he was crying.
As she was watching the man, trying to stay back far enough not
to be noticed but close enough not to lose him in the crowd of people
who were out and about, she began to form various kinds of
hypotheses concerning the behavior. One possibility was that while
the man was not crazy in any certifiable sense, perhaps, he was
emotionally disturbed and was very sensitive to any kind of conflict
or tension which was going on around him.
Another possibility was that although the man might be
homeless, maybe, nonetheless, the man considered the neighborhood
to be his home. Being on the street each day, for hours on end,
perhaps, the man had come to be familiar with, and develop
attachments to, the people who lived there and, as a result, sort of
treated everyone as part of his vicarious family which he had
conjured up.
Most of the events Alice had witnessed did seem to involve stress,
of one kind or another. On the other hand, both the little boy whose
dog was lost – at least, temporarily – and the person who had
comforted the man at the funeral home seemed to know the man,
and, maybe, in ways that Alice was not aware of, the man might
know, on some level, all of the other people who had been associated
with the bouts of crying. Alice was leaning toward the ‘vulnerability
to conflict’ hypothesis, but she had not completely closed the door on
the ‘vicarious family’ idea.
The homeless man walked by someone who was singing a line
from an old Guy Mitchell song – ‘I never felt more like singing the
blues,’ and the homeless man began to cry. The individual who had
been singing stopped and asked the man if he was OK, if there was
anything wrong?”
The man whom Alice had been following cried for just a bit
longer, shivered slightly with a sigh, and told the singer that he was
all right and he thanked the man for asking about his welfare. The
homeless man began walking again.
Alice checked her watch, worked up her nerve, and began
quickening her pace in order to overtake the man she had been
watching. She finally caught up to him, slowed down to match his
pace, and said: “I have a confession to make.”
The man was very casual about being addressed and replied:
“And, what confession would that be?”
“I hope,” Alice responded, “you won’t be too upset with me
when I tell that I have been following you for quite some time,
observing your behavior.”
“Why would I be upset over that?” the man asked. “It’s a free
country, and, to be honest with you, I find it rather flattering that
someone would want to spend so much time taking an interest in
anything I do ... this is, certainly, not the normal way people tend to
interact with me.”
The two walked on in silence for ten strides, or so, and the man
said: “So, might I ask why I have become such a cause celebre with
you?”
Alice was somewhat taken aback by the question – not so much
that it was asked but in the way it was asked. Somewhere in this
man’s background there had been some degree of exposure to culture
and education.
Hesitatingly at first, but picking up steam as she went along,
Alice summarized what she had seen since first seeing the man at the
market store across from the café. She concluded with: “I’ve been
debating with myself over the reasons why you have been crying. I’m
not trying to pry, and if this involves something too personal, then,
I’ll drop the matter and leave you in peace, but I guess your behavior
has aroused my curiosity, and if you can, is there something you are
able to share with me on what has been going on throughout the
afternoon?
“For instance, why were you crying when you heard the guy
singing?” Alice specified.
The man said: “The kid had just lost his girl friend. He was upset
and he was trying to sing away the blues via the Blues.”
“Do you know the fellow who was singing?” Alice inquired.
“Nope,” the man said, as if he were Gary Cooper.
“Then, how do you know why he was singing?” Alice pressed.
“It’s hard to say, really,” the man replied. “I just know things,
but I’m not exactly sure how what I know gets into me.”
“Well,” Alice added, “what about the people at the market where
this thing – at least, for me, all started’? Did you know any of those
people.”
“Nope,” he answered.
“Were you upset by the conflict and tension associated with any
those events?” Alice asked, having eliminated one of her two
hypotheses.
“Not really,” the man responded.
“Did you know any of the people at the places where you cried?”
Alice inquired, trying to narrow down the possibilities.
“Nope,” the man said.
Alice put her hand on his arm, slowing him down to a stand still.
She turned to him and said: “Let me get this straight – you weren’t
reacting to the stress or conflict at any of those incidents, and you
didn’t know any of those people, so why were you crying?”
“At their sense of loss,” the man said simply. “If you will review
the nature of those events, there was some sort of loss, or perceived
loss, involved in each set of circumstances. I was crying about their
sense of loss.”
“But, that’s silly,” Alice retorted. “Why would you cry about
people losing something when you don’t even know them.”
“Actually, it’s not silly at all. Now, you want to know what is
silly? -- people being upset about losing things and relationships
which do not really belong to them. The money, the cars, the
boyfriend, the girlfriend, the dog, the life which had passed on – none
of those belonged to the people in question. They belong to God, and
Divinity was merely taking back that which had been loaned to the
various people for Divine purposes.
“I cried because all of those people are so attached to that which
they do not own and which is not their property. The fact of the loss
is God’s business, and, therefore, why should I cry about that? -- it’s
just the way things are ... it’s the nature of life.
“However, I do have empathy for all the individuals involved in
these incidents because of the suffering they endure so long as they
are under the illusion that they have lost something which belongs to
them rather than being witnesses to the great returning which occurs
when that which has been given, on a purely temporary basis, reverts
back to the true Owner of all things for further disposition.”
The man smiled at Alice and said: “I believe you have a 5:00 p.m.
appointment, and I suppose you better hurry or you may find me
crying over your sense of loss as well.”
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