"If You Give Money, Abandon Yourself With It."
– Henry David Thoreau [Actually not. See below.]
It hasn’t been a good summer for living outside. The rains have been torrential.
So when Jake approached me from across the street and asked if I could do him a favor, I just said, “How much?”
But Jake always wants to explain first. It’s more important to him than it is to me. Like it’s partly to convince himself. I do enjoy his explanations. No two are alike.
His plan this time was to go to Northern Vermont the next day to work for his brother. The Drop-In Center had given him bus fare. His partner Suzanne would be staying in town to continue her cancer treatment until she could join him. They just needed another $20 to have enough for a hotel room. Get out of the rain. Clean themselves up.
By way of background, I should mention that my brilliant street friend Kenny—who wears his complex PTSD like a badge of honor—has told me Suzanne is a user. Equally unreliable sources have confirmed she has cancer. Either way or both, I figured she could use a night away from a leaky tent that tends to attract skunks, raccoons, and other wildlife.
As I gave Jake the money, I said, only half jokingly, “I never want to see you again.” Which was my way of saying, “Jesus Jake, please don’t show back up in a few days and make me feel like a complete idiot for giving you money for something you never intended to do in the first place.”
A few days later, Jake showed back up. I did kinda feel like a complete idiot—not because I gave him the money, but because I actually thought he was going to go up north to work with his brother.
I was walking down the sidewalk with the sun so bright in my eyes I didn’t realize it was him until he was right in front of me. He looked more belligerent than penitent—as if his situation was so dire he didn’t have time to deal with my judgments. I explained that I wasn’t upset, I had just hoped the thing with his brother would work out. He nodded and shook his head at the same time. Grateful for my understanding while dismissing it with the enormity of his latest twist of fate. Looking at me with his best “end of my rope” expression, he explained:
He had indeed begun to establish himself as a professional farrier with his brother in Northern Vermont. He loved the work (all 3 days of it, so far). But then Suzanne called to say that the doctors had given her only 11-12 months to live. He was crushed and came right back. He knew she was sick but he’d thought they were holding the cancer at bay.
I probably gave him a few bucks for food that afternoon—all these encounters kind of blur together—but when I came back from a walk late the next afternoon I found him sitting on my stoop. Suzanne was lying on the landing behind him, a backpack under her hip, head on what appeared to be a bag for a tent.
She didn’t look good—in fact, she looked every bit the addict Kenny said she was. I weakly asked if some Advil would help at all. Or some Klonopin. She shook her head. Just as I was about to give Jake money to get them both some food, he told me their real problem:
The town had cleared their whole encampment—six or seven tents besides theirs. The police usually ignore people camping in out-of-the-way places: Next to the tracks. Or in the abandoned field behind the lumber yard. Or along the stream where the banks are steep and nobody will see them from the street above. But this one was in a cemetery and some mourner must have complained.
Occasionally, as Jake talked, Suzanne slowly opened her eyes and commented like an English teacher correcting an oral presentation. It was endearing. And it dissolved more than one preconception. This wasn’t a marriage of convenience or desperation. They, to put it bluntly, loved each other.
I tried to remember if the shelter was still giving out sleeping bags or I had an extra one to give them. But then, Jake explained, their real problem was that his Suboxone and her painkillers were in the tent. Along with her iPhone.
The Suboxone made sense. Jake was shaky that afternoon in a way that I hadn’t seen him in a long time. When I mentioned it, he said he was 80+ days clean and wasn’t about to blow it now. But without the Suboxone….
Gesturing back to Suzanne he explained, without my asking, that she could get totally wiped out like that after chemo. She opened her eyes and gave me a wan smile.
I gave Jake more than I would usually (thanks to your generosity) and wished them the best. Jake said what he always says, “Thanks, boss.”
Correction!
I have a confession to make. I’ve been writing a documentary about Henry David Thoreau and been shocked how often he is either mis-quoted or quoted out of context. So, for that script I now rigorously check every quotation I use against his journal, essays, or boooks. It appears I’m not always that rigorous in “my own” writing. When I first published this I used the “quote” above from him for a healing:
I guess it was wishful thinking. The full quote is, “If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them.” The misquote is actually my approach to the issue. Henry’s take is pretty much the opposite.
Thoreau was a penny pincher who even pinched most of the pennies he gave away. However, he thought deeply about philanthropy in all forms. If you’re looking for an articulate and well-reasoned statement of why, like him, you should care what happens to the money you give (instead of abandoning it), the full passage is towards the end of "Economy," the first chapter of Walden. Sorry, Henry.