My friend Melvin’s business strategy is similar to that of anyone raising money for a struggling non-profit. Which, in this case, is himself.
First, you reach out to prospective donors—“cultivate relationships,” a consultant would call it. After a few “asks” you might get a small donation. A little more the next time. Until you’ve achieved the perfect blend of goodwill and generosity—with touches of guilt and self-righteousness as needed. Soon, your donor will be making an unspoken (perhaps unrealized) pledge of weekly or monthly contributions until, eventually, they take part in the annual fund drive.
Fortunately, in Melvin’s case, at least I won’t ever be asked to be on the Board of Directors.
As I remember, the first time I met Melvin—around 2017 or 2018—he didn’t ask for anything. He just appeared alongside me on the sidewalk out of nowhere, saying “Uh huh, Uh Huh” or “Well, all right, all right.” Those are his two basic greetings—either of which makes you feel you’re on the same page. Even if you suspect you’re reading different books. Or at least in different translations.
Soon he’s walking along as if he happened to be going where you’re going. Just when you think he’s about to ask you for something, at least a light or a cigarette, he slowly dips and turns his sinewy body and rolls it up until he’s facing the other direction—a poor man’s Michael Jackson move—walking away with a “catch you later,” that feels like a promise you’ve asked him to make. Then he’ll give a little laugh like the two of you just completed a perfect basketball pick-and-roll. You’re on the same team.
Our relationship developed slowly. Within a year or two he had me up to regular $5 donations to the cause. Maybe I got away with singles occasionally.
Then he went away for a while. I’d say it was two years; he says nine months. Regardless, when I saw him ambling down the street towards me again, I had to admit I had kind of missed him. The feeling was mutual. We gave each other big hugs, Me, because Melvin is endlessly entertaining, and him because his “white daddy” was still in town.
Melvin doesn’t drink coffee. He also doesn’t do hard drugs. He drinks bad beer and smokes pot. Pretty much all day. But slowly. Like homeopathically. Although by seven or eight he might seem a little drunk or stoned or both.
Melvin also never uses cardboard signs. He’s not asking for a handout. He’s inviting you to have a relationship. For me, relationship-building is all about asking questions. The kind of questions that most people who are raising money are happy to answer—where they’re from, why they are homeless, why they can’t get work, and where they’re going next. Whether any of their answers are true or not is irrelevant. To me they’re like street musicians using the spoken word.
Melvin doesn’t answer questions. Even when I ask him some of the basics—How old are you? How long you been around town? Stay warm last night?—he responds, “There you go asking questions again.” A response that triggers a frantic synaptic response as my mind scrambles for a way to get around or over that verbal smack down, until I find myself in the familiar (and not unwelcome) no-man’s land of stillness. Compared to that, classic Zen koans—like asking whether a dog has Buddha nature or what’s the sound of one hand clapping—seem amateurish.
A few times, I’ve tried refusing to give Melvin money unless he answers one of those questions. A tactic he clearly feels is beneath me. And usually doesn’t work. In general, he simply won’t play by my rules. And, when I try to play by his rules—or even pretend I know those rules—we are both disappointed…I should know better. If I presume something important about his life—which can be virtually anything about his life, he’ll usually start ranting and raving about how, “there you go with that stupid white shit again.” In response, I tell him if he’s going to say that, I’m going to call him the N-word.1 At which point we both laugh and he gives me a fist bump or his signature handshake while throwing his other arm over my shoulder…a gesture of common ground which makes any appearance of discord seem like make-believe.
In my last “Aside,” I talked about how hard it is to talk about people who live on the street without seeming overly idealistic, altruistic, or fatalistic. It’s also hard to do so without over-romanticizing the apparent difficulty of their lives and the wisdom they impart, regardless how inadvertently.
So, even though Melvin occasionally says things or does things that give me pause, if not a full stop, I don’t see him as some kind of unwitting Zen street-master who’s taken me on as an equally unwitting student. He’s just Melvin being Melvin, And I’m just me being me.
The suggestion to “meet people where they are” is a fundamental “rule” for helping someone in need. It’s the latest iteration of trying to “look through their eyes,” “understand where they’re coming from,” “put yourself in their shoes,” or some other idiom for being empathic and without judgement.
Putting myself in Melvin’s shoes involves walking much slower than I usually walk, noticing things I usually don’t notice, and looking at most situations in terms of what might be gained—even if it’s just getting a pretty girl to say hi.
Whereas were he to put himself in my shoes, he'd have to walk really fast and be oblivious to most of the things around him. (He could still try to get pretty girls to say hi.)
I have to say—and I imagine some sociologist has written about this—the whole notion of meeting someone where they are can be a little condescending, in terms of a subtle so-called “power dynamic”. But, in this case, the only “power” I have is money. Melvin’s coin is who he is. So who’s condescending to whom?
There I go asking questions again.
As Melvin would say, “To be continued.”
Click here for the first essay in this series.
I say the word to Melvin, but won’t spell it out because I don’t want to offend anyone who doesn’t feel that’s appropriate. I usually agree with them, but I think this is an exception to that rule. And Melvin seems to agree.