It all started because I was on this kick of feeling pity for the homeless. I was working in the city right near their most populated stomping grounds. Their presence could not be ignored. 

I was in the mindset of saving people: I worked at a hospital, and I couldn’t help but stop and stare at all the needles on the ground on my daily walk to the train. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I sometimes took pictures with my iPhone of abandoned belongings as if I was at a modern art exhibit. The overwhelming tragedy of it all fueled my sense of privilege and I felt I was in a grand position to appreciate the suffering of others. The deep, intensely visible suffering was morbidly romantic. The streets pulsed with a culture of unstrapped freedom and a sort of elevated, glimmering anguish. It was summer though, and no one was cold. 

If only everyone on Mass. Ave. could feel love and kindness and joy, I thought to myself…but god forbid these feelings come from a heroin high. I gawked at the lady on the bus stop bench jabbing a pen into the ragged skin of her palm and nodding off. When a crackhead cried to me for money, I would cry with her. I gave out a lot of unwanted hugs during this period of time. I was convinced that my hugs might battle drugs and whatever else causes such destitution.

It was in this mindset that I stepped off the train onto the warm, sunny platform. I was on my way home. I heard a voice from behind me, “Excuse me, Ma’am.” I felt eyes directed at me and spun around out of curiosity. I locked eyes with a short, blue-eyed man. His gruff mouth and rough, square chin stood out right away because he wasn’t wearing a mask. His white t-shirt wasn’t all that white. He spoke again, “Excuse me, Ma’am, I just got out of the hospital you see,” he lifted his arm up to eye level so I could see his faded hospital bracelet, “and I’m in a bad place, think you could have some mercy and help me out?”

Well, it seemed all I had was mercy, so this lucky fellow, who I soon learned went by “Ike,” caught me at exactly the right time. Plus, it was pay day and the start of another weekend. “Wanna go grab something to eat?” I offered. 

“Oh! Bless you, Ma’am!”

I smiled with satisfaction through my mask.

No more had to be said, and he recommended that we try the burger joint down the road. As we walked through the sunny train station, he starts to rap, long flowing lines that seemed premeditated, practiced. “You should try it!” he said, with glee. “Nah,” I laughed nervously, “I really can’t rap right now.” After pestering me a bit further, he finally gave up and seemed unbothered by my embarrassment. He began his rap again.

We are eating burgers and he says again, “bless you ma’am.”

He tells me the story of a terrible war in Bosnia, a story of fleeing to America. A refugee. His accent matched the story. 

He tells me he is a famous Bosnian rap star. How I should look him up on Instagram and follow his account. He shows me some J. Cole music videos on my phone, pretty cool shit. I ask him where he will go tonight, he avoids the questions. I feel pity for him and bring him to a Walgreens to get a bag and a new shirt. Another shopper in the store sees him putting a different deodorant into a pack of toiletries and scolds him, “You can’t do that!” He seems unbothered and continues on. I laugh incredulously. He picks out a $50 VISA gift card instead. I buy it for him. It was the pity that made me do it. 

We go into Starbucks. Ike sees the clear glass tip jar and observes loudly that we can easily just take the money out. The barista eyes him sharply, making sure her glare shows through her mask. He laughs and jumps around, he reaches for the tip jar but the barista and I both tell him to stop. He stops. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, but I was in too deep. 

We go into Kappy’s Fine Wine and Spirits to buy cigarettes. We got a few nips to go with the Marb Reds. 

He told me about a friend that died and we poured out some of our drinks. 

“Bless you, ma’am.”

I frowned. I was beginning to dislike being called ma’am and I tell him so. He seems unbothered and keeps calling me ma’am. I keep calling him homeless.

By this point I was more curious about the homeless experience than ever, and I wanted to get something meaningful out of this unlikely excursion, especially since it was turning out to be rather expensive for me. In my mind at the time, it was like I had rented a homeless perspective. I had to make use of it. I paid for it. A perfect opportunity to have a brand new, exhilarating, meaningful experience. Oh, the privilege that must have saturated my voice when I asked, “So, tell me, what’s it like to be homeless?” I sucked on a cigarette and stared at his near psychotic, rugged features, as if he was a piece of modern art on an expensive museum wall. What’s the price tag I wonder… how exactly is this art, and yet… how morosely sentimental…

He seemed bothered by my question, or maybe by my attitude. 

“With the sun, the sky…” he began to say. 

We sat down in the Kappy’s parking lot underneath a shaded tree and brown grass. Cars whizzed by the busy street. The air was soft and summery.

“You wanna know what it’s like to be homeless?” he grinned sort of devilishly, “Then smoke this.”

He removed from his pocket the bottom of an old cigarette plastic wrapping with green stuff inside. 

“It’s weed,” he said, pouring it onto his hand to show me.

I looked closer at the fluorescent green pieces, “Uh… that’s not weed… that’s a bad drug…”

“That’s what my mother used to say! She thought that weed is crack and it is evil.”

“No but I mean that’s seriously not weed, dude. It’s fake, it’s some sort of synthetic shit.”

“You’re lying, you don’t know what you’re talking about, just try it.”

“No way,” I crinkled my nose and turned it up and away from him.  

“Try it.”

“No.”

“Suit yourself.”

He sprinkled the stuff into an half-emptied-out cigarette and smoked it. I watched his motions carefully for any signs of psychosis. He remained the same. 

It was time to go home. I told him so and he said, “bless you ma’am.” I told him not to call me that, please. I told him to take care. As I walked away from Kappy’s and out from his peculiar spell, I thought that maybe he had taken advantage of my pity. 

And then, suddenly… finally…I began to feel something stir…a feeling other than pity. 

I felt mad, very mad at this ridiculous Bosnian rap star. How could a person act this way, how absurd, how obnoxious, how totally selfish. How could he live by caring so little? 

And then… I breathed, shook my head and smiled. What a strange person. What a beautiful day.