Call him Ishmael. Call him tenacious

Afew weeks ago, I gave $25 to a guy who worked hard for it but didn’t deserve it. I don’t know his name. The name he introduced himself with is probably false, though he just may be brazen enough to have used his real name. In any case, I can’t remember it.

One evening, while waiting for AAA to arrive to give my dying Honda Civic battery a jump, this man — let’s call him Ishmael — spotted me sitting on the driver’s side with the door open.

I was parked across the street from the main entrance of East Liberty Presbyterian Church. Ishmael looked to be in his mid30s to early 40s, a bit disheveled but not necessarily homeless. He took off his knit cap as he approached. The street was well lit and people were leaving the cathedral after a mid-week evening meeting of some kind.

“Excuse me,” he said as he was greeted with an audible sigh on my part. He was just another point of aggravation until AAA arrived. He looked almost Chaplinesque in how obsequious he was as he fidgeted with his cap. “Not all of us are dangerous,” he said as he put his cap back on.

Rather than talk with the door open (I had no power to lower the window), I stepped out of the car.

Ishmael started with a claim that he was “sent by Almighty God, Himself” to help me start my car and that I didn’t need AAA with him around. “I used to be a mechanic,” he said. “I can fix anything. Pop your hood. I’ll tell you what your problem is.”

I told him it wouldn’t be necessary since AAA was on the way.

“Do you have jumper cables? Let me be God’s messenger and get you on your way,” he said. I told him I didn’t have jumper cables. He was appalled.

Ishmael’s plan was to wave down another car, hook my car to the stranger’s car engine using my cable, personally supervise the jump and thereby earn a hero’s reward. He was already standing in the street ready to do it. I told him I wasn’t interested in flagging down drivers, especially since AAA was on the way. He shook his head. He was disappointed.

I was losing patience, because he was so presumptuous. He noticed immediately he was losing sympathy points and adjusted his tactics. He started to cry. I was taken aback by the waterworks. It may have been undignified, but it was genius theatrics.

“Listen, I need your help,” he said as he reached in his pocket and pulled out several forms — one a bus-ticket flyer and the other some kind of court document or release form from either a substance-abuse facility or jail.

“I need $19.95 to get home. That’s how much a ticket [to a small Pennsylvania town] costs,” Ishmael said. “Look, see? I’ve just been released from [a facility] and this price circled here is how much it costs to get home to my family. I want to get home to see my baby girl again, — please, God, help me!”

At this point, Ishmael was no longer the overbearing street savior, but a vulnerable, penitent father who had made bad choices in life who was only a bus ticket away from the “happy ending” his family deserved. “Here,” he said dramatically. “Take my ring as collateral. It is the only thing of value I have on me. Please, this ain’t no game,” he said trying to loosen the ring from his finger.

I told him to keep his ring. I handed him $20 because even though his blubbering was aggravating, his entire schtick was a masterclass in interpretative street conning. He took the $20, but he wasn’t quite satisfied. “I’m hungry,” he said. “At least give me a few dollars so I can at least get something to eat while I’m waiting for the bus.”

“The audacity,” I muttered to myself. It cost me $25 to be finally done with him.

•

This week, on Monday night, I was sitting in the parking lot of a Shadyside plaza when a man wearing a knit cap approached my car. I rolled down the window. “It’s OK,” he said, “Not all of us are dangerous.” He then went through the same spiel he laid on me a few weeks before, including the documents and the $19.95 up-front pitch. I smiled through the routine, feigning sympathy.

When he closed in for a financial commitment, I told him I’d already given to the cause a few weeks before. He was flabbergasted that I had wasted his time. “Man, one day you’re going to need someone’s help and they’re gonna’ laugh at you, too.”

Ishmael stomped off into the night, indignant as hell. I shook my head and started my car. When I pulled out into traffic, I drove slowly down the street looking for the confirmation of all of my cynicism. I spotted him in front of a restaurant. He had buttonholed a couple who were shaking their heads sympathetically. He was crying and showing his papers. I had to admire his tenacity.