He has developed a way of stripping the money from my fingers in a quick, fluid motion.
Among the regular cast who support themselves by asking for money near our Skytrain station, there’s a 30-ish man with close-cropped hair. He radiates a sense of urgency about his need, and as I reach to drop money into his cup he moves his hands to meet mine. Before I can let go of the bill I’m offering, he pulls his cup away and strips the cash from me.
Even though I know it’s coming, it takes me aback each time.
I wonder about the anxiety underlying the action. He knows me. He knows the money is his, but he just can’t trust it.
I also wonder about my own response. In my mind the money is already his, and a few inches in its transfer make no difference. Is it that I don’t want to be touched by a stranger, one whose hygiene is poor, particularly on the margins of a pandemic? Is it that it feels presumptuous for him to grab the money away, that it somehow cheapens my generosity (or somehow strips of me of the privilege of claiming the generosity)? Is it something else I can’t yet identify? Maybe it’s all of the above.
He and I each bring some bit of brokenness to our encounters.