Trying to Do What’s Right and Failing

This morning on my way to work I went to my favorite coffee joint, Common Ground, which is three blocks from my home. As I pulled into the parking area behind the place, I saw an unkempt black man with a cigarette hanging unlit from his mouth. He was not moving in any particular direction. He seemed to be waiting, waiting for me, as it turns out, because I was apparently the first person to pull in and talk to him.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” I said.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Yes?”

“Could you help me out with a couple quarters to buy a cup of coffee?” and he held out his hand to display about sixty cents.

“Sure,” I said. “Come on in, and I’ll buy you a cup.”

We went in, and the barista gave him sidelong glances while I ordered for both of us. “I’ll take the African Roast.”

I leaned to him and asked what flavor he wanted, and he said he wanted a cappuccino. That’s when things went sour. I ordered the cappuccino for him, thinking here we go again, another bum taking me for a ride. A few months ago, I drove a man to a gas station, where supposedly the clerk would give him a good deal on cold cuts for him and his family who recently moved from Chicago. The man was still looking for work, he said. Somehow he talked me out of $30, and as I let him off at the gas station, I just knew he wasn’t there to buy food. I don’t know what he was there for, but the place had the aura of secrets and adrenaline.

So when this guy, the guy at Common Ground, asked for a cappuccino, and I ordered it for him, I began kicking myself. I felt like a neon sign started blinking over my head: “Sucker!” Then he asked if the barista would add some sugar, which led to our showing him where the sugar pourer was (it was in plain sight) and him fiddling with it (he did not know how to pour sugar!). And during this segment of the episode I realized this guy was either drunk, though he did not smell of alcohol, or just not all there, probably because he'd damaged his brain beyond repair with one chemical or another.

He told me he had a long way to go to get to work and motioned in the opposite direction of where I work, a point not lost on me, and I told him I’m sorry I couldn’t help. I was angry.

I paid for my coffee and his cappuccino and got out of there. As I was leaving, he was asking the barista if he could spare a book of matches, which is fine if you’re in a bar, but a coffee shop?

I drove away wondering how I could have done things differently because the whole experience was uncomfortable, embarrassing, offensive, and annoying. I wondered what possibly could have happened in this man’s life to make him so mentally vacant. Should I have refused to buy him a cappuccino and told him to pick a coffee blend instead? Should I have driven him to work?

The main thing that bugs me about this experience, and the many others I have had like it, is that I start out trying to do the right thing—the Jesus thing—and I walk away feeling like a schmuck, like I’ve been had, and like all my efforts to love the person are just a facade.

One thing I will do in the future is introduce myself and, if it's not offered, ask what the person's name is. My hope is that this will encourage both of us to treat each other as humans. This morning I was not treated as a human, but neither did I treat that man as a human. Common ground.