Maybe Therein Lies The Mitzvah

A lot of people think I’m mean.

I let them, but they’re wrong. I’m not mean, I just don’t pretend to be nice the way a lot of people do because they saw a hashtag on social media that told them to be kind or a meme that told them to have compassion for people less fortunate than they are. Like they couldn’t come to those conclusions through reflection or via someone else’s example. Like it never occurred to them until they saw it on the internet.

Like the women in the Sugarbaker family (if you know, you know), I have never aspired to being nice. Or whatever passes for nice these days, which is about as nice as I am mean. I left a synagogue because of this new culture where people put on elaborate performances so others will see them doing The Right Thing™ at the right time: marching on MLK Day and waving a Black Lives Matter banner, walking in the AIDS Walk, marching for transgender rights in the Pride parade. These are good photo ops, too. They look great on Insta and Facebook, and they garner lots of likes and retweets, especially if you use the right hashtags. If you’re lucky, maybe a celebrity will like or retweet you. Then you’ll know you’re doing the right thing.

But are you really doing anything? Like actual action, other than walking or marching or waving a banner? Are you employing black people? Are you taking meals to housebound people with AIDS? Walking their dogs for them? Changing their litter boxes when they’re unable to? Are you standing up to your asshole father or grandmother who calls Caitlyn Jenner “It” or a “Shim?”

It’s easy to advocate for people who are just a concept. Black Lives Matter, right, so that encompasses all black people across the globe. But what about that black guy outside the bus station asking for any spare change you have? Do you slip him a five? Or do you lie and tell him you have no cash, no change, because you’ve been programmed to say that, since he will, more than likely, use it to buy drugs or beer? What about the transgender kid who applied to be a barista? Did you hire them? They need to pay rent and buy food, too, you know.

There was a thing that happened when I was a kid where I should have done one thing, but I chose to do nothing. And I know why I chose to do nothing, but that doesn’t mean I made the right decision, and I have never let myself off the hook for not doing what I should have. I’m being purposely vague here because I am not ready just yet to process what happened and my role in it in a public way. Maybe soon. Maybe never.

Anyway, the reason I do things for people when I’m able now is because I didn’t do what I should have then. I know it won’t make up for what I didn’t do when I was eleven, but it helps me feel better about myself now. Like, if I help people who need help, I won’t feel so bad about that other thing. Sometimes it helps. Mostly it doesn’t.

In Judaism, we have this thing called tzedakah, which, if you ask, most people will tell you means “charity,” and it does involve charity, but the true meaning of tzedakah is “righteousness.” So, giving to a charitable organization is certainly the right thing to do, but so is buying the guy standing outside McDonald’s, begging for money or food, something to eat. It doesn’t have to be tax deductible. Just do it. If someone asks you for something and its clear they need it, if you have it and can spare it, just give it to them and leave the IRS and H&R Block out of it.

I’ve paid rent and other bills for my employees when they needed it. I’ve put gas in their cars. I’ve taken them shopping for groceries. And before you say I should pay them more and I wouldn’t have to, a. fuck you, and b. their financial situations were dire because of back child support and court costs and attorney’s fees. I’m sure if all they had to worry about were rent, bills, and gas, they’d be golden. And I know—because I’ve heard it—that other people believe people who owe back child support made their bed and can now lie in it. If you’re one of those people, I have news for you: you’re a lot meaner than I am.

But back to righteous behavior. It doesn’t just mean going to temple (or church) every time the doors are open and quoting the scriptures in memes on Facebook and Twitter. Actual righteous behavior involves doing, and so I try to do. But also, to be clear, you shouldn’t do things just so you can boast about them or take photos of yourself doing them so you can post them to social media with the PayingItForward hashtag. Just do what you can when you can.

So, I guess people think I’m mean because I don’t show them that I’m not. They also misinterpret honesty and directness with meanness, too, because so many people talk around what they really want to say and hope people just infer their true meaning. But that’s a post for another time.

Last week, I was at Dragon Con, one of the largest pop culture conventions in the country. It’s certainly the largest in the southeast. Five official days of basically anything you can think of that has fans, crammed into five hotels and one wholesale exhibition complex in downtown Atlanta, but if you’re in the know, you get down early. I went down Wednesday night, reconnected with people I hadn’t seen since last year, and for the first time, got to do the countdown at midnight to official Dragon Con, which began Thursday. Then I got on the train north to come home.

As I was leaving the Brookhaven train station, a man sitting on the ground asked if I had any spare change. He’d asked the couple walking out ahead of me, and they’d told him no, they didn’t. He was dressed in a sweater that was too big for him, and sweatpants that were too big for him, and I saw a wristband that told me he’d just left a facility somewhere. When he asked if I had any money, I told him to wait and I’d be right back. (I never carry cash. I probably should.)

There was a bank across the street, so I drove there and got forty dollars out of the ATM and drove back thinking I’d give him the money and that would be it. Mind you, I am dressed as Corporal Klinger from the television series M*A*S*H: a skirt, saddle shoes, an Army helmet, and pearl teardrop earrings. Of course this is how I’d be dressed. And when I got out of the car, his first words to me were “You have a blanket?” It was ninety degrees and he wanted a blanket. He was cold.

I told him I didn’t have a blanket, but there was a Waffle House next to the train station, and I could take him there and get him some coffee and something to eat. I figured hot food might help. So, we went there. I asked the waitress to clear us a booth away from everyone else, in case anyone had a problem with a guy in a dress buying a late-night dinner for a homeless man. She set us up in a corner and we sat. I told him to order anything he wanted. He ordered coffee and an egg breakfast plate with grits. He told me he liked my earrings. I laughed and thanked him. His name was John.

John’s story was one I’ve heard a lot in my adult life: he’d moved to Atlanta ten years ago from Alabama and he’d waited tables at a place in Midtown. I knew the chef there. John had started doing heroin. He’d contracted HIV. He’d just left Emory, he told me. I asked if he’d walked all the way from Emory and he said he had. I got choked up and had to will myself not to cry in front of this man I was supposed to help. So we sat there a few minutes in silence. He was ten years younger than me, but he looked ten years older. He’d been on the streets for years, he told me.

“Is there someone I can call?” I asked him. “Someone back in Alabama?”

“No. They’re all broke, too.”

His hands shook as he drank the coffee. He tried to chew the food, but his teeth were in such bad shape it hurt and he spat it out. I did a search for the nearest hospital and told him I’d take him there. He agreed to go. I paid and we left. In the car, I turned the heat on for him. He didn’t say much and neither did I. He told me again that he liked my earrings. “Thanks.”

Any gay man alive today, over the age of eighteen, could easily be John. Parents throw their kids out when they learn they’re gay and unless that kid is in or near a major urban or suburban area, there aren’t a lot of resources to help with a job and housing. And even if they can get to a city where there are resources, most organizations can only do so much and many of them won't do anything for adults. So, they end up back on the streets, and on the streets, you can steal or you can sell yourself, and that’s what most of them end up doing. Unless, in the rarest of cases, the parents have a major change of heart and come to rescue their child. I imagine young women have it just as hard, and I know for a fact that transgender and nonbinary people have it hard.

At Piedmont Hospital, I apologized profusely to the lady at the front desk for the way I was dressed, so I explained the situation and she said “Honey, bless your heart, but options are limited. They’ll either admit him or they won’t.”

But when I handed John the clipboard with the paperwork on it, he shook his head. “I can’t stay here.”

“Where do you want to go, then?” I was hoping he would give me the name of a facility or some person’s house. It was almost two in the morning at this point, but I didn’t mind waking someone up.

“There’s a Shell station up the street. I can get money there.”

So, I took him to the Shell station and let him out.

I’ve thought about him a lot since then. I hope he’s okay. I wonder what else I could have done. Like, would having a blanket in the car have made a difference? Would giving him a blanket comfort him enough to stay at the hospital? Would it have let him trust me enough to give me the name and number of a family member from Alabama, someone I could have called to come and get him? I wonder.

And I’ve thought a lot about righteousness, and did I do enough? Would anything I might have done been enough? Because he’s still on the streets and that means he’s probably not taking the medication he needs for his HIV. And he’ll probably continue to use heroin. And, yeah, he’ll probably end up dead. I know none of those things are my fault, but I do feel I might have done more. I don’t know what, mind you. Just a vague, general more.

There’s a book in Judaism called Pirkei Avot—that translates literally to “Chapters of the Fathers” but which most people will tell you is “Ethics of the Fathers”—and it’s kind of a guidebook on how to do the work, to do tzedakah. There are lots of writings in Judaism that tell you best how to go about being a good person, actually. That’s how important righteousness is in Judaism. In Pirkei Avot there is a quote that has rung through my brain since last Wednesday and it’s this:

“You are not required to finish the work, yet neither are you allowed to desist from it.”

So, yes, I know I am not required or expected to cure John of his heroin addiction or his HIV, and I know that I’m not supposed to fix all his problems and repair his relationships with his family members. Like, I know that. I do. But holy fucking hell, it sucked pulling into that Shell station and just letting him out and watching him walk away and knowing that what I’d done hadn’t actually done anything. Hell, he hadn’t even eaten the food I bought.

But maybe trying is all I’m supposed to do. I certainly didn’t solve all the problems of my former employees when I paid their rent or bought their groceries, and I didn’t feel the regret I feel about John. I did what I could when I could, and I just have to accept that it wasn’t enough. Maybe trying to do something is all that’s required. Maybe therein lies the mitzvah. I sure hope so.