Fire Post

[garran]

Waiting for the bus on the way home from rehearsal today, I met a man who said that his apartment building was in the process of burning down, and gave him twenty dollars to get into a hostel for the night. (It's possible that it was a con*, but I'm comfortable about the degree to which I was convinced. He was clearly very shaken - he kept crying, just a little - but proud, and struggling to stay together.) He made arrangements to come to Langara and pay me back tomorrow - apparently he is one of those who is very uncomfortable about accepting charity, and hates to feel that something is owed. I might call this 'conscientious capitalism', and it's a little like vegetarianism, in that I don't share it, but I respect the idiosyncracies of those who do.

I feel like I ought to have more paragraphs, but nothing else that happened to me today was so striking as that was.

(*: A confidence game, not a convention.)

Comments

[vorkon.livejournal.com]

Well, even if it was a con, you'd willingly pay an actor to see him perform so well, right?

[cola]

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, but maybe not twenty dollars! In fact, it probably was a con; most people would have a friend somewhere that could help them out. His offer to pay you back tomorrow makes this even more likely. But I would only bet a small amount.

Twenty dollars is not so much, though.

I've been noticing fires in this city; the day before yesterday I saw a note that said, "Sorry! We weren't open today because of the fire in the market next door."

Re: [cola]

[garran.livejournal.com]

I wondered, later, too, why he didn't have his own bank card. He said that he had come home from work to find the flaming pandemonium; doesn't he take his wallet to work?

And he didn't show up today. I still don't feel like it was definitely a con, although it does seem quite likely - he was very convincing.

His offer to pay you back tomorrow makes this even more likely.

Really? It seems a little extraneous, if it isn't genuine - I made it pretty clear that I wasn't expecting to be repayed. His taking such pains to learn how to contact me at Langara is odd to me.


-Garran

[garran.livejournal.com]

I used to justify myself to myself that way some times, but I've grown less satisfied with it. I gave him the money because I decided that I trusted him; I pretty consciously wasn't going, "Even if you're not for real, your performance has earned it," because, in fact, I wouldn't want to reward that. I don't want to foster, any more than I can help it, an environment in which it's particularly useful to be dishonest (but I do want to foster one in which mutual charity is the norm). At any rate, even if I was mistaken, I don't regret the choice I made.


-Garran