Shelly is probably dead by now, but there's no way to know, no way to be sure.

She was just another person with a sign: Homeless vet w/AIDS, Please help, Whatever you can, God bless. Did she always have her sign? Was any of it true? Does it matter?

Feel free to call me a bleeding-heart liberal: I do occasionally give to these people, if I've got a dollar handy. "It doesn't really help them" - I know that. "They probably just spend it on drugs" - that may be true. "You're just making it worse by encouraging them" - yup.

For a while, there was different guy at the same spot, an off-ramp near downtown Los Angeles. I called him "Adam" because he reminded me of a TV character of that name: scruffy and abrasive. He'll never get anyone to give him money; he looked like he'd bite your hand if you were so foolish as to stick it out, no matter what was in it.

Shelly was a ray of sunshine in a city of sun and smog and even rain. When did I start giving her a handout? A year ago? Probably less; six months. A buck a time, and words of encouragement: "Hang in there." Don't give up, don't let them get you down, don't say you'll never make it, don't give up. All I said was "Hang in there," do you think she knew the rest?

But she wasn't just grateful for the handout, she was grateful for the contact (which was physically minimal), the chance to look someone in the face and say thank you. I was buying my own sense of self-worth, but I was feeding it back to her. No faceless charity, this was Shelly.

After I'd become a regular, she asked "Hey, what's your name?" and she remembered it. "I'm Shelly." I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it. That's a trick I learned from my father, although I think his book is full of names without faces, and I doubt he's got any panhandlers in there. It meant something to both of us, that we could call each other by name; isn't it funny how much of a difference that makes? Doesn't it show how shallow clerks and waiters are forced to be? You know their names, but they don't know yours.

I remember one day when I got to the off-ramp, and realized I didn't have a dollar. I was so embarassed, I zipped right by, trying to avoid looking at her and hoping she didn't notice me. The next day, I made sure to give her two, and apologized. Another time, traffic behind me forced me to go past her, but I still stopped. Even though I'd made her run, her smile let me know that it was okay.

For a while, maybe a couple weeks, she was gone. When she returned, I asked, and she said "I've been working," but I got the feeling that it wasn't what she wanted. My over-active imagination thought of too many ways she could've been "working," ways that she'd given up to go back to panhandling on a freeway off-ramp.

Winter was livable, but spring rains were hard. Did she stay out all day? Did she ever get dry? Did she sleep under a roof, or under cardboard, or under the sky? It was obviously too hard on her - sometimes, I almost woke her to give her her dollar. The last time I saw her, she said "I've been pretty tired."

Now that spot is empty. There are occasionally orange sellers, but no panhandlers. Do they think that spot is cursed? Have they not yet caught on that it's available? Or are they in mourning?

February 7, 1999

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shelly.html, Last modified 04 Sep 1999