One day Amy was riding her bicycle along Madison Avenue. It was a winter day, and she was eager to get to her office. Her grey wool gloves had little flecks of ice on them. Her nose was delicate; frozen meat, breakable. Breathing was palpable-each breath dissolving in her body, each part of her body fighting for it.
Suddenly she braked hard, staring at the sidewalk. She peered at the shop with the heaps of chocolate bon-bons in the window. She'd been in there once on a whim. She remembered the depth of flavor, how she'd decided it was worth it, once in a while, to spend around two dollars on one bite of chocolate truffle.
A black guy was standing in front of the chocolate store with no shoes on. Beggars weren't ubiquitous yet. Even now, they're scarcer on Mad Ave then elsewhere. Good aesthetic sensibilities, no doubt, keep them from wanting to do more than subtly underscore the contrast they pose.
This guy was just standing there, sprigs of hair zooming out of his head. His face was round. Young. Unsmiling but not fierce, or even pensive. Bland, really. Displaced, he looked. Surprised.
Amy hauled the bike up the curb and spoke to him. Her voice came out a little caustic; cautious lest she seem patronizing or sentimental. Also lest she promise too much.
The man, or boy, looked at her with a pleased smile. His brow furrowed slightly. In response to her question he said somebody had taken his shoes and that he was hungry. Talking before she thought, or certainly before she thought twice, Amy told the guy to meet her at 77th and Third, about five blocks away from where they stood, in half an hour. The reason? Her money was at her office, and she didn't want to tow the guy along. She didn't want him to know where she worked. And.....really......she wanted to test him. No fool she. Meaning what? Something in her demanded that in some way Tyrone must prove himself. Must earn her attention. She wasn't a sucker. America was the land of opportunity. And if Tyrone showed up, he was good. If not, he was lazy, beyond society's reach.
She waited on the corner. Finally, he came. He looked more ragged; dirtier, walking unevenly, picking his feet up and from the cold pavement. A wave of bad smelling flesh hit Amy as he got to her. Sometimes bad smells are accentuated in the cold. Little pockets of poisoned air.
Amy told him proudly that they were going to go to a store and find him a pair of shoes. No mere cash dispenser, she. No, she was going to give of her time, of her attention, of her humanity, her 'love' of her brother. Christian love. Human love. Natural love. Like a longed for partner at a dance, the opportunity to give had clawed her on the shoulder in the form of this cute ragamuffin, griffin of the underworld, gollywog of pain.
They went into the thrift shop on 77th. Owned by some Church. Old people worked there. They stared rudely at Amy and Tyrone. Amy felt herself assert an aura of normalcy. She demanded of the people in the shop that they regard Tyrone and herself as they would any other generic shoppers, so she busied herself (against all odds) providing appropriate stimuli. Chit chat. Pointing out little objets. She realized quickly that she was paying a price for her effort. Directed self-conscious behavior is always exacting. In fact, you pay for it in brain-blood. The people stared. Half formed snickers leaked out of their prissy thin mouths. Amy's anger and pride came through her pores. Poor Tyrone seemed to see it all as just another environment. At moments there was an expression of awe and surprise, of wonder, on his face. Imagine how he would look if she took him to F.A.O. Schwarz. Or, the Pierre. Ah!
They found a pair of shoes, rather nice, very good condition. But no socks. Next stop. Woolworth's. Then Pizza. Meanwhile, the various motives that might stand behind the generous activity in which Amy was engaged took turns like grandstanding politicians in her head, each convincing her they were the real thing. Each waved a smoke-stained green eyeshade between Amy and Tyrone. Tyrone told her about how his sister was killed in Baltimore by drug dealers, how his mother was a lush and lived with some guy who didn't want to know about him. Tyrone was nineteen. He'd come to New York with a shoeshine kit which had been stolen with his shoes. From our nation's capitol to our nation's metropolis. Amy wanted all the details. ‘How was that shoeshine kit stolen? Had he really ever had a shoeshine kit? How much did they go for? Yeah, sure, Tyrone. Yeah, you just some hustler, some lazy nigger boy, out to make it in the big city. Well, ain't no free lunch here, buster. I work hard. Did I mention it? Did I mention how my days fall into each other, stumbling over the inanimate sculpture which approximates my body as it might be at ninety, which I kick down the street in front of me like an old tin can? Did I tell you that each new day eats two days of the past? That my memories of childhood, those sweet days when each flower, if not each blade of grass was a microcosm of eternity, are being chopped for ten dollars an hour so that I can find the key to an elusive, complex present? Did I shove that down your throat, Tyrone? Here, have some more pizza. How about a coke?‘ Ah! Is Amy jealous of Tyrone's freedom, of his honest misery, his solemn past? A kind of hatred of him grows as she suffers from the echo of her own voice, the patronizing tone which is, she tells herself hopelessly, just an a priori symptom of the difference in their roles, in their positions, in this unfortunate class society...she can't convince herself. Her guilt makes her hate him.
As she watches Tyrone pick up the last shreds of pizza, she finds a little door open in her brain. She's always known it was there, but she was too big to fit through. In the world on the other side of that door, Amy finds herself happily uncaring. She sees Tyrone, and he's not important to her, and his suffering provokes no action. Not even any feeling. In that world, Amy comes first, and coming first takes all her energy. Just as she is enjoying the cool, ordered, really peaceful air there, she glances up at the dirty black boy across the table from her. Revulsion struggles with concern, concern makes her squirm. Interest takes over. Curiosity becomes the motivator she can hold in her consciousness. She starts to assemble facts about the boy. She wants more. He owes her. Pizza and shoes. And socks!
She can ask for his soul, or at least his description of it.
Tyrone becomes more and more sentimental. He wants her phone number. He wants to get a new shoeshine box and then pay her back and take her out for dinner.
If Amy could accept herself as a member of a functioning bourgeoisie couldn't she just accept that she was raised to look after herself and do her share of good for unfortunate others? What gives her the heightened sense of the individual that she wants to carry on her shoulders? She wants to emphasize the significance of and quality of the specific bridge between any two humans, the exchange of judgment involved, the respect based on their recognition of each other as human, and the specific respect and criticism based on the respective character of each.
In the great society, or the large society, such issues might or might not exist. They may have been articulated by those who shaped our democracy, but were they assumed as corollaries of behavior by the people?
Not universally. Not even mostly. What seemed to Amy to be her energetic critical reaction to her world was really a very conservative viewpoint, classic post enlightenment intellectual values, which she wanted to reintegrate into charity, so as to remove the oily unctuous film in which she felt covered, by which she felt slimed, by virtue of a single, simple virtuous act.
She never saw Tyrone again. He did call her once, but as he had no stable place he was inaccessible, and that was the end of their interaction.
A few months later she heard that a young man named Tyrone had been killed in a scuffle in a shelter. It could have been her Tyrone, and if it wasn't it was some other sorry sucker.