A Big Issue
Often I am confronted with the voracious truth of my arseholery. Usually, I just say good day to it, tip my hat and carry on with my business, as I’m so accustomed to its presence. But every now and again, it tries to impress me – tries to suck its own proverbial dick, if you will. Just such an occasion took place on a street corner, with a Big Issue vendor.
The day it all happened I was in a hurry to meet a friend for coffee. This ‘meeting up for a coffee’ business has, sadly, been absorbed into contemporary society. What was, until the nineteen nineties, reserved for pretentious performing arts school students and upper-middle-class mothers with giant prams, is now, like a Sexpo Exhibition,‘opened up to the public’. It’s also a wonderful way to tell your friends that you can’t afford to shout them lunch, but to say ‘Let me show you my lactose and caffeine intolerance’ by ordering a soy decaf mocha latte. Ah, the nineties were good to us all: Thai food, Kieren Perkins and banal, over-used, observations about ordering coffees. But I digress...
As I was walking, still ten minutes from my destination but texting that I was ‘only five away,’ I spotted a man in a wheelchair, and sporting a Big Issue cap and regulation fluorescent vest. I felt saddened. This was mostly because I was really in no financial state to buy a latte and a Big Issue but partially because I’ve always harboured a mild resentment towards those in wheelchairs. This is because my mother, friends and respective partners have all at different times refused to push me around in the complimentary wheelchairs they offer in multi-levelled shopping centres. What? I get tired. They have their own, anyway.
I was torn. The Grinch in me wanted to hold on to my sweet five dollars and then blow it on an over-priced danish, but the voice of my spiritual fitness urged me to turn back and buy that man’s magazine. So, as I looked disappointedly upon the few coins in my purse with the crab on the front (I’m not grown up enough to own a wallet), I stopped, petulantly gritted my teeth and turned around, determined to cheer this vendor’s day.
Yes, that’s how I see myself: a harbinger of joy. When you no longer live with your parents (in your face, 2008) and you don’t have a partner to speak of (in your face, happy couples reading this ... out loud to each other... in their warm embrace...well, that backfired) it’s very easy to maintain an incredibly strong, if not deluded, sense of self. See, when you are surrounded by loved ones, they may gently point out that buying a magazine that supports the homeless isn’t considered a great act of philanthropy; it’s just something you should do when you don’t pay rent. And, no, donating $150 to a sponsor child called JB Hi-Fi doesn’t count.
So, as I walked over to Big Issue Brendan (reading a name badge: there’s that Wyong TAFE education paying for itself) I registered a cardboard sign on the desk of his wheelchair. Is ‘desk’ the correct terminology? Without trying to sound insensitive, it was his place of work. Anyway, the sign read something to this effect:
‘Hi, my name is Brendan. If you’d like a copy of The Big Issue, please leave the money in the yellow pocket in the front zipper.’
Now, I have trouble following simple instructions at the best of times:
INSTRUCTION: Keep hair dryer away from water. It may lead to electrical shock.
MY THOUGHT PROCESS: (mumbling slowly and cautiously to myself) Keep hair dryer away from water? But my hair’s full of water. It’s wet. That’s why I need a hair dryer! Oh, what do I do now? Looks like it’s back to the iron.
You get the picture. But here I was, being given not only instructions but an awkward predicament. As I retrieved a hidden $10 note from my crustacean monetarium, I came to a sobering realisation. The vendor was so physically handicapped that he was unable to exchange money. And then the aforementioned arseholery kicked in...
If he had to write a sign, maybe he can’t talk.
(Momentary pause) And then let the insanity begin!!!!!
Okay, Big Issues cost $5 but he can’t move his hands (pause) and I need change for the $10 note. (Pause) I’m not leaving a $5 tip. (Indignant) And if I do, I want two copies. Yeah. But I don’t need two Big Issues, they’re the same magazine! Can I just take the $5 change out of the bum bag? Oh, but then the people will think I’m stealing. ‘Look at that monstrous woman stealing from a homeless quadriplegic. He’s probably trying to pay off some astronomical rehabilitation fee, a REAL Aussie battler looking for a fair go and this is how he’s repaid!’
For all this time I am standing, tormented, in front of him, waving a $10 note almost tauntingly in his face while I deliberate in silence, bar a few counterintuitive grunts, about $5 in change. By this stage he was looking at me as if I might be eligible to get a job selling The Big Issue myself.
I decided that my pride was far bigger than my want for the magazine, so I took the plunge and asked if he had change for a tenner. There was a pause. A long pause. Far out, can you talk or not? The suspense is killing me!
‘Yes.’
Had he read my mind or was he answering my question? Act casual. Don’t ruin it now.
‘Oh, great; shall I just take the change from $10 out of the bum bag?’ I said, a little louder than necessary to illustrate that I was, in fact, NOT a thief and that this exchange was consensual.
‘Yep.’
Then, to highlight how much time I waste on internal debate, I found I had the exact change just sitting there, waiting for me. Well, at least I was home free.
‘There’s the five dollars.’ Still with a touch of unneeded volume and zeal. Now, I’ll just get ... my ... copy ... of ......where do I get the magazine? Was he sold out? After all that? There was one under his chin. But is that a display copy? Do I need to look in his backpack? Oh, I don’t need this. I hate myself quite enough already. I took the initiative and said, with all the undermined confidence of a teenager pretending not to masturbate:
‘Well, I’ll – just-grab-that-then. Thank you.’
And I walked off with the magazine from underneath his chin. It was over. I was relieved. He had his money; I had performed an esteemable act that I could be self-congratulatory about and I had a fresh copy of The Big Issue Christmas Edition.
As I stopped in the bustling city, I tried to soak up the meaning of Christmas: gratitude for what I have been given in this life, the fortunes I’m granted and take for granted every day. And then I looked down at my Big Issue, only to realise that the top third of this particular display copy had been wedged below that man’s chin for so long that it was now drenched in his dribble.
The final test: of my patience, of my humility in the face of middle-classery, of my ability to tolerate another human’s saliva because it was the right thing. I didn’t know what to do, because I really wanted to take the copy back and swap it. But I persisted with it, and met up with my friend.
‘Hey, sorry I’m late. There was a ... thing.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
(And here I confess to you; I am not proud of my devious mind.)
‘I got you a Chrissie present.’
‘Really? You didn’t have to.’
‘I know, but I thought that, rather than giving out big pressies to a few people, I’d give more little presents to all of my friends. Everyone’s getting copies of The Big Issue for Christmas and here’s yours. Perspective, you know?’
Felicity Ward is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian, who appeared on ‘The Ronnie Johns Half Hour’ and in the most recent series of ‘Thank God You're Here’.
Back
