Getting Mugged in Downtown Chicago

Yes, I was a victim of a mugging. It happened last Saturday night in Chicago, right across from the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue. Barbie (my girlfriend) and I were walking back to my car, and I was carrying the leftovers from our dinner, when a man rushed at us from an alley and said, "Give me your money!"

Actually, no. I'm sorry. He said, "Gimme dat food!" The couple walking behind us quickly veered off and left us alone with our food-mugger (or food-jacker, if you prefer). He was clearly high, and possibly insane. I say that with no sentiment of superiority--only to inform the reader that he was, in fact, dangerous. A stoned homeless man with eyes that won't stop rotating erratically can't be expected to act rationally: Such a man needn't require a reason to stick a rusty letter opener between my ribs. And he was not only as high as the Sears Tower; he was also hungry.

But let me backtrack for a moment. After watching fireworks cascading over the Chicago River earlier that night, Barbie and I were walking to our restaurant when we met two other hungry homeless people. Lilly and her 7-year-old son Joshua were walking beside us when Lilly leaned over and said, "Will you buy us something to eat?" She was so direct, so desperate, I didn't know what to say.

"You want me to buy you some food," I nearly stammered.

"We're hongry," she said, in a voice that somehow sounded like she hadn't eaten in days.

To keep the story short, this is what we learned: Recently a fire broke out in Lilly and Joshua's apartment, and they lost everything. Lilly works with a temp service, but hasn't had work since Christmas. They were staying in a "sleep-only" shelter that wouldn't admit them until 9:00 PM, and they had been too late that night to receive food from a church that serves free dinners.

Barbie and I walked with Lilly and Joshua to Johnny Rocket's, the closest restaurant other than Starbuck's (which was out of the ready-made sandwiches Lilly first requested). We spent those four or five blocks getting to know them, learning that Joshua likes the Sox and basketball (but is not strong enough to get the ball to the rim yet), that their neighbor gave them winter coats to wear after the fire, and that Joshua tries to get his mom to obey the Walk/Don't Walk signals, screaming "Mom, Red!" when appropriate.

Just before entering Johnny Rocket's, Lilly asked if I would buy them another burger. For later, she said. This bothered me for some reason; it seemed ungrateful, perhaps. But then again, maybe she was being a good mother, thinking about her son's needs and her current inability to meet them. (I would give her $20 once inside, and it wasn't until the next day that I realized $20 would buy food for a week at a grocery store.) Before leaving, Barbie hugged Lilly and told her we would be praying for them. I shook Joshua's freezing hand and told him he should stick them under the hand dryer in the restroom. And as the two of them headed into their respective restrooms to wash their hands, Barbie and I left.

Barbie and I had a nice dinner (it had to have been fairly nice or there wouldn't have been leftovers. When I leave Long John Silvers, I usually don't need anything boxed up.), and were full when we left the restaurant. As we were walking, I told her that, after helping Lilly and Joshua, I felt even less inclined to help anyone else. And that was still my attitude when the food-mugger accosted us just minutes later.

This man, our mugger, looked awful. He told us he had pneumonia and had just gotten out of the hospital. He said he was starving. I asked him his name, and he told me it was Ugly. After pressing him for a real name, he said Ugly Toad. I told him I wanted to pray for him, and I asked if God would know who Ugly Toad was. He said yes, though he would have said yes to anything if he thought food would follow. He also said he had five children, and I encouraged him to take them to church on Sunday (I just wanted to turn this into a minnistry opportunity somehow, and I really wasn't sure what to say). He said he always does (and maybe he was telling the truth...maybe). Then I gave him my leftovers.

When I reached for the leftovers in my bag, Ugly Toad's eyes lit up like the fireworks Barbie and I had seen earlier that night. He, too, was extremely "hongry."

Shrimp Scampi. That's what he got. Half-eaten Shrimp Scampi over noodles. I wondered later if he ate it with his cold, dirty hands. Did he duck into the alley right there? How often had he eaten shrimp in his lifetime? Did he enjoy it? Would he have prefferred the Miso Glazed Mahi that had tempted me so?

But the main question I asked myself was "Did I do the right thing?" Did I help these people: Lilly, Joshua, Ugly Toad? Maybe I did, for one night, one meal. Maybe. But what about Sunday morning, afternoon, evening? The next day? Eternity? Will Lilly get her son to a free dinner in time, will she get a job soon? And an apartment? Will Ugly Toad confiscate the remnants of someone else's entree? Will he at least consider going to church? Taking his five kids?

I'll tell you what I should have done: Barbie and I should have eaten with Lilly and Joshua. When Jesus fed the "hongry," he and his disciples ate with them; He didn't duck out for a dinner party in the Upper Room. Maybe that's the solution. To relate to any of the needy people on the street, maybe I need only sit down with them. Show genuine concern, interest, a desire to help. What I provided, however, may have been seen only as an inability to say no.

And yet, since Saturday night, I've felt cheated somehow. I shouldn't, but I do. I can't help but suspect that I was wronged, tricked. It's stupid, I know; as if begging for an unnecessary meal might be a game a mother and her son play on Saturday nights. I think it was the encounter with Ugly Toad that bothered me most. Maybe because he demanded the food, told me I should give it to him. He even said, "Nobody has to see you give it to me." Like he thought that was my concern.

Maybe I feel like his demand robbed me of the chance to be altruistic, prevented me from being an urban Robin Hood taking care of the poor (though, I didn't experience the joy of stealing from any rich people). If this is true, if it's my pride making me feel wronged, then I'm not the only one. Lilly told us they had been asking everyone and no one would help them. Is it because after helping once (or twice) we feel like we've done enough? Is our pride making us feel victimized? Perhaps thinking "Why aren't other people helping? I've done my share."

Or is it because needs are so prevalent, and we've all said "no" so many times that it's become easy to ignore them, to walk right past Lilly, Josh, and even Ugly Toad? To just say, "Sorry" (without meaning it), and keep walking?

Maybe I'm struggling with this because I'm new here. People never asked me for food on the streets in rural Ohio. Maybe I'm just unpracticed when it comes to responding to the urban poor. In time, I'm sure I'll be used to them. Maybe I'll learn how to walk past them more efficiently, how to make a face that convincingly suggests "I'm sorry, I would help if I could," how to walk faster, speak sterner, clutch my leftovers tighter...and that's what I'm afraid of.

Even if I am somehow cheated out of a meal, I'll survive. It might even be good for me. I'm not sure those assurances are true for people like Lilly, little Joshua, and even Ugly Toad.

-Thanks for Reading.

Capitulating and Recanting

Okay, so I gave into the enormous pressure to join the blog movement. But before I write anything else, I need to begin by addressing something:

I may have offended some of you in the past by saying that blogging is self-serving, pretentious, self-righteous, a waste of time, an exercise in ostentatiousness, a glorified diary where people record their life's events hour by hour all the while assuming someone cares, an online grammatical and linguistic pandemic, and stupid.

Well, this is not an official recantation, because I think all of the above is still true; but, nonetheless, here I am:

www.tylercharles.blogspot.com

Feel free to hold all of that against me.

(A real post is forthcoming.)