rejection.

He approached my car with Jesus tucked under his armpit, skinnier than usual and covered in lacquer. With his other hand he waved about the other Jesus, equally skinny and shiny, outside my window. I waved my hand submissively and he proceeded to the next car in the traffic line. Amongst the billow and hum of steady fumes, in the few minutes before red turns to green, other sellers swarmed around to promote their ware. They specialize. One type of ware for every seller. Mini helicopters which could actually elevate for a few minutes before dropping dangerously close to my windshield. Crispy snacks which are allegedly fried in hot sand and allegedly non-cholesterol. Giant, footlong pencils which you could flexibly twist. Skeleton keyrings and hairy gorilla masks sold 5 months in advance of Halloween. A dazzling array of World Cup fever memorabilia. Playboy magazines, and Jesus.
And then of course, there are the others. The ware-less, beggars. Tiny barefooted children, their tiny baby siblings slung on their backs. Old women leading their blind old husbands through the maze of cars. Skinny muscular men strumming their broken guitars, or just clapping. I cannot feel sympathy for these men. The people in the cars usually have preferences. They, too, specialize. Some prefer the kids because they should be in school. Some give to the muscled men because they are annoyingly persistent. I prefer those who obviously cannot be productive. But it’s so easy to be apathetic, simply because one gets used to it. Even sympathy is a different thing from philanthrophy, the former not necessarily leading to the latter.
And so it was today that a blind man approached my car, befitting into my ideas of obvious unproductive-ness. But not this man. This man was selling bottled water, chilled despite the blaring heat. He’d press his hand on the window to feel whether it opened for him or not.
As it was, mine did. Howmuch?, I asked him and he told me the price would be 2000. I gave him 3000. Before he handed me the bottle he took the notes and felt them slowly around the edges, one, two, and three. He gave one back to me and said, “this is too much”. No its okay, I said, take them all. He shook his head and handed me the bottle with the 1000 note.
And he walked away to the next car, hands outstretched.