Copyright © 1997 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.
By Dan Kennedy
Looking back, I can't tell you the exact moment when I went from wondering if I was getting hustled to being convinced of it.
Maybe it was when the youngish black man slyly, almost surreptitiously, boosted his claim on me from $20 to $40. Maybe it was a few minutes later when, seeing what an easy mark he'd found, he boldly upped his price to $60.
What I do know is that I came away feeling embarrassed, stupid, and a little bit frightened, not to mention poorer. I wondered why I'd been so unprepared to fend off trouble. And I realized that I was so intent on proving I wasn't a racist -- to myself more than to him -- that I'd allowed myself to be set up like some rustic who'd just taken his first bus ride to the city. Thus proving, in some convoluted way, that I really was a racist.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It was late in the afternoon. A warm, sunny day. I'd just gotten off at the Fenway T stop, after an interview at City Hall, and was walking back to work when Mike Ryan (that's what he told me his name was; I'm sure it wasn't, but I don't know what else to call him) walked up to me, extended his right hand in greeting, and told me a sorrowful tale. It seemed that his car had been towed, and he'd been approaching people for a good part of the afternoon, trying to get someone to lend him $20 so he could retrieve it and drive home. He impressed this upon me with such force of personality that it was hard not to be drawn in.
I told him I'd help. Or, at least, I looked at him sympathetically and didn't say no. I'm not sure which anymore.
"Oh, thank you," he replied. "You're the first person who'd even talk to me. Nobody around here wants anything to do with me. They just see this big, scary-looking black guy."
At this point, I realized that a crucial threshold had been crossed. I had been designated as Mike Ryan's savior. And my choices had come down to two: I could either get him the $20 he needed, which I'd probably never see again, or I could stage a humiliating retreat that would no doubt result in his calling me a racist, and in my believing it. My fate was now joined with that of this stranger; and, wanting to think the best of both him and myself, I set out with him toward the nearest ATM.
Now, I'd like to think I'm not completely naive about racism, but it immediately struck me as unlikely that white people had been fleeing my new acquaintance's presence. Not a reasonably well-dressed, well-groomed black man in that part of town, I thought. Maybe people had refused to fork over any money, but racism? No. Hell, by this point I was wishing I hadn't come to his rescue either, especially since the $20 he needed had suddenly, somehow, become $40. (I told myself that perhaps I hadn't heard him correctly the first time.)
We walked up Brookline Avenue toward Fenway Park. The Blue Jays were in town, and the early arrivers were already wandering about. Mike was getting cocky. He had me, and he was flaunting it. Told me he was from Worcester. That he worked in a butcher shop in South Boston, and that not only would he pay me back, he'd drive by the next day with some fresh meat. That all his friends were white. "It's not that I'm prejudiced against black people," he said. He was making fun of me now, maintaining his serious tone, but becoming more outrageous with each thought that popped into his head.
"Oh, shit," he added, just before we arrived at the ATM. "I might have gotten booted, too. That's another $20. You better give me $60, just in case. I'll make it up to you. I swear. Honest to God."
I momentarily considered telling him that $40 was my limit. Our tacit understanding, though, required not that I fork over some fixed amount, but that I come up with whatever was necessary to bail him out of his mess. After all, he was going to pay me back. What was another $20? Pretending to believe him was becoming an expensive proposition.
When I entered the bank, Mike Ryan walked right in behind me. The thought occurred to me that he was going to find a way to separate me from my card, get my password, and take off. Yet he was as good at maintaining his faŤade as I was mine -- better, I suppose. He stood in the far corner, looking away, while I got the money. I handed him $60 and the business card he had asked for. He gave me his name and a beeper number, which I wrote down on a deposit slip. "Give me an hour," he said. "No, make that a couple hours." I realized, vaguely, that the inconsistencies were beginning to pile up: first, the car that might have been booted, even though it had already been towed; now, a suggestion that I should call him that evening, even though he'd already told me he'd come around to my office with the money (and meat!) the next day.
We were about to part, but not before he'd managed to talk me out of another $2 for the T. We shook hands, and that was the last time I saw, or heard from, Mike Ryan. I called the beeper number four days later, just to see. The line had been disconnected.
If you'd asked me in the immediate aftermath, I'd have told you I was conducting an experiment in social relations: that even though I knew it was unlikely I would be paid back, I wanted to see what would happen.
But that's not really how it was. And as I turned over the incident in my mind, I came to see that I was motivated not by a genuine sense of curiosity, or even a desire to help someone in distress. Rather, it was white liberal guilt, unmediated by the usual defenses because I hadn't had time to think. I'm usually able to ignore panhandlers, for instance, knowing they could go to a shelter if they really wanted to. (If this sounds callous, try walking through Kenmore Square several times a week without that attitude.) Mike Ryan, though, had instantaneously gone from nonexistent to in-my-face, and he was looking not for a quarter toward his next bottle of malt liquor, but for help in getting out of a middle-class dilemma I could relate to.
And his being black pushed precisely the right (that is, wrong) button concerning my need to feel good about myself. Because if he'd been white, I would have found a way not to get trapped, to slide out of the situation before it had a chance to gel. I wouldn't have seen myself as his savior. I certainly wouldn't have seen myself -- as I now realize I did that afternoon -- as some sort of ambassador for my race.
I remain $62 poorer, not to mention meatless -- and possessed of a diminished sense of dignity.
Next time, I'll just keep walking. I hope.