As written October 22, 2001, Washington DC 

I have a good job. I’m a waiter at a wonderful restaurant and my station is the patio – a flowery courtyard of 12 tables facing Washington DC’s DuPont Circle.

It was late on a Friday and customers didn’t want to leave. Delicious food drink, an early mid Atlantic autumn night and the streets were buzzing.

A table of three – 2 women and a man, obviously wealthy – out of the blue, “Waiter, please call 911.” What struck me was the way they’d asked, as if they wanted pepper ground or more cheese, with no urgency

“What’s wrong?” They pointed to a poor, homeless man 50 feet up the street.

“Is he hurt?” They shrugged.

“Is he sick?” The man at the table then spoke up, “He…he looks sick.”

I recently moved here from New York, where wealth is spread out over a much larger area. DC is small with extreme differences in income; classes are much more distinct but living closer together. The first-, second- and fourth-richest counties in the US, and six of the top 10, are suburbs of the nations capital after all.

So I walk over and see a man with his eyes closed lying on the sidewalk. I’m thinking, that table had no real information as to how this man was doing. They didn’t come over. They probably looked up from their desserts, noticed a homeless man and wanted him gone. Either racked with guilt or just disgusted, they called it an emergency.

Maybe I was being judgmental.

He was breathing. His eyes were closed. He didn’t reek of alcohol. He looked tired – and this was a bed.

“Hey Man, time to get up.”

“You hurt?” No movement.

“You sick?” Still nothing.

“Do you want me to call 911?” His eyes shot open…his head popped up. He looked sick now.

“Well, what can I do?” He moaned and put his head back down. We got him juice and water which he drank sitting up. Other than that, he seemed to just want to sleep. I thought for a second how exhausting not having a home must be.

Returning to the patio I said some kind of prayer wishing life didn’t have to be this way. The table interrupted to see if I called 911. “No.”

They stared at me like I was heartless. The two women looked at the man. He dug out his cell phone as they looked to see who was watching. As he dialed I went inside to think.

I’m a waiter, not a medic. The guy seemed, well, he seemed homeless. The problems associated with being homeless are infinite. Juice and healthy food are good. If they call 911 it’ll make his life worse. I did the right thing.

As I re-merge, I hear a siren. Then, two cop cars…a fire truck and finally an ambulance. Cars were on the sidewalk, traffic was stopped and we all watched 15 professional lifesavers ran around looking for someone to save.

/ /

I saw the homeless man on the train platform later that night. Approaching I noticed that he had no real outline, no shape. Except for his bright yellow hat and new shoes he was a cloud of non-descript.

Up close, I saw something glaring from his chest that either I hadn’t noticed earlier or he just got. The cleanest, shiniest part of him was an American flag pin he proudly wore over his rags.

He got exactly what he did not need that night – harassed, ogled, shoved, relocated. But the table got what it wanted: their aesthetic problem solved, a heroic story for their next night out and perhaps, some kind of tax deduction. To them, poverty is unsightly and he was a visual disturbance, not much more than unpleasing to the eye.

When poverty becomes an eyesore for the rich it’s time to realize we have a deeper problem. With such dramatic disparities of wealth are we losing actual value for one other?