Selling Papers

June 1, 2006

For whatever reason, it seems I've only been reading heavy books lately. By heavy, I don't mean deep, but rather hardcover books too heavy to carry around in a bag all day just to read a few pages on the subway. Since that's where I usually do the bulk of my reading, I haven't been getting through the books very quickly. I somehow managed to finish A Writer's Life by Gay Talese , which left me both encouraged and depressed. Encouraged because I could relate to Gay's struggle as he searched for something to write about — if an accomplished and talented writer like Gay Talese can spend so much time being aimless, why can't I? — yet depressed because he was so masterful at eventually turning his nothing into something.

With A Writer's Life finally out of the way, I took Raymi's suggestion and started JPod by Douglas Coupland.

A carnival ride through trademark-dropping pop cultural banalities that aims at the alienation of information-overloaded modern geekdom, dissecting the obsessions and quirks of disenchanted youth with the surgical precision of a robotic anthropologist with laser beam eyes.

Not exactly, but whatever it is, it's perfect for my short attention span. Despite only reading a little before bed each night, I'm pushing through it rather quickly.

At one point in the book, a few of the characters play a game where they all have to make a list. The list can be of anything; it just has to be jotted down within a set time limit, after which it will be judged by the group, who will subjectively choose the best one. One girl wrote, "Things my new French boyfriend does that are making me begin to wonder about him." Someone else listed "Faggy color names." But the one that stuck with me was the list of "Why buying lottery tickets is simply wrong."

1) Would you ever go into a lottery booth and buy a 6/49 with the following numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and a bonus of 7? Of course you wouldn't. But that number has just as ludicrously small a chance of winning as do some idiotic numbers you pulled out of the air.

2) When you buy lottery tickets, your lifestyle elevator travels only down. Buy enough tickets over a long period of time and, before you realize it, you'll find yourself living in a listing mobile home. Its linoleum kitchenette counters will be constellated with crystal meth pipe burns. Its throw cushions will be caked with DNA best left unexplored. There will be a Domino's pizza boy bound and gagged beneath the main living area beside the cinder blocks.

I never buy lottery tickets — it just never occurs to me — but Deborah does from time to time, and when she does, I can't help getting caught up in it. I eagerly check the numbers, feeling angry and frustrated when they don't come through. This morning, as Deborah was running around getting ready for work, I asked her where her two tickets were. She bought a couple of them the other day, and we never checked them. She dug the tickets out of her bag, and I went online to see if they were winners.

Nothing.

We didn't hit a single number. "I wonder what the chances are of that, " I said. "Pretty good, I'll bet. But even still, we should win something for not hitting any numbers — ever !"

I climbed the ladder to our sleeping loft and got JPod from the bedside. I read Deborah the list of reasons why buying lottery tickets is wrong.

"Yeah, Deborah said, "A lot of people have extreme opinions about playing the lottery. If you're waiting for your welfare check to come through so you can spend it all on tickets, that's one thing. But there are so many other cheap thrills to waste a dollar on, why not something with a chance for some return?"

"I'd rather spend a dollar on the lottery with a chance to win millions than give it to a bum."

"Uh—I wouldn't admit that to too many people," she said.

"I was being facetious!” I said. But I had to add, "Except for that fucking guy we saw on the subway the other day," I said. “In hushed case, I’m being serious.”

I was referring to a scrawny guy covered in dandruff and lint, smelling of booze, who walks through the subway cars selling newspapers that are meant to be free." Y'all are heading home from work, going to your safe, warm homes," he said. "I'm just trying to get something to eat."

First of all, it was fucking 90 degrees outside. Everyone was going to a warm home. But, aside from that, how the hell does he know where people were coming from, or where they were going? Not everyone was going home, I'm sure, and those who were might've been going home to an abusive spouse, or a painfully lonely apartment. Safe? Who the fuck knows? Whine all you want about your own crappy life — everyone does, and everyone is entitled — don't compare it to anyone else's. Bullshit is relative.

Before you judge me too harshly, let me explain:

It was rush hour, and Deborah and I were heading back to Brooklyn after a day in Manhattan. The subway cars were their usual worm pod of squirming flesh, and, as Deborah tried to squeeze through the people standing in the doorway — the ones who don't want to risk losing the precious spot that allows them to lean on the doors once they close, so they never give an inch — she inadvertently brushed against the guy selling papers. He turned, leaned into her, and muttered something unintelligible, then slithered into the crowd.

"What did he say to you?" I said.

"Who knows?"

I watched him as he bumped through the crowd. "Hello there, beautiful," he said to every woman, stopping to give them each a long look before moving along to the guys. "Can you help me?" he said to the men. "Sir? Can you help?" He started giving a tall, lanky hipster in stove-pipe pants a hard time. I'm not sure why. The hipster ignored him as best he could, struggling to remain engrossed in his book. Upon the beggar’s return to our end of the car, he stopped in front of me, gave me a wild-eyed stare, and said, "You better keep an eye on your girl."

I didn't respond. I didn't even know what he meant.

He went into his sales pitch, holding out a wrinkled paper cup to the people surrounding us: "Ladies and gentlemen, giving me a dollar won't make you go broke, but it will mean a hot meal for me tonight. Selling papers on the subway isn't the best, cleanest, or safest job in the world, but it's something."

"Yeah, I think selling free papers on the subway was listed in the New York Post as being the third most dangerous job in the city,” I said to Deborah as we exited the train. “Firefighters, garbage collectors, and selling papers,"

"Really?" she said.

"No!"

"I didn't think so. The only thing making it unsafe for him is that he's so aggressive and in everyone's face that someone's liable to kick his ass one of these days."

"I'm sure someone already has."

If it hadn't been the end of the month, with rent due and me looking to come up short again, I might not have been so cranky, but I doubt it.

Deborah was bringing home a big book of her own, the classic Don Quixote. It's not a hardcover, but it's bulky just the same. Although it's often cited as a cornerstone for all modern literature, its over nine hundred pages, making it unlikely I'll tackle it.

"I hope I can stick with it," said Deborah. "It's really good. I had no idea it was so funny."

I flipped through it and read some of the supporting text, which included a timeline of Cervantes’ life. "It says here that Cervantes started writing Don Quixote while in debtor's prison."

(More encouragement for the aspiring author!)

"Ugh," Deborah said. "I'm so glad they don't have debtor's prison anymore. I mean, they don't, do they?"

"I don't think so," I said. "It's been replaced by the credit card."