Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [139]
Is this an example of how New York City has made me as callous as Marcus fears I’ve become?
(A parenthetical anecdote to prove otherwise:
Stubby is a homeless man who sings Motown songs on a patch of sidewalk near the gothic, wrought-iron gates separating the relentless bustle of 116th and Broadway from the relative calm of College Walk. He’s short, as befits his name, and black. He could be twenty-five or seventy-five. He’s always wearing some form of Columbia University apparel—shorts and T-SHIRT in spring, wool varsity-style jacket and sweatpants in winter—surely donated by someone affiliated with the school. He’s there every day, clutching a grubby faux-Grecian WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU paper coffee cup, singing classic tunes like “My Girl,” “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch,” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” the last of which sung with a hint of irony. What once must have been a caramel-smooth tenor has been ravaged by misfortune. Everyone here knows Stubby; he’s as much of a campus presence as the grand statue of Alma Mater on the steps of Low Library. I’ve never passed him without putting at least a nickel in his cup, usually more. But that’s not the compassionate part. One day last winter, Stubby wasn’t in his spot. A bit worrisome, sure, but I tried not to think about it because it was during midterms and I had five thousand pages of reading to catch up on. The next day, another absence. And then another. As his no-shows accumulated, I got more upset. Was Stubby dead? Had he frozen to death? ODed? I would’ve asked my friends if they’d seen him around, but they all seemed too preoccupied to panic about anything other than midterms. Finally, about a week later, on the morning of my Art Hum exam, Stubby was back in his spot. He looked and sounded the same as always: R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Find out what it means to me! I remember wanting to ask where he had disappeared to, but I decided to R-E-S-P-E-C-T his privacy. I popped $5 in his cup that morning, which was a considerable percentage of my personal assets and therefore excuses me from any accusations that I’m just a spoiled Ivy Leaguer trying to pay off my liberal guilt. Then I took my exam and got an A.
See? I do care about people! I am compassionate about the plight of the homeless! I’m going to close parentheses now before the contents get any more self-serving.)
So far I’ve taken the NJ Transit #76 Shore Points Express for two reasons: holidays, and for aid in nutritional or laundry-related emergencies, specifically, too little of one and too much of the other. On the laundry-related bus trips, I experienced the novelty of being the Port Authority passenger that no one wants to sit next to, as two duffels’ worth of moldy clothes made me an even less desirable neighbor than the unlit-cigar-chewing old-timer with the spooky glass eye who continually requested help with his TV Guide crossword puzzle.
As usual, I’ve allotted myself too much time for the type of mass-transit travel delays that only seem to occur when I’m not prepared for them. So with nothing else to do, I’ve spent money I can’t afford to squander. I blew $3.80 on a speckled black and white composition notebook to match the dozen or so speckled black and white composition notebooks that I have exclusively used for my journals since, well . . . since you moved one thousand miles to Tennessee in tenth grade. I don’t even know why I bought it, though, since my old one still has ten blank pages, and I hope that seeing Marcus for the first time since mid-January won’t provide more than ten pages of angst.
Speaking of, I promise you’ll get more mail from me once Marcus and I are reunited. You’ve been very kind not to remind me that I haven’t been sticking to our Guilt-Free Guidelines for Keeping in Touch. Especially when