Milk Run

6:00 am. Coffee's made, already poured into the mug I take in the car with me to work, but I'm out of milk. I grab my purse, a jacket, take the elevator down, hope to find a store open. A homeless woman puffing on a cigarette butt passes my building as I rush out.

"Do you have 50 cents?" she asks.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"A cup of coffee."

The storefront kiosk is closed. East of Eden, its vegetables and fruit spread before it under bright lights -- is closed. I run into Absolute Bagels, ask for coffee with milk, plan to buy the woman a bagel as well, run out to ask what she likes -- seeds or no seeds -- and order a cup of milk to bring home. I open my wallet to pay. No money. Not a dollar. The coffee is on the counter. I start to walk out -- but the woman behind the counter pushes the coffee towards me. "Take it."

I hand the coffee to the woman; she's thin, has ink dark skin, stooped shoulders, lips that draw in over her gums. And I apologize that I have no money to buy her more.

She is not alone. It seems there is someone who has staked out every city block asking for money or food. Yesterday, walking down Broadway to the subway to get to a reading at NYU's Torch Club, I passed a man asking passersby, "Will you buy me a hamburger? Will you buy me a hamburger?" I was late and rushing and the words didn't resonate until I was a half block away. I thought of turning back. I thought, again, of my former mother-in-law, a survivor of hunger and Auschwitz, who instead of giving money to beggars would take them into the nearest diner and order them a hamburger, pay for it, and leave them there to eat it.

They sit before handwritten, cardboard signs telling you that they have no work, that they have a family to support, that they haven't eaten all day, that they are hungry. Down in the Village, beside the ABC subway entrance, a man in his 70s had his foot on a fire hydrant, playing his acoustic guitar like he'd played backup for Rod Stewart or Mike Jagger; slides, trills, fancy fingerwork, incredible sound. His gray hair hung stringy to his shoulders, his face was pale and wrinkled, and his guitar case lay open to receive dollars.