The Boy on the Naples
Train
I decided to do Pompeii
as a post on its own because this seemed like such a significant
happening at the time that I felt it deserved a detailed write-up.
Pompeii was pretty dull
in itself, especially after Ephesis with Grace last year, but was
worth the train ride. I didn't see however the plaster people which
was a big point of going, because we had to catch the train back.
What was particularly important about this trip for me was the train
journey.
Naples station was full
of beggars. What in retrospect struck me particularly about these
beggars were the number of women, especially those with young
children in tow, sometimes babies. It has only occurred to me as of
now the disproportionate amount of male beggars there are in the UK.
Maybe UK society is less sympathetic towards the stronger sex, who
knows.
The train was packed to
the point where we couldn't move. Two of my friends were sexually
harassed et the stray hands of a smelly Italian man, who clearly
thought a lot of himself. The girls ended up hiding behind the guys
to keep away from this asshole. I’ve never seen anything like it
apart from maybe the 11X bus on a busy school night. Somewhere in the
two hours of this cramped sweaty endurance test, we had out first
train busker.
She was an elderly
woman, with a small kid in tow. She had a cheap old accordion, and
she clearly had no idea where to play it. Through trial and error and
hours of riding the trains, she had found a button and a set of keys
with which she could make a sorry excuse for a tune with. She
squeezed up and down the train as the small boy went around with a
little cup. I put a euro or two in. It genuinely made my day when he
gave me a fist pump and a hi five. This kid made my day.
On the way back an
experience so strange happened that it has left an impression on me
that will never go away.
A boy and his father
walked onto the train, the boy with a drum and his father with an old
trolley with a speaker on it. He triggered an mp3 player, and cranked
up the music real loud. This tiny tiny boy began to drum. I disagreed
with his age with my friend later, I thought he was younger, he
thought a little older, and being skin and bone he may have been
right. The kid looked starving and so did his dad. Still, he can't
have been younger than seven.
He kicked ass. He was
amazing, he had natural rhythm and flourish, the marks of a natural
performer at an age when it rarely shows that well. His eyes however
looked tired and betrayed the fact that he'd been on the trains all
day. His Dad shook a tambourine, but couldn't hold a beat, let alone
a rhythm, and it was clearly just a token gesture of performance.
The boy drummed for
another three songs, which were long and loud and pissed off everyone
in the carriage. The boy would have done better playing alone.
Afterwards he looked up at his father, who said to him in Italian
'You know what you have to do – take the cup around'. The kid was
shy, but he did it anyway for his Dad.
The kid didn't come to
me. He didn't ask me. I wanted to approach him, but something held me
back. Here was my thought process:
a) This child shouldn't
have to work
b) His Dad was pushy,
and will take all the money he's earned at the end of the day.
That kid is
scared, tired and unhappy. It's not fair.
Nobody on the train
gave him a cent. For some reason my feet were glued to the floor.
Some deep inbuilt etiquette, some social fear, the same one that
stopped me buying lunch for a homeless man in Greece put the brakes
on a naturally good gesture. Here was my thought process.
a) That kid was
amazing.
b) He's playing to the
hardest crowd anyone could play to.
I know what it's
like to be a performing monkey in front of people who don't want to
know – especially if they're all glaring at you. At 24 it can
break me down emotionally. This child is having to deal with
continuous rejection at the age of below seven.
If I give this kid
money, at least he'll eat tonight. He'll have to work anyway, money
or no money...
Then he was gone, him
and his dad hopped off at the station, with my feet still glued. I
watched the slums and shanty towns rush by the window and I ached
with guilt. I’m earning more money than I ever have done in my life
and I couldn't put fifty cents in a cup for a starving kid. I’m a
wanker. There, it's said. I know that boy will never read these
words, probably never even knew I existed, but If I could say
something to him, this is what I'd say.
You're amazing. You're
a real star, you work through the pain and fear for your family. I
could see the fear in your eyes as that train full of people glared
at you, but you played on and your held your head high and you passed
your cup around. In a grown up world full of rules and conventions,
you weren't shown the appreciation you deserved, maybe you never are.
It wasn't your fault, it was the grown ups who had their priorities
fucked up. But somewhere in the world you have a fan, who loves your
playing, and if he'd pulled himself together you'd have had twenty
Euros in your cup.
Some of you might be
reading this and thinking that I’m pretty soft. Maybe too soft for
travelling around the world, where poverty is a daily encounter and
something that is to be come to terms with. Well, I say to you that
if a child working, or a begger with a baby in her arms doesn't give
you pain, then you're dehumanising yourself to cope with a broken
world. The minute that poverty becomes an acceptable fact of life to
you, you become part of the problem. That's the kind of thinking that
lets condos and shanty towns share the same beach.
Here's a conversation
I had recently with a colleague. I gave a coin to an old wizened
lady, begging.
Him: Did you just give
money to that beggar?
Me: Yeh.
Him: Bad idea!
Me: Wha?
Him: I used to give
money to beggars, now I know better. If they have two hands they can
work.
Me: Well, I disagree.
Cowardly me. What I
should have said was this:
Me: 'That analogy is
stupid. It ignores the concept of unemployment which has to exist for
capitalism to function. Also, what about the mentally ill, or
disabled? Have you never depended on the charity of another?'
Another colleague told
me this:
Her: Lots of beggars
fake it anyway – they pretend to be poor, but have iPhones and
stuff under their blankets.
Again, I kept quiet.
What I should have said was this.
Me: That's crazy. If
they're hidden how would you know about them? Anyway, the whole
benefits system works on the internet now – surely it makes sense
that the first thing a homeless person would need would be internet
connectivity? Also, even if these people do exist, why should you let
the genuine beggars suffer?
Another colleague told
me this:
Him: Didn't you hear
about that beggar who was actually really rich, and drove a Mercedes?
He had a really good job, he just did it because he was greedy?
Me: That's the most
stupid thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
Well, at least I got
it right once.
These are first world
defences against a sick worldwide wealth gap. Nobody chooses to be a
homeless beggar, to live in the freezing cold and demean themselves
to every person who walks by them just to earn enough to carry on.
Begging to people every day would kill every last ounce of ego
someone possesses, and how do they pull themselves together and get a
job?
I think everyone who
grew up in a first world country has some degree of 'fat wallet
guilt' when they look the living conditions of a world of which
massive chunks are still below the poverty line. There's two ways to
deal with this – come up with some crappy false logic chain to
justify your wealth, and your greed in not giving it to someone in
need – or to give some tiny act of charity to try and sooth that
guilt a little bit. The charity probably isn't going to get rid of
your guilt, and it probably isn't going to solve the problems of the
person in need, but it will help. The only alternative is becoming an
ass-hole, so probably best to embrace it.
Like the butterfly
effect, one small good deed can spread out indefinitely, like falling
dominoes throughout the world. Sooner of later, somewhere along the
line it will come back to the boy on the Naples train.
