catapult magazine

Cardboard Sales Pitch

by Tamara Murphy

His cardboard sign sags half down his knees.
On West Keonig
almost to North MoPac
the handwritten billboard of a solicitation
hinted and printed
in permanent and indelible:
Disabled and homeless. Anything helps — even a smile. 
Homeless Dad. Son is sick.  God bless you.
I’m hungry. My dog is hungry. Please give —
thank you and have a good day!

This is a commuter’s Catch-22 — the
coins just laundry room litter I luck into.

Across the lane at traffic signals, these pathetic epigrams
on a continual loop.
The marginalized gigging
all over Austin’s city limits.
— as a neon-vested vagrant gestures, “Want me to wash your windows, ma’am?” —
cocking his squeegee like a hammer
and
— just past him, closer to the light,  a tall guy, skinny as a user —
holds up a plea,
My family is hungry. I lost my job.
Please help feed my 2 girls.

Because nobody is a nobody to us,
when his markered placard struck me
a lie, I still kept to our rule: generous toward all.
Can you guess my stop-light strategy
to split three dollar bills between the two?

Now I’m a disgruntled patron of the Association of Austin panhandlers.
In this economy — slumped
as the cardboard they salvage from the dumpsters
on the American Way in central Texas —
my 16-year-old daughter predicted before the transaction,
“Mom, he’s going to keep all three
dollars.”

Unmotivated by our motto — liberalis ad omnes —
Skinny panhandler pockets greedily then looks back, deadpan
hustling traffic, spinning his cardboard epigram.
For a long time after that, “Generous to all”
becomes generous to me.
Panhandler stole all the cash I own.  Feeling indignant —
please give.
God bless.