The Social NetWorker

On Desperation and Locked Doors

(This is a guest post by Megan Elizabeth Morris.)

When I was going to school in Youngstown, we didn't think a lot about panhandling. It wasn't something that really affected me for a long time, possibly because it happened more often at night, and I lived off-campus. There was one thing that did concern us, however: Keeping our car doors locked while driving.

Long before we'd ever worked together, my partner attended college in Youngstown, too. Marty's was one of the stories that fascinated and worried me. It was probably ten or eleven at night, he said, and he and a friend were driving home from one of the labs. His friend -- Katie -- was in the passenger seat, and Marty was driving the car.

Marty stopped the car at a light, and a guy came up to Katie's half-open window. He was a bearded man in his forties, wearing a ragged-looking coat. He asked them if they had any money. Marty said he didn't, and Katie said, "Hold on a second -- let me check."

Then the man opened the rear door of the car and sat down in the seat behind Katie's.

"He wasn't overtly threatening or anything," Marty explained to me later. "It was just the situation, he just scared the hell out of us." It would have scared the hell out of me, too. There's something enclosed and safe and private about a car, and strangers jumping in without being invited isn't something that happens. Except apparently, in some places, it does.

Marty says that he's pretty sure at that point he said that they had to get going, or asked the man to get out of the car. But it was "Nah, come on man. I need some money," and Katie found a few bills for him in her bag. Then he thanked them, and got out of the car -- and they drove away.

There's a struggle, for me, between viewing this as a threatening event and as an objective sign of social circumstances. When I first heard the story in school, I thought to myself, That's very scary. There are scary people out there and I've got to remember to lock my doors before stopping at traffic lights.

I was jumping to conclusions (of course). Yes, that man violated a boundary of normalcy in a way that was jarring and a little frightening. It could have been anyone getting into that car -- someone with a weapon, someone more unbalanced, any number of dangerous combinations. This man just wanted money. "And looking back," Marty said today, "He just seemed more desperate than anything else." Getting into someone's car sounds to me like a great way to ensure a driver is surprised enough to give out money if they have it. (It also sounds like a great way to scare them into wondering what happens if they won't.)

But at the same time, what is your life and culture like if that is something you're ready to do? Part of me says, Dude, if it works, it works. You don't have to be a drug addict or a murderer to be desperate enough to take any small advantage you can. If the man needs money, he needs money.

And maybe he just felt it was a normal thing to do. Maybe it was like sitting down at a bus stop in the middle of a conversation, instead of standing. What do I know?

I have no idea if this still happens in Youngstown. I know the city has changed a lot since I was in school -- new growth, many new initiatives in art and theater, a lot of people really caring about the city and the people who live there. I know that nothing like this has ever happened to me in Austin, and I haven't heard of any similar incidents since I moved here. But then, I always -- reflexively -- lock my doors while driving.

It's a shame if most people (like I did) react only to perceive threat, take safety measures, and then forget about everything but the potential danger. What does it mean, the desire to shut ourselves off in the name of safety? To what extent does that desire keep us from considering what's really going on -- who we're really dealing with? What motivates them? How we can help?

Megan Elizabeth Morris (email)
Ms. Morris writes at Personal Revelations of the Magnificent Megan M. Megan Elizabeth Morris, or The Magnificent Megan M., [proper noun]: Superhuman font of knowledge, skill, determination & resourcefulness. Exudes enzymes that cause others to surpass their potential. Master thinker; writes, designs, manages, ideastorms, markets, inspires, connects, grows, teaches, makes things happen, changes the world, and throws a mean right hook. (Okay. Not the last one. Well! Not literally.)