38 Special

I was walking to work on Thursday, down 4th Street in San Francisco towards Townsend where the ThoughtWorks offices are located, when a man approached me with a proposition.

4th Street runs perpendicular to Market Street in downtown San Francisco and is on the edge of what is considered one of the rougher areas of the city, or so I’m told. The top end of 4th Street is populated with shops and hotels, followed by a few blocks of residential housing, before it passes under the freeway and eventually lands you at the CAL train station, safe in an area of urban renewal. The area under the bridge often has homeless people sleeping or begging for money as people walk past on their way to and from work.

As I walked under the bridge on Thursday morning I saw what appeared to be a homeless man walking just in front on me with a pair of jeans over his shoulders. He was walking slowly and I soon past him. I continued walking until I came to the next crosswalk and stopped to wait for the walk sign. It was at this point I heard a voice behind me.

“Hey man” the voice said, “38, 38, 38”. I turned around to see where the voice had come from - it was the man with the jeans over his shoulder.

“Hi” I said smiling weakly.

He pulled the jeans from his shoulder and held out them towards me.

“They’re new man, just a little dirty” he smiled almost apologetically. “Are you a size 38?”

I fumbled for change in my pocket and held out the money.

“Hey, thanks man. Have a good day.” He smiled and placed the jeans back over his shoulder. I turned to face the crosswalk to see if the sign had changed - it hadn’t.

As I stood to wait again I pondered the moment that had just passed, and thought to myself.

“What does he mean size 38? Do I look like a size 38? I mean, I’m a comfortable 36 but much closer to a 34 than I was 3 months ago!”

The walk sign eventually came and I started to walk across the street. As I approached the other side I started to laugh: I laughed at my own vanity and my pathetic concern over my waistline when faced with someone so desperate, just trying to make a few dollars, just trying to survive. The number of homeless people in San Francisco is worse than I have seen in any other city and is a source of concern and embarrassment for the city.

On Thursday morning I was more than a little embarrassed.