From: "Mayer, Ann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 22:58:07 -0500
These guys sound smarter than the guy who stopped me one morning
Telling me a story about how he had just lost a $25 bill and
Desperately needed a loan to get a taxi to take him to the
Airport.
There's another one that I've seen three or four times in as many
years. It was pretty convincing the first time, but now that I've
seen it a few times I'm impervious. I've run into this in different
parts of the city, with people heading in different directions.
Say you're walking west on Walnut. A guy approaches me walking east,
and asks me directions to 69th street station. So, you tell him to
turn around and walk about 25 blocks west. He deflates, he's already
been walking for 15 blocks because some cop gave him bad directions.
So, now he's walking alongside you, talking to you. "Maybe the cop
gave me bad directions on purpose. The cop got all freaked out when
he found out I had AIDS, didn't want me near him and stuff." "Oh,
that's awful", you say. He tells you what a good person you are, many
people don't understand about AIDS, but you aren't one of those. He
takes your hand, and there's a touching moment (literally) because he
really appreciates the simple human contact. Then he explains that
he's on his way to an AIDS hostel or retreat or something in
Swarthmore, and that once he gets to 69th Street station he's got 50
cents for the train - someone said it was the R3?. After that, it's a
pretty standard con, money for the train to 69th, money for the R3 to
Swarthmore, money for food, etc. He may throw in that he needs to be
there by some deadline, that he isn't going to make if he needs to
walk to 69th and then panhandle for the fare.
I've gotten this in center city when I was walking east ("City Hall to
Temple"), and in west philly walking west ("69th street station to
Swarthmmore"). Same story, possibly the same guy, it was more than a
year later. As I said, I've gotten it three or four times. Probably
comes from walking a lot.
One guy added a particularly pathetic twist. He appeared to be a deaf
mute, with a small pad of paper and a pencil. Same story, though.
--- Chip
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