Giving Up (5 page)

never been Don Quixote
, that throughout the entire novel I had been reading about a gentleman who was only pretending to be mad, when he had been sober-minded the entire time (even though pretending to be insane is its own form of madness). In one interpretation we have a gentleman who reads so many books that he is
driven mad
, and in another interpretation we have a gentleman who reads so many books that he
decides
to go mad. But Alonso's deathbed confession introduces the possibility of a third interpretation, where someone reads so many books that his mind splits in two, and that even when he was completely mad the
real
mind was also always present, and once his
real
mind returns to the forefront, the madness recedes, but never goes away. ‘This is why,' I thought, ‘even when Alonso is engaging in one of Don Quixote's mad adventures he does it in a very deliberate and
self-conscious
way, as if he was a sane person imitating a crazy person.' And I found this much more disturbing than the possibility of losing one's mind, because it suggested that it was possible for someone to be crazy and sane at the exact same time. ‘This is what I'm doing right now,' I thought, ‘while I stand here listening to this con man try to cheat me out of my money.' At the same time that I knew this guy was a complete fake, and not even a good fake, because within seconds of our encounter I could tell that he was lying – the moment he said, ‘I have this money order,' I knew for a fact that what he held in his hand was a fake money order – I also believed (or, to be precise, another ‘I' believed, different from the ‘I' that didn't) that he was telling me the truth. Either way, whether he was lying or telling the truth, I could interrupt him at any point and tell him that I couldn't help him out. Even though I had been hearing him out, there was nothing preventing me from bringing this encounter to a premature end. Just like when I was working in the basement, there was nothing keeping me there except for my will, or lack thereof, to remain. The stranger hadn't grabbed onto me, or backed me up against a wall, and, while it was late and the streets were deserted, he hadn't done anything to indicate that the encounter might turn violent. He hadn't even said that I ‘had to help him,' that he had ‘no one else to turn to,' that I was his ‘last hope' and that if I didn't help him out he didn't know ‘what he would do.' He may have seemed desperate, but so far his desperation had only manifested itself as a willingness to lie and cheat people out of their hard-earned money. There was no indication that he was desperate enough to try to rob me, by attacking me or threatening to attack me. It seemed to me that if I did decide to interrupt him and say that I was sorry, that I wished I was able to help him, but that I was only out for a stroll and that I had to hurry back home, he wouldn't even make a fuss. ‘I bet that if I just cut him off right now he'll let me leave without putting up much of a fight,' I thought. ‘He's probably embarrassed by his transparently amateur attempt at a con and once I indicate that I know what he's up to he'll be in as much of a hurry to get away from me as I am to get away from him.' Since I was embarrassed by his attempt to cheat me out of my money I assumed that he would be at least equally, although likely more so, as embarrassed as I was. ‘This must be what it's like for my friends and family,' I thought. ‘They must get embarrassed when they have to listen to me go on about my life's work. They know that I'm lying when I tell them that I think I'll finish the project that I'm currently working on in another year or so. It's painfully obvious to my wife that I am conning her, putting one over on her, so to speak, when, after a doubly wasteful and destructive day down in the basement, I tell her that I got a lot of work done. It's embarrassing to listen to someone lie to you once it's been established that you know they are lying and they know that you know they are lying,' I thought. ‘They're embarrassed because you are obliging them to pretend (to play make-believe) that something is real that they know for a fact to be fake, which, to some degree, makes them complicit in the deception. They're embarrassed because, like you, they don't want to face the reality of the situation, and prefer to hang on to the illusion, even though they are perfectly aware that it is just that, an illusion,' I thought. ‘But maybe this means that on some level they believe the illusion is real, and they're embarrassed for hanging on to this paradox. They're embarrassed because I'm obliging them to have faith in something (i.e. my life's work) that they know I don't even have faith in.' And so my embarrassment increased once the stranger began to make the transition from the set-up of his elaborate but amateurish story about having his car towed, to his pitch (i.e. how I could help him out). ‘So here I am, locked out of my girlfriend's apartment. I have no idea how to get ahold of her. She's at work at some bar I don't even know the name of and I don't even know which building she's in. So I called one of my buddies at the camp and he sent me this money order, but since I don't have any ID they won't let me cash it. I asked them,' he said, ‘why the fuck do I need a money order, right? Like obviously if I had my wallet and ID and shit then I wouldn't need my buddy to wire me cash, would I?' He was staring at me now, wildly, no doubt channelling a recent customer service altercation to make his performance believable, getting angry as he reflected on this unrelated outrage and raising his voice so that I nodded along in agreement in order to quiet him down. ‘For sure,' I said. ‘That's ridiculous.' And although I was placating him by commiserating over the alleged policies of the alleged FedEx outlet, I was also trying to hurry things along and get to the point, so when I said ‘That's ridiculous,' I was also implicitly saying, ‘I get it. The modern world is a cold, impersonal, irrational nightmare populated by uncaring people. I see that you are in a precarious situation and the only person who can help you from losing your job is me. So just make your request and I will decide whether I want to help you or not, but please don't keep telling me every detail of your predicament or I'm going to lose my patience and leave.' Unfortunately I must've done a bad job of communicating this subtext because from what I could tell, instead of interpreting my remark – ‘That's ridiculous' – as a sign to wrap up his preamble and move on to the con, he clearly took my remark as encouragement to relate even more inconsequential details about the imaginary FedEx outlet. He chose to interpret my remark as an expression of solidarity, like I was saying, ‘Go ahead. You've found a kindred spirit and sympathetic ear. I too am the victim of bureaucratic incompetence and the crass indifference of the general public. If you were looking for someone who could share in your anguish over the daily insults of living in this ass-backwards shambles that passes for civilization then look no further. I'm your man.' So he told me that the woman who was serving him was ‘Paki, or something like that,' and that he could hardly understand what she'd been saying to him ‘in the first place' and that when he'd asked to speak with the manager she revealed that she was, in fact, the manager. ‘Can you fucking believe that?' he asked. ‘I'm not being racist, but how does somebody who can hardly speak the language get to be the manager at a place where their job is to talk to customers all day?' I nodded even though I was offended by what he was saying, not because I was uncomfortable with racism (which, truth be told, I wasn't, and the only time I was sensitive about that sort of thing was when I was in the presence of a visible, or invisible, minority – something that, consequently probably makes me more than a little bit of a racist) but because it seemed presumptuous of him to assume that I wouldn't be offended by what he was saying (a lot of people would have been). ‘What makes him so sure that he can open up to me like this,' I thought, ‘and say something that would be considered racist in most circles?' So I finally interrupted him and brought his elaborate preamble to a close, ‘They wouldn't give you the money?' ‘Not a chance,' he said. ‘You should've seen me. Let's just say that after what I said to her I don't think it'd be a good idea for me to go back there.' Even though he had developed this story in the greatest detail and I was now fully apprised of every aspect of his ‘situation,' I could tell that he was still reluctant to make his request, as if he wasn't interested in conning me out of my money anymore. He was absorbed in the storytelling process and I got the impression that as he was telling his story he'd become increasingly determined that I actually believe what he was telling me, regardless of whether it was true or not, and that it wasn't even necessary for me to give him any money so long as I kept listening. But this probably wasn't the case. I was likely projecting my insecurities onto him. Whatever anxiety he was exhibiting had nothing to do with whether I believed in him. It was because now there was nothing left to do but pull off his con. Now he was only seconds away from finding out whether his bullshit story had been a success or a failure, whether he had reached his goal (i.e. somebody gullible enough to be cheated out of their money) or whether I was going to turn him down, leaving him right where he began, having accomplished nothing. ‘But what really pissed me off,' he finally explained, ‘is that if I had my wallet I wouldn't even need any ID because then I'd have my ATM card.' I asked him why he didn't get a temporary replacement card and he paused for a second as he was either remembering the reason, or trying to invent one. ‘Cause you need ID for that,' he assured me, obviously pleased with himself for coming up with something in time. ‘These things,' he said, brandishing the money order, ‘are like cheques. It's true,' he said in earnest, even though I hadn't done anything to indicate that I doubted what he was saying, ‘they work the same way a cheque does. You can deposit them at a bank machine the same way you do a regular cheque,' he said, again with the wild stare, daring me to contradict him, but I wasn't paying attention because now that I knew the nature of his request (i.e. that he wasn't going to ask for whatever money I had on my person but instead he was planning on getting me to withdraw money from my bank account) I was able to start working on an airtight excuse that would let me refuse him without indicating that I thought that what he had told me was complete bullshit. He could sense that he was losing me so he hurried through the rest. ‘It's made out to me so I sign the back and you sign here,' he pointed to the form but he was still holding it out of reach and I couldn't make out what he was pointing at, ‘then you cash it like an EI cheque. It's five hundred so I sign it over to you then you take out four hundred and keep a hundred for yourself.' By the time he got to the last sentence he was speaking so quickly I almost didn't understand what he'd said, and it took me a moment to realize that he had finally made his proposal. It was so tossed off, as if it wasn't really significant to the rest of the story, certainly not as significant as the fact that the manager of the FedEx outlet was Pakistani or Indian (or neither, perhaps). Obviously he didn't expect me to believe anything he'd just said and even if I did, what were the odds that I would be willing to go to a bank machine and withdraw four hundred dollars and hand it over to him? By the time he finally made his request he seemed to have more or less given up and he had a look of bitter sadness, but also relief, the look people get when something they've been dreaming of ends in disappointment, and even though they never really thought it would happen they're surprised by how crushed they are when it doesn't, but relieved that they no longer have to hope for it. Why wouldn't he just hit me up for a smaller sum, which I might actually be willing to give to him, instead of going for so much, essentially guaranteeing that I would refuse, say ‘no way in hell,' tell him to go fuck himself, or something along those lines? It didn't make any sense. It was a completely ridiculous expectation on his part that he'd be able to con a stranger out of four hundred dollars with his albeit credible story of having his car towed (which happened all the time in this city, although since it was so common an occurrence there was something clichéd, and therefore, incredible, about his story). ‘Wouldn't it make more sense,' I thought, ‘to hit people up for twenty or thirty bucks so that, whether they believed his bullshit story about getting his car impounded, they may just fork over the cash in order to shut him up and get him to leave them alone, and if he put in a good eight-hour day and covered enough ground it's more than possible that he'd eventually cheat and con enough strangers that he'd end up with four hundred, instead of going around and, once he finally built up the nerve to make what was obviously a desperate and foolish proposal, pouring out his long drawn-out story only to be told there
was nothing they could do for him
. ‘What he's trying to do,' I thought, ‘is completely unrealistic.' It struck me as so unrealistic that I started to consider the possibility that he was telling the truth. I've already remarked that he was good looking, and on top of that he was well dressed, not that he was ‘dressed up,' just that the clothes he had on were of good quality, clean, and in decent condition. He spoke well, with a slight accent, and his voice was strong and distinctive, as if he would've been comfortable on stage or behind a microphone. If it weren't for the fact that he was hitting me up for four hundred bucks then he would've been the sort of person that I often find myself admiring when I pass them on the sidewalk, or stand next to them in an elevator, or sit next to them in a movie theatre – tall, ruggedly handsome, and (I've always assumed) successful in both the professional and private realms. But here was one of these sorts, one of these people that I would've normally envied, looking wild in the eye, talking excitedly, and basically coming off as a total junkie. In fact, when I looked at the situation from this perspective, it became increasingly plausible that this guy was for real. Otherwise he would've tried a less ambitious course of action. If he was the sort of person who goes through life as the object of envy for people like me then it's not so unlikely that he would approach a stranger and expect them to be willing to fork over four hundred bucks, because it might not occur to him that anyone would ever suspect that he was something other than what he appeared to be. All at once I changed my mind. I was being paranoid instead of seeing what would've been obvious to most everyone else, that this stranger was telling me the truth. I only saw my own cynical and paranoid image of the stranger, one that was wholly incommensurate with who he actually was. Why else would he be willing to ask for four hundred dollars if he hadn't been telling the truth? And he wasn't even asking for four hundred dollars. He was actually proposing that I cash his five hundred dollar money order and keep one hundred for myself. He wasn't trying to cheat me out of four hundred dollars at all, in fact, this ruggedly handsome man was willing to give me one hundred dollars for the trouble of cashing a money order that he, due to a confluence of circumstances that he couldn't have foreseen, was unable to cash. Miners can make a lot of money, and it wasn't so far-fetched that he would throw a hundred my way to do something that was only a minor inconvenience for me, whereas for him it was a big deal. ‘Can I see the money order?' I said. He looked at the form in his hand and then he looked at me. He seemed worried, although I wasn't sure if this was because the money order was bogus and by handing it over he was going to lose his opportunity to screw me out of four hundred dollars, or if, since the money order was legit, he was actually worried that