Easy Come, Easy Go

Con: To swindle (a victim) by first gaining his confidence.

I was on the road early a few days ago, cradling my $3 cup of coffee between my legs, eyeing a set of railroad tracks on the other side of the red light that was delaying my progress, pondering whether to move the coffee to a less sensitive part of my anatomy, chuckling as I remembered the phrase "Beer Balls." I mean, it would be better to scald the shit out of my hand and not my . . . well, you get the idea.


Crouched at the side of the road was a scruffy guy holding a sign that said: "Homeless. Hungry. Please help." Funny that my initial reaction as a privileged guy -- as an incredibly privileged guy -- is to be suspicious that someone wants to take advantage of me. I don't want to get played. Mostly, I think, this is because I spent my entire pre-sobriety life trying to game the system. I was almost never what I seemed, except when I was in the back of a police car or leaning over a toilet. Then the phrase "What you see is what you get" rang true.


The guy probably has a hell of a hard luck story. It wouldn't be surprising to learn he has alcoholism or a drug addiction. That gets a lot of us onto the streets. The way I figure it if he was trying to screw me out of the price of a dangerous cup of coffee he didn't have a very good plan. I think most con artists can come up with a better con than sitting in traffic with all of their stuff in a backpack.

I reached into my wallet and pulled out some money. It was more than I wanted to part with -- which is none -- but not as much as I should have given. I rolled down the window and the guy scurried over to accept the bill. "Thank you, sir. God bless you," he said. I took his blessing. I take all of the blessings I can get these days. You can never have too many people blessing you.

Funny, too, how we enter The Program on a long, long run of cons. If I really didn't want to get conned, I wouldn't talk to anyone with under ten years of sobriety. We're telling tales most of the time. We can't help it. It just comes out of our mouths. I'm not suspicious of people in meetings. Sometimes we get better when other people help us. I used to sit at a coffee shop in Indy and think: "Why is this guy with a job and a family and a home to go to sitting here and listening to me lie?"

Maybe the homeless guy bought a bottle of wine with that money. Maybe he bought breakfast and a cup of coffee. Who cares, really?


I'll tell you this: I felt good about myself all day. I felt like I was part of the solution. I felt like I made a difference. I felt like the world was a better place.

All for the price of a very expensive cup of coffee.


It was $5. BMOC, remember?