Knoxville520.com

I share downtown Knoxville with a fairly robust homeless population. With a relaxed attitude and a bare minimum of common sense, I almost never feel unsafe, but if you walk a fair bit downtown, and I do, you can expect to brush off a half dozen involved panhandling requests a day. It has hardened me. I almost always give to street performers, and on occasion to people who simply ask for change, but I am no longer even polite to hustlers.

One of these hustlers, a wacky wiry older fellow named Rodney, was working me a few months ago, offering to carry some booze up to my apartment for a party I was having. I blew him off, and I guess he decided he didn’t like me anymore.

So how does this relate to Dickens?

One of my favorite parts of Great Expectations is when Pip returns home soon after his good fortune. He is obviously pleased with himself, and enjoys the homecoming immensely, displaying his new clothes and manners. He is promptly mocked by one of his old playmates, who follows him twenty or so paces behind, calling out with exaggerated swagger “Don’t know yah, don’t know yah, upon my soul, don’t know yah!” It’s a wonderful scene because the only proper response would be to pummel the kid, but Pip can’t because he’s respectable now. So this boy plays the role of the noble fool, calling out the truth which no one else can see because they are too distracted by Pip’s fortune and manner.

Now, let’s get back to Rodney.

A week or so later, I was walking downtown, going to see some show or other, and I was dressed up a little. Not too much, but I was doing what I could, trying, I don’t know, to psych myself up into talking to people and not just grabbing a place to stand and watch inaudible TV sports in the bar mirror. Suddenly, Rodney materialized under a street light with an appreciative whistle.

“Whoo Whee! There she goes! And she looks good tonight! Hey there, pretty boy, how you doing?”

I’ve lived in some rough neighborhoods, and have learned to trust my intuition as to my safety, and I was sure Rodney was harmless, but what could I do? I was in the same boat as poor Pip! There wasn’t much to do but smile, and say “Hey Rodney, I am looking pretty good now that you mention it.” I walked down the street, letting the whistles echo.
So, I still get it, once or twice a month, a hollered “Hey Pretty Boy!” from across the street. I tried a few times for a “let’s get this over with” confrontation, but he’s just a wacky old guy, it would be like arguing with the wind. And I think about Pip, and what it means to be respectable, a gentleman, and how vulnerable to ridicule we are when we take ourselves too seriously.

So I decided I guess I can deal with Rodney.

“I feel pretty, oh so pretty….”

-guest contributor, John Steill

(photo credit: Carrie Thompson)