- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,198
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
He calls himself Casper, like the friendly ghost, and he begs along rows of stopped cars, summer or winter, rain or shine, walking stiffly with a cane — white clothes, sometimes black — tattered and flowing.
You will know the strange figure from the corner of Baseline and Merivale roads, where he has panhandled for about six years, always sporting some kind of peace sign, sometimes bearing the words: “I mean you no harm.”
It’s pouring rain this afternoon. Casper has stepped inside a bus shelter. We sit in the corner, talking over the noise of wet tires. Other people just stare.
He wears a cloth over his face, with holes for his nose and eyes, eyes that are very blue. A man become a ghost: how?
“I’m afraid of people. I see 1,000 people a day and not all of them are nice. It’s more of a defence or a deterrent.”
He is 35. He grew up in Vanier, he says, and, as a child, had a serious heart condition, aortic valve stenosis, which required open-heart surgery and long stays at CHEO. He lifts his white shirt and there is the tell-tale chest scar. On his hip, there are ugly sores that may have come from “sleeping on cardboard.”
Casper has a learning disability. When he was a student at Sir Guy Carleton Secondary School, he went missing one fall night in 1996 and the police — I looked it up — called him “mentally disabled” to the newspapers. Like many labels, it seems more wrong than right. He claims, though, to be unable to spell or write words.
Casper, who has a learning disability, is a former student at Sir Guy Carleton Secondary School.
Not even easy words, like a grocery list that said milk, bread, cereal? “Not if you put a $1,000 bill on the table. I couldn’t do it.”
On the other hand, he has a solid grasp of the Safe Streets Act, which covers aggressive panhandling in Ontario. “I don’t engage (motorists) in conversation unless they engage me. And I must be civil.”
(The police position on this kind of panhandling — and aren’t ramp beggars everywhere? — is to tolerate the practice unless there are complaints about safety or aggression.)
He has spent a good deal of time on the streets, knows the inside of the Ottawa Mission and the Shepherds of Good Hope, knows the inside of a jail. He now lives in Gatineau and buses here three days a week, working the corner from roughly 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Oddly, he does not call his apartment a home. Casper lives in a “safe house.”
His sign asks to share food or change. So, he ends up with apples, granola bars, food cards, spare change, the odd bill. A very good day might see him fetch $60. He used to panhandle downtown but says a succession of run-ins with the police moved him to the near west of the city.
So does Casper float along the narrow median, within sight of rows of Cadillacs at a car dealership and below the cross on St. Augustine’s Church, this man wearing a shroud, an usher taking collection at his asphalt church.
He salutes at trucks. He says of an ambulance going by: “Those are the real heroes.” He opens a heart-shaped piece of cardboard that reads: Peace Share Food or Change Please. He makes the peace sign with his fingers, explains it is a mash of man/woman and love.
He has this preoccupation with the peace symbol, as though he’s aware his appearance is a little bit scary. “To those who don’t see me every day, maybe,” he says of the ragged face covering in particular. “It’s not me. It’s them. It’s their fear.”
Casper says he doesn’t have many friends. His mother died in 2006. Questions about his siblings or father draw a blank. He has no wife or children. He speaks of a couple of years he spent in Shawville, as though a form of rehab. It’s all a bit fuzzy.
It is unlikely he will ever work at a job. “I’m kinda like a Russian engine, I don’t have a lot of power. I tire very easily.” Having said that, a panhandling day will take him from home for 10 hours, he says, including three to four hours of travel time.
Lots of bad things can happen when you ask for favours in commuting traffic, especially wearing an ambiguous costume. So Casper reports he’s been yelled at, spat upon, had firearms pointed his way. As we talked, a pair of young men took his photo on a cellphone, laughing.
He has learned not to tap on windows. “I just walk by humbly. Have a beautiful day. I mean you no harm.”
Casper, after all, is the friendly ghost, an apparition in rushing traffic, to haunt us still.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
You will know the strange figure from the corner of Baseline and Merivale roads, where he has panhandled for about six years, always sporting some kind of peace sign, sometimes bearing the words: “I mean you no harm.”
It’s pouring rain this afternoon. Casper has stepped inside a bus shelter. We sit in the corner, talking over the noise of wet tires. Other people just stare.
He wears a cloth over his face, with holes for his nose and eyes, eyes that are very blue. A man become a ghost: how?
“I’m afraid of people. I see 1,000 people a day and not all of them are nice. It’s more of a defence or a deterrent.”
He is 35. He grew up in Vanier, he says, and, as a child, had a serious heart condition, aortic valve stenosis, which required open-heart surgery and long stays at CHEO. He lifts his white shirt and there is the tell-tale chest scar. On his hip, there are ugly sores that may have come from “sleeping on cardboard.”
Casper has a learning disability. When he was a student at Sir Guy Carleton Secondary School, he went missing one fall night in 1996 and the police — I looked it up — called him “mentally disabled” to the newspapers. Like many labels, it seems more wrong than right. He claims, though, to be unable to spell or write words.
Casper, who has a learning disability, is a former student at Sir Guy Carleton Secondary School.
Not even easy words, like a grocery list that said milk, bread, cereal? “Not if you put a $1,000 bill on the table. I couldn’t do it.”
On the other hand, he has a solid grasp of the Safe Streets Act, which covers aggressive panhandling in Ontario. “I don’t engage (motorists) in conversation unless they engage me. And I must be civil.”
(The police position on this kind of panhandling — and aren’t ramp beggars everywhere? — is to tolerate the practice unless there are complaints about safety or aggression.)
He has spent a good deal of time on the streets, knows the inside of the Ottawa Mission and the Shepherds of Good Hope, knows the inside of a jail. He now lives in Gatineau and buses here three days a week, working the corner from roughly 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Oddly, he does not call his apartment a home. Casper lives in a “safe house.”
His sign asks to share food or change. So, he ends up with apples, granola bars, food cards, spare change, the odd bill. A very good day might see him fetch $60. He used to panhandle downtown but says a succession of run-ins with the police moved him to the near west of the city.
So does Casper float along the narrow median, within sight of rows of Cadillacs at a car dealership and below the cross on St. Augustine’s Church, this man wearing a shroud, an usher taking collection at his asphalt church.
He salutes at trucks. He says of an ambulance going by: “Those are the real heroes.” He opens a heart-shaped piece of cardboard that reads: Peace Share Food or Change Please. He makes the peace sign with his fingers, explains it is a mash of man/woman and love.
He has this preoccupation with the peace symbol, as though he’s aware his appearance is a little bit scary. “To those who don’t see me every day, maybe,” he says of the ragged face covering in particular. “It’s not me. It’s them. It’s their fear.”
Casper says he doesn’t have many friends. His mother died in 2006. Questions about his siblings or father draw a blank. He has no wife or children. He speaks of a couple of years he spent in Shawville, as though a form of rehab. It’s all a bit fuzzy.
It is unlikely he will ever work at a job. “I’m kinda like a Russian engine, I don’t have a lot of power. I tire very easily.” Having said that, a panhandling day will take him from home for 10 hours, he says, including three to four hours of travel time.
Lots of bad things can happen when you ask for favours in commuting traffic, especially wearing an ambiguous costume. So Casper reports he’s been yelled at, spat upon, had firearms pointed his way. As we talked, a pair of young men took his photo on a cellphone, laughing.
He has learned not to tap on windows. “I just walk by humbly. Have a beautiful day. I mean you no harm.”
Casper, after all, is the friendly ghost, an apparition in rushing traffic, to haunt us still.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
