A mostly true story
He was tapping on the front door of our office, very gently at first then a little firmer, his face pressed close to the glass panel. The sun was shining brightly outside and he was shielding his eyes with one hand as he tried to see in. When he saw me approaching he moved back a little but when I got to the door the first thing that struck me were his brown puppy dog eyes looking up at me through the glass. I could see him clearly through the door. He was, I guessed, in his mid forties, very smartly dressed in a dark blue blazer, grey slacks and what looked like an old school tie. Unusually for such a sunny day he was carrying a neatly rolled umbrella, not the short collapsible type so common nowadays but a full sized man’s umbrella, black with a curved wooden handle. As usual our bunch of office keys was hanging from the lock so I turned them to unlock the door and pushed it open.
Our office door was unusual in that it opened out onto the street. Strictly speaking it was a fire escape but we used it as our front door to save walking back through the building, up one level and down again before cutting through reception only to come out five metres away on the same street. Leaving the keys in the lock was a bad habit we never really got out of. The kids from the flats down the street would habitually grab the door handle as they passed by to check if it was open. Once, when we’d left it unlocked they’d opened the door, pulled the keys from the lock and took off with them. We could hear them running down the street screaming with laughter. A couple of hours later a nice honest looking teenage boy had brought the keys back and apologised. He looked like the kind of honest looking lad you would send to the hardware store to get a spare set of keys cut.
‘Kids, ye can’t be up to them,’ said the locksmith smiling at me as I wrote him a cheque for the new door locks. To make matters worse our key for the locks on the roller shutter outside our door was identical to the keys on the other two roller shutters further down the building so all of those locks had to be replaced as well.
‘Don’t forget to add on the VAT,’ said the locksmith and he smiled at me again.
Pushing the door out to open it took the man with the puppy dog eyes by surprise. He stepped back to let the door swing open but appeared anxious not to step back too far. It seemed to me that he was hoping to be invited in. As the door swung out I kept my feet in the office and leaned out towards him, resting my weight on the handle. Without really thinking why, I slid my thumb down over the keys to protect them.
‘I’m very sorry to disturb you,’ he said. I thought at first he was English, quite well spoken but there was something else in the sound of his voice. ‘I hope you don’t mind me knocking on your door,’ he was very hesitant, ‘it’s really very embarrassing, I’ve never done anything like this before.’
I couldn’t quite place his accent, not English, definitely not Australian or New Zealand, not South African either.
‘I’ve had to leave my home in Zimbabwe.’ Ah, that was it I thought. ‘It was all done in a terrible hurry,’ he went on, ‘I couldn’t take anything with me. I’ve just been to the embassy and they say I won’t be able to get my money for another three weeks.’
Everything about him said respectable, nothing stood out, his grey-flecked hair was neat, his face lightly tanned and clean shaven, his clothes were smart not flashy, but something about him was odd, nothing I could point to directly but it was there nonetheless. Rather than invite him in I stepped outside. He was a good bit shorter than me which had the effect of accentuating his appearance of looking up to me as he spoke.
‘Have you tried the Refugee Assistance Office?’ I asked. It was on the next street up from ours and I’d often seen a queue of people waiting outside.
‘I have,’ he said, ‘and they said they would look into it but there’s nothing they can do for me at the moment. Look,’ he said, ‘I’m really very sorry to have to ask you, I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m very embarrassed but I badly need some money. I’ll have to find somewhere to stay tonight. Do you think you can help me?’
I was watching him intently looking for any sign of weakness in his expression, any shiftiness and as I watched him speak, watched him cringing with embarrassment as he begged me for money his eyes were filling with tears.
‘I’m not sure I can help you,’ I tried.
‘Anything at all would help, I’d be ever so grateful,’ he answered and a tear trickled down his cheek.
What was I to do? I just wanted him to disappear, to never have met him but here he was, standing before me, a grown man begging me for help, crying. I slid my free hand into my pocket and pulled out two bank notes, a ten and a twenty. He looked at the money in my hand as I passed him the ten and put the twenty back into my pocket. He kept his hand extended toward me.
‘Thank you so much,’ he said, ‘but do you think you could give me any more, I’m really desperate.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, knowing that he’d seen the twenty, ‘but I need that myself, that’s all I can do.’ I stepped backwards into the office pulling the door closed, feeling mean and foolish and cheated. I looked down to lock the door and when I looked up again he was gone.
Later the same day I had a lunch appointment with the Facilities Manager of my biggest customer. We would meet up every so often and to be honest, it was more of a social lunch than a business lunch. We’d arranged to meet in a small Italian restaurant in Merrion Row, roughly equal walking distance between my office and his which suited us both. The restaurant is closed now I can’t even remember its name, but I do remember it as having the best tasting Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten. Dave was a slightly larger than life American from a small town just outside Boston. He had a dark bushy beard that did nothing to hide the friendliness of his face. I really liked this guy and enjoyed our lunches together; it was always a pleasure to be in his company. All through lunch the earlier incident at my office had been playing on my mind and when we’d finished eating and were enjoying our coffees I couldn’t help mentioning it to him.
‘Here’s a moral question for you,’ I said leaning forward. He looked at me with raised eyebrows over his cup.
‘Oh yeah, what’s that?’ he said.
I told him my story of the very respectable man with the puppy dog eyes who’d knocked on my door and begged me to help him. Dave listened intently, leaning on one elbow and tugging gently on his beard as I gave him a full account of what had taken place. When I’d finished he sat back in his chair smiling in amusement.
‘That was a scam, Ron,’ he said, ‘I hope you didn’t give him any money.’
‘But he was actually crying in front of me,’ I said.
‘You did, you gave him money didn’t you.’ Now he was rocking back in his chair, laughing at me.
‘Well what would you have done?’ I asked.
‘I’d have kicked his ass, that’s for sure.’ His American accent seemed even stronger on the word ‘ass’.
‘But it was only a tenner,’ I said. I was feeling very defensive now and quite sheepish, ‘if the guy was genuine then I’ve helped him a little and if he wasn’t...well it was still only a tenner.’
His shoulders were shaking with laughter, ‘Oh Ron, Ron. You’re too soft, you really are. Hey, ya know what? This might be a good time to ask you for some more discount on our account.’ I couldn’t help laughing with him now.
For the next week or two I became a little obsessed with what had happened. In every social situation I found myself, be it with friends or family or work colleagues I would find myself steering the conversation in a certain direction before finally saying, ‘Okay, here’s a moral question for you.’ Then I would tell them my story. Each time I retold the story I found myself accentuating what had happened. I never exaggerated as such, or added something that hadn’t happened but I did try to argue the Zimbabweans case as strongly as possible. To show him in the best possible light as it were. Without exception, everyone I asked, male or female, young or old said I was a fool.
‘He was a scam artist,’ they would say.
‘I know it was scam,’ I’d answer, ‘I probably knew it was a scam from the moment I slipped my thumb down over the keys, but the man was standing on the street in front of me, crying. What should I have done?’
