Date: Monday, November 11, 2002 2:35 AM
Last Spring I saw a woman who really knew how to work a squeegie, how to squeeze gold right out of it. The other rag/muffets were in awe, and so was I. This is a woman who knows how to give her audience what they really want.
You know how the squeegie routine works, right? I mean, do they have these people in Thunder Bay and Gimli? In Dar-es-Salaam? The schtick is this: you have a homeless, or at least visibly-downtrodden person armed with a squeegie they ripped off from a gas station and bucket of more-or-less water (sometimes it’s more like thin, watery mud). They park themselves at an intersection and wait for a red light, whereupon they emerge from hiding like a flock of Vampires from a Romanian belltower; just like that. Anyway, they squirt or slosh the water over the windshields of the cars waiting at the light, then either rub it back and forth with rags or squeegie it off. Then they go around to the window and ask for money. Sometimes if the mud is really sticky mud they can ask for money to get it off again. Anyways, some people give it to them, as they look as if they are working, and crappy work it is, too, running into intersections knowing that most people are automatically pissed off at you because here in Canada we would rather slit our own throats than utter the word “No.” Don’t know what the racket pays, but it must be better than regular begging, because they are out there at all hours, in all weathers, slogging away and running, like as not, because some of those lights aren’t very long.
Anyway, back to this woman. She was young, and most of the young ones have given it up. You don’t often see squeegie kids anymore, though you used to alot. Now it’s mostly old-timers or guys in their thirties who have been rode hard and put away wet. This woman was in her early twenties, and she had an entourage with her, also in their twenties. Some had rags and some had buckets, so maybe they were more of a pit crew, but they didn’t squeegie, just sat on the church stairs, watching, cheering. They had the Axl headscarves and tats everywhere, the homemade kind, and silver skull jewelry and lots of black denim and leather. A heroin rock look. Shoulda been a photographer for some Euro mag, they would have loved the shot.
But this woman. Right, her. Anyway, she was wearing very faded, very dark purple lowrider jeans with a Harley Davidson bandanna as a belt, and she had a little do-rag on her head to keep her shortish blonde curlyques out of her eyes, and a jean jacket, open all the way down.
And no shirt.
Lavender lacy bra; she had clearly studied that chapter of Dress for Success for Women, where he says that odd colours of lingerie drive men wild, and the lacier, the better, no matter what kind of man you are trying to attract. Yes, there was every reason to believe she knew what she was doing.
She was raking in the dough as she leaned WAY over the windshields of those Lexii and Mercedii. And the entourage watched, and cheered.
raincoaster 
The warm BC weather really works for these guys. Apparently they often have to put their “spare change” in the water bucket to keep from clanking. Oh–and for those who feel that by encouraging them they’re somehow contributing to something:
Where does a penniless (after purchase of rock, baggie, or ?) addict get a squeegee? And why do none of the gas stations downtown have a) squeegees or b) ends on their air hoses? (hint–an air hose usually ends in a handy, heat-resistant metal tube.
Of course, the city swarms with the ones who just lean on the median with a cardboard sign that says “hungry and homeless”. So by comparison squeegeeing is positively entrepreurial.
For true comparison, take a long skate out to the highway at Hastings. On the corner where cars come in off the Second Narrows/Ironworkers’ Memorial bridge you may find a skinny bearded dude of forty-to-sixty weaing a highway vest and carrying a broom and dustpan.
He never hassles the traffic. He just sweeps his way around the traffic islands. People often mistake him for a city employee. When I drove that route regularly I used to say “hi” and give him smokes and the odd loonie. He was polite and gracious.
And every time some punk-ass with a dog says “change dude?” I remember him and clench my fist tightly around my change.
Oh, have I not told you that the dog can actually be a rental??? Some day I’ll do another post about that…and the guy who rents out posts in front of the London Drugs on Broadway. I think he charges 20%, with a minimum per diem.
Y’know, I’m totally in favour of that. Good on ‘im. Businesslike.
I don’t favour the usual good-citizen action of banning beggars. I’d prefer to ban giving them money.
My local council just tried to introduce ban-handling with a maximum $2000 fine on repeat offenders. ‘Round here we don’t get the tourist beggars, usually. They’re genuinely poor (mostly alcoholic, but genuinely poor nonetheless). So they should pay a fine how?
Anyone who actually has “spare change” should be donating it through formal channels and getting a tax receipt. My taxes are paid for cradle-to-grave social security, and as weak as that structure is, every dollar that falls into a hat on the pavement weakens it more. So fine the hell out of the donor–that’ll at least look after the spare change.
On the other hand, if every idiot who encourages them stopped giving, they’d soon find gainful employment–or another spot.
Our local regular is called Whispering Bill (according to his bio in the paper). He picks his hat up off the ground when he sees me coming. Presumably ’cause he knows I’m good for a polite hello and wants to have something to tip.
How much of a fine would you be willing to pay for what you gave that fellow at Cassiar and Hastings?
I see it as an offer to do business, same as having a storefront. That is to say, I don’t have an issue with it one way or another until someone gets in my face about it. If you’re blocking the sidewalk, extorting money for the use of public spaces, or harrassing passersby, then you should be cited for those offences. That’s why I’m opposed to the nasty new anti-panhandling legislation they’ve brought in here in Vancouver.
We have had panhandlers literally longer than we’ve had a city council. Surely by now that’s some sort of tradition. The laws were brought in after an incident in which a panhandler assaulted a woman (he spat on her). I know of at least one Vancouver stockbroker who has spat on a woman, and we didn’t ban stockbroking.
Ah–well stockbroking’s not taken as seriously. It should be though, it’s a “gateway” crime. First stockbroking then panhandling, often enough.
The panhandler who spat on the woman was schizo, I believe. A failure of the province’s mental health “drug-’em-up, send-em-home, repeat way too often” approach.
I’ve been an opponent of panhandling legislation since Victoria decided that Government Street should not be adorned with hookers (though a more appropriate symbol, given the name, there is none) and beggars. Fining contributors is only one alternative, and more sensible than fining the broke and hopeless.
For heaven’s sake, you mean those poor politicians are having to drive to find hookers??? Those poor, poor men.
I DO support the busker legislation in Vancouver that makes them move on after a certain period of time. It was inspired by a particularly untalented, yet handsome, bagpiper. Honestly, it sounded as if he were strangling a bag of harpies, and he NEVER. GOT. BETTER. But he made decent money because most people were just passing by and, like I said, he was hawt.
I believe that the Gastown Merchant’s Association tricked him into playing outside City Hall for his usual 6-8 hour stretch. Shortly thereafter, the legislation was passed.