Walking out of the concert, the night is still too young for my friends and I to start heading back home. We are still energetic and filled with adrenaline from the awesome encore, and as a typical group of rambunctious young teenagers, we decide to walk around downtown St. Louis to see what we can find on the always sketchy and dangerous weekend nights. After we observe some couple screaming at each other on the street for a while, we end up going to seven eleven to get some food and slushies.
As we sit on the curb outside talking, a man in a wrinkled, yellow collared shirt and blues jeans approaches us and starts to talk to us. We all know exactly what he is doing. He is going to find out what we like and then try to relate to us in about five minutes and then he will ask us for some money. Now we have all read and heard the same stats that around 95% of beggars are alcoholics who will just spend your money on more alcohol. We have all been the kids who are rushed along by our parents when we were little because out parents knew better. But now we were old enough and had to make our own decision.
He asked us what concert we were at and as expected, he asked us if we liked a band that was in the same genre as he tried to relate to us. We shared a brief conversation with him, and then came the lead in to what we were all waiting for.
‘So anyways,” he said as we all felt like rolling our eyes, “I’m a little down on my luck right now and I don’t have any money on me right now for some food here, but I can tell you guys are good guys, do you think you help a brother out?” he asked us. My friends were all the kind of people who wouldn’t give him even a second of thought, all of them except for my friend James and I. Both of us just couldn’t help but think “what if he’s one of the 5% that actually wants to spend it on food?” We both had the same need to believe that there were still naturally good people in the world, and that maybe if we just believe in each...