SQUARE LIFE:

I'M WALKING in yet another night of record low temperature. The temperature has been dropping each year since I was about ten and will continue to do so for the rest of the century. It's I a.m. I'm on my way to Store 24. A man mumbles something as I pass. I run through my pockets--no change. I was on my way to the bank. I'm almost a block away by now, and I hold up my hands and say at him, "Sorry, broke now."

Most people don't even turn for this guy. He's kind of shy, the kind of bum who looks guilty when he's shaking you down so it's easy to figure that he doesn't deserve your quarter anyhow. His is an apologetic, bad boy look: "Sorry, Mom, I'm a bum. Can I have my quarter now?"

I often don't give guys like this anything, figuring--justifiably--that all the yuppies cruising the Square with more money than I have should be buying this guy's coffee. Or I figure--also justifiably--that I just can't give every time I am asked. I'd be asked more often, for one thing. (I think of my aunt who is so in touch with her fellow man that she gets her car windows washed at least seven or eight times every time she drives through the Bowery.)

But this is a bitch of a cold night and the guy with the sad look must need a quarter pretty bad or he wouldn't be out in it. I hand him a buck on my way back from the bank. Big deal. Not really: a tiny fraction of this month's cafe money. When I give it to him, he looks like he's just been cured of cancer.

THE SEASONS of my philanthropy puzzle me. I'm more inclined to give money to street people on a bright spring or summer afternoon, when I'm feeling fine and I want to celebrate with a little charity. Or, sometimes, I give to one of those guys who positions himself in front of young women in gray flannel suits and stays there until they give. This charity sometimes comes after I've passed by a whole row of polite, self-effacing guys like the one I passed last week.

It is clearly the quiet, embarrassed guys--on the coldest nights--who most need my quarters. But on a freezing cold night in March, with a thesis to finish and a chest cold to fight, it's easy not to feel like everyone I pass is a brother. There are only unwanted in-laws on nights like that. It takes all of my energy just to maintain an adequate dose of contempt for everyone I pass.

This is the essence of my philanthropy: when I'm happy, I want to spread my joy; when I'm sad, I want to spread my misery. Of course, now is when I should be feeling most sympathy with the people out on the streets—when I most hate my own moments out there. This cold time is when they most need my cold cash.

How do I convince myself that the guy standing on Mass. Ave. in sub-zero winds at one in the morning is just looking for a free ride? Or that someone else will give him the quarter I won't? We're alone on the street tonight. Just him and me.