I don't know how I should write it in these times. Namely: near home in Barcelona there is a traffic light with a poor person asking for some coin or there is a person asking for help or there is a man asking for alms. The only thing I allow myself to write is that he asks and he always asks "please". Taking advantage of the red light, I roll down the glass and we chat for a few seconds about life and that everything is very bad but we survive.
We hadn't seen each other for weeks but on Saturday morning I saw him again, rolled down the window and realized that, in my life, coins are no longer necessary. Not even the tickets. The cash has disappeared from most pockets and car glove boxes and the gentleman who begs at a traffic light next to my house reminded me. It was distressing. "And what do you do?" - I asked. "At the moment nothing because I have a cheap mobile phone and I can't have the bizum".
I suffered the same feeling, in the center in the afternoon, when I saw a woman sitting on the floor with a plastic cup asking, who else gives if money or alms or help. She was a decidedly poor woman. I went over to gossip about what was in the bowl. I sensed a dollar bill, another 10 euro bill and a couple of coins.
Strolling through Portal de l'Ángel, three elderly gentlemen played jazz in front of the Zara. One played the piano, another the clarinet and a third the trumpet. In front, a wooden box with some currency, and four or five five-euro notes. He finished the piece, the crowd applauded but only one person came forward to throw a coin into the box. I looked for a teller but, as it was Saturday, they only dispensed fifty notes. In a bar I asked for change, but as cash is a rarity they said, "I'm sorry but no". I went to a pharmacy for some Riccola and they gave me back the change. In the wooden box I left a note.
The poor are poorer and the system does not help them to stop being so. When I was very young, at Christmas, the Sereno and the Garbage Man used to stop by my parents' house in Horta and give us a picture wishing us happy holidays. They would come back and we would give them "el aguinaldo". In this century, either the poor have an iPhone with bizum, or where the public service should reach, we don't reach the citizens either. A Christmas tale as modern as it is cruel.
