I met John earlier this year.  He's effusive, older, gap toothed, African-American and when he told me he's schizophrenic, my heart went out to him.  When we were getting to know each other, he pointed out the houses he has worked on up and down my street.  He was in construction before his illness got the better of him.  He's definitely poor, so he does what he can to hustle.

It started out as a simple hand-out.  I can't remember whether it was money or cigarettes, but I proffered one or the other, having heard the need in his voice.  I'd been hired on to a job, rehabbing a mansion right up the street, so I was feeling a little flush.  I've been on Social Security Disability for my mental health issues for the past six or so years.  This massive job was the beginning of my return to work, to my ability to start rebuilding my life.  To try to pay Cricket back for all the years that she'd supported my crazy arse.

John made me laugh.  We'd shoot the breeze and after a while, he'd roll around to asking for something.  Money, mostly, but the first time that he actually came to our house, I didn't have any.  He's diabetic and complained about the hunger he was feeling.  So, I loaded him up with beans, rice and cans of tuna.  He wanted to know if I had any meat for him.  I told him that I don't really eat it.  I'm a bit squeamish about the whole flesh business, so it's rare that I consume it.

He started showing up where I work.  It didn't help that he could track me down by my visually impressive art car.  I often parked it outside the job site, having picked up materials that I needed.  At first, he could peek in the open front door, where the carpenters and I were working on the ground floor.  Then I was working on the front door, making me an easy target.  I didn't always have any money, and sometimes not even cigarettes.   I was not always mentally well enough to work, so my finances ebbed and flowed.  I knew that it was getting out of control when I was working on another floor, and the teen-age son of the home's owners sought me out, saying that there was a "crack-head outside" looking for me.  I told the kid that he wasn't a crack-head, but mentally ill.

I hadn't seen John in a couple of weeks.  It was kind of a strange time for me.  On the one hand, I was concerned that something had happened to him.  On the other, I was a little relieved, because I didn't have to deal with him.  As our relationship had grown, so had his requests for aid.  He wouldn't take no for an answer.  If I gave him the little that I had, he tried for more.  He'd chew my ear off, either leading up to his most recent troubles, or by working me to give more.  It was taking any pleasure out of our encounters.  I'd begun to dread seeing him.

I spied him again last week.  He was doing some sweep-up work for my friend Doug, who was installing new basement doors to his house.  Doug lives half-way between my house and the job site.  He's the General Contractor on the job, who hired me on.  He's one of my dearest friends, my first sponsor in a 12-Step program, a happily married father of two and an all around good egg.  I gave John a hug, genuinely happy to see him.  Then he hit me up for money, so I gave him a ten.  I found out later that Doug had given him a five for the work he did.

On Thursday, during a particularly grueling work day, Michelle, the painter that I hired on to work with me and I took a stroll over to the local bodega.  We needed some rocket fuel to help us continue the neck- and back-breaking work of painting the third and finish coat on the newly installed tin ceiling.  I'd tried to come up with more heinous jobs that we could have been doing, but Michelle wasn't buying.  The only thing that she acknowledged was worse than the physical pain we were in, was to be working at a dump, like the one on Rising Sun Avenue, sorting through the conveyor belt of trash for salvage.

As we neared the store, John came out, packing a box of smokes.  He almost didn't recognize me.  I was wearing a bandanna and shades.  But he stared long enough, so I greeted him.  He explained that his cigarettes only cost a dollar.  He didn't hit me up, maybe because I was with Michelle, maybe because he had cigarettes, maybe because he had money.

Gob-smacked tired at the end of the day, I chose not to go to my 12--Step meeting and Cricket and I agreed to order in dinner.  We'd both had exhausting work days, so we had a pizza from Rustica delivered.  With the first slices cut and the T.V. glowing, it was perfect for the knock at the door.  Sighing, thinking that it was our neighbour Junior, Cricket went to the door.  I heard, from the living room, murmured conversation.  When she came back in, it was to grab a few dollars and let me know that it was John, asking for money.  When she went back out to give him her money, he asked if she had any more.  When she said no, he asked if she had any cheese.  That's when she told him good-night.

For Cricket, it wasn't his coming to our door at the end of a hard day.  It wasn't giving him the money, even though technically he was at our home, in part because of me.  It wasn't even the cherry on the top of him asking if she had any cheese.  No, what my best friend Cricket was not thrilled about, was the fact that he kept rambling on, gnawing away on her ear, her time and in doing so, keeping her away from her down time and dinner.

I've been ruminating about John.  That old, time-worn phrase is pulsing in my brain:  Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile.  I've come to an upsetting conclusion.  John has no pause button.  No concept of when to back off, of when people besides him are truly broke, of how much he takes from me that has nothing to do with money, smokes and food.  This is a train without breaks, gathering speed on a down-hill track.  I have to stop it.

The next time that I peeps on John, I'm going to have to tell him that which I dread:  That this particular hustle is now closed.  Permanently.  Because John is not subtle, nor given to understanding it in others.  There is no nuance, no finesse.  He's a street-wise guy, who's successfully bummed from me when I was flat broke, holding his roach as I cleared out my car looking for change, yacking away as I sweated, trapped in the front seat.  He's taken his mile.  I hope that I can regain my inch.