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49 What the Matter Was Just give me a break, the guy who begs on my street corner says every time I walk past him on my way to work. I know you got money, he says. I know where you live. He doesn’t mean to threaten—although he does know where I live—it’s just that he’s tried everything to make an honest day’s wages, and nothing else has worked. I used to give him all of my loose change—it must have been a couple hundred bucks in all—because of the disabled vet sign he wore around his neck. Brother vet, I thought, until one day I saw him playing squash with a woman whose hair was dyed red at a fancy club downtown where you can watch people exercise through plate glass windows if you want to. Afterward, they went and had coffee. I followed them. He wasn’t disabled. Seeing the way he had moved, he was too young to have been in any war. It’s a living, he said, when I saw him the next day, and knew that he knew that I knew. Give me a break. I know you got money. I know where you live. ...

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