I was walking out of Walmart after some grocery shopping. As I was putting groceries in the trunk, I saw a man walk up to the front of my car.

He was a middle-aged Black man. He walked with a cane in one hand, and held a small towel in the other.

I felt slightly uneasy as he walked up to my car. I automatically assumed he was coming to ask for money. I didn’t have cash. I didn’t want to have to explain to him that I couldn’t help him.

I greeted him. “How’re you doing, sir?” he replied. “You got a nice car. Come over here, I wanna show you something.”

I walked to the front of my car and he directed my attention towards my headlights. He emphasized how foggy they were, then proceeded to explain to me the process of oxidation that takes place in headlights and makes them fog up. “I love science, man,” he iterated a couple times.

He then took the towel he was holding. “Watch this,” he said, and started wiping the towel across my right headlight. The headlight was now almost crystal clear. I almost thought that towel was magic. It was actually a cleaning solution he developed.

He stated that if I go to an auto shop up the street to get them cleaned, I’d be charged $25 per headlight (amounting to $50 for both).

“I’ll do both for $10 total,” he said.

That’s a fantastic deal. But I still didn’t have cash to pay him with.

“Well you can just go inside to the bank and ask for cash back. By the time you get back, I’ll already be done with the second headlight.”

I had almost forgotten that a lot of Walmart supercenters have banks in them. Now there was no excuse not to help this man. After all, he’d already cleaned one headlight. It wouldn’t be fair to him if I didn’t give him anything. So I went back inside to get cash to pay him with.

I came back as he was walking back to my car from his truck up the parking lot. He re-explained the work he did, re-emphasizing his knowledge of science. I observed the headlights, which were both pristine. So I gave him $10.

“Thank you, man. Sometimes people don’t give you a chance. They see you approaching them and just assume you’re begging for money.”

Damn. He had no idea that I was one of those people. I felt ashamed.

“They try to strip you of your pride and dignity,” he continued. “They assume I’m coming to them to beg, and then they push me away. They assume the only thing people like us do is beg for money. I’m not here to f*cking beg. I’m here to work!”

If I was a science-savvy entrepreneur who charged extremely gracious prices, and people automatically wrote me off as a beggar, then perhaps I also would’ve been upset.

We ended up having a little conversation in the parking lot. I had often used the word “poor” liberally, like to describe myself as a college student making minimum wage. But I was hearing the stories of somebody who actually lived in poverty, and hearing about his struggles as a poor veteran, who had to overcome the negative perceptions a lot of Walmart shoppers had placed on him due to his disheveled appearance, his Blackness, and society’s generally warped perceptions of people living in poverty, was very sobering.

I may have been able to empathize with him as a Black man, but I realized that I hadn’t experienced an ounce of the struggle that comes with dealing with poverty on a daily basis. It was an illuminating experience for me.

The man took a breather after venting his emotions. I could tell the frustration and pain was exhausting.

“Damn man, I’m real sorry you have to go through all that,” I said. “It’s really rough out here.”

“Nah, don’t feel sorry. Life is still great. I’m still thankful every day.”

He turned to leave and go clean more headlights. “Again, thank you so much for your business, sir.”

“Nah, thank you,” I replied. “Take it easy, my man.”

“Always, brotha. Always.”