On the shuttle train to Prospect Park the train car is sparsely populated. Where I’m seated there are only a few scattered passengers – among them a Black woman and a Caucasian man, both in their thirties, both wearing lanyards around their necks suggesting they’ve come from some kind of company function. Behind me I hear the gruff voice of a panhandler, ‘I’m homeless, please help me get some shoes.’ I’m absorbed in my book and hardly pay attention, but the man is aggressive, approaching each passenger individually, repeating his statement more as a demand than as a plea. When he stands before me I give him a quick glance and shake my head. He responds with a cold stare, pauses, then turns to the couple opposite me, positioning himself directly in front of the Caucasian man (ignoring, it seems, the Black woman). I can see that the panhandler indeed has no shoes – he’s dressed in a tank top, shorts and bare feet. Is he genuinely shoeless, or has he left his shoes behind somewhere to perform a kind of poverty theater? In any case it produces results: the Caucasian man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dollar. The man continues on his way, hitting up the remaining passengers.