About 15 years ago I was working as a clerk at the now defunct TIME Inc. Editorial Library and attending the now equally defunct Columbia University School of Library Service. The former was progressively eroded and finally eliminated by the bean-counters of AOL Time-Warner. The latter was gutted in order to make additional study carrel space for the business and law school students. Although Melvil "Decimal System" Dewey founded the Masters of Library Science program at Columbia, his outmoded cataloging system was no match for the reality that business and law school alumni give more money to universities than librarian alums.

But I had no sense of such superfluity back then. I was working for a prestigious (if white male throw-back) organization and attending a prestigious (if "armpit of the Ivy League") school. Plus my tuition was fully paid by my company, since I was working in a related job. Therefore, though I was poorly paid, I considered myself lucky. Which I was.

At that time, I made a habit of giving to beggars on the subway. There were more of them then, and some were pretty pathetic, e.g., I was certain I once saw a leper (a suspicion confirmed in later reports by others). Given the fact that I had an Upper East Side apartment (albeit in an advanced state of disrepair) inherited from an aunt, higher education, and more than enough to eat, I felt the usual bleeding-heart, white, liberal empathy for those less fortunate, which is better than Scrooge-like utilitarianism, but it has its pitfalls not the least of which is hypocrisy. I countered any false sense of superiority with the belief that my Irish Catholic heritage - the Famine, the Know-Nothings, "No Irish Need Apply" - put me at one with the underdogs of this metropolis, keeping me from being truly "white." Yeah, right, tell it to Miss Clairol.

But I wasn't a total altruist. I had already been living in New York City about five years and had been scammed often enough to avoid giving money to unfortunates who turned out to be con artists. Instead, I gave subway mendicants a token, my logic being this: If they're on the level, they can use it; and if they're not, they'll have to work to make it "real" money.

About 6:00 one evening I was doing my usual rushing from work to class, invariably arriving 20 minutes late, which I have to say made the nights go faster, missed acquisition of knowledge be damned. I got on the very crowded "1" train at 51st Street near Broadway, my ultimate destination being the 116th Street stop.

As I squeezed in the back door of the car, an African-American man on crutches shuffled into the car from the door between the cars. He was asking for money with his cup -- more likely a coffee can -- outstretched, and there was a sign around his neck, "Please help me. I am trying to save enough money to buy a new leg."

I checked out the man's legs (no novice, I). If that half-leg was phony, the man was to be commended for advanced double-jointedness worthy of a yogi. He looked legit to me, suitably shabby, down-and-out, etc. I therefore wordlessly reached into my purse and pulled out a token, which I put in the cup/can.

Looking back down to the floor of the subway car, I heard a young woman's voice peal, "YOU CAN AT LEAST SAY THANK YOU." I looked up and saw a very attractive, well-dressed young black woman, standing with a similarly striking/well-turned-out young woman who may have been Hispanic. Was she talking to me? Oh, God, did I, as a white woman, offend her with my donation to a black man, which could be construed as high-handed, condescending, paternalistic, you name it. I wanted to sink into the floor of the car, intoning silently, "No good deed goes unpunished."

But no, the woman wasn't looking at me; she was looking at HIM, the man with the leg (or rather, without one). And her eyes were glowing. At first she addressed her remarks to her friend, but soon she included the entire subway car in her uncharitable and (I almost hate to say it) hilarious sermon, gaining both momentum and passion with every word:

"I am SICK AND TIRED of gettin' on these subway cars, cuz there's always somebody beggin', and I TELL you, they are all PHONIES. So YOU are savin' money for a new leg? So was the guy who rolled into this car last week in a WHEELCHAIR, only he was savin' for a new wheelchair. Man, he rolled his way in one door, rolled his way through the car, collectin' his money, rolled out the other end, rolled up to the turnstile STOOD UP AND WALKED OUT THE STATION!"

At this point, "my" beggar had made it to the end of the car just as the train pulled into the next station. As I was thinking, "WHY did I do it? WHY did I bring on all this by giving that man a token?", the young woman applied the coup de grace, which she shouted after the man, all the while standing like a monument to righteous fury:

"AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED, YOU CAN REMAIN LEGLESS."

At this I suppressed a nervous guffaw. The young woman turned and glared at me. But she didn't actually say anything to me, for which I was grateful.

A couple more stops went by, and the train became a little less crowded so that three seats opened up next to each other. The woman and her friend sat down. I was conflicted about sitting next to them. After all, in spite of our unintended collaboration on the earlier "performance," we weren't even acquaintances (though I certainly felt like an accessory).

There is an unwritten rule in New York City subways and buses that seats should be taken when empty, no matter what, if only to get out of the way, provided the seat isn't irreparably wet or filthy, or that adjacently seated person doesnt stink to high heaven (aside from the odor, there is the real possibility of lice) and/or doesn't behave in a violent manner. (On a more recent morning, I observed a mentally challenged young woman who was sitting toward the back of my Fifth Avenue downtown bus, cursing the busdriver under her breath, and throwing out her arms in feigned/real exasperation. Although we were like so many standing packing peanuts, no one wanted the perhaps worse ordeal of actually sitting down in the tantalizingly empty seat next to this troubled girl.)

So I sat down. Big mistake. Not that the two women took any notice of me. Or maybe they did, and "staged" a performance to get a rise out of me, which has happened to me. Two young African-American girls pretended to try to snatch my purse on 73rd Street and Park Avenue, taunting me subsequently. When I asked them, angrily and repeatedly, "WHY did you do that?" they got furious, kept taunting me until I got a crazed look in my eye, shouted a la De Niro "ARE YOU TALKIN TO ME?," and they evidently decided it might be best to leave the crazy white lady alone. Not that I held this against them: Black women have told me how their brothers can't walk down the street without white women suddenly clutching their purses as they approach them. I consciously try not to do that and once even missed a bus I was running for one night, because a black guy (whom I hadnt even noticed) apparently assumed I was running FROM him, and he yelled, "Don't worry, white lady, I'm not going to hurt you!" which stopped me dead in my tracks, so I wheeled around and said, "I was TRYING to catch that bus, which I've now MISSED. GOD!!!" He did say, "Im sorry, white lady."

But back to the subway car en route to Columbia that evening 15 years ago: The conversational volume of the two women had not abated. At least it was not longer irate. But ours was an uncomfortable situation, in part due to commentary like this:

Woman #1 (looking in her compact): "Oh, LOOK at that Ive got a stye in my eye."

Woman #2 (looking at her friends face): "Yeah, that's a stye alright."

#1 (more under her breath): "Damn, I'm always gettin a stye when I'm seein' my period."

#2: "Girl, you so WEIRD everyone else gets ZITS and YOU get a STYE."

Helpfully, I interjected, "Would you like a tissue?", pulling a pack from my purse. Both women glared at me, coolly appraising my shlubby clerk attire and excess body fat.

It was a long ride up to 116th Street.

Carolyn Weddell, a born-and-bred New Yorker, is a librarian by trade.