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NEEDCOM: Do you have any regular customers? DONALD: I have a couple of people that help me out, you know. Like a man lives on Bleecker and Broadway, he gives me ten dollars every day. Not every day, you know, but every time I see him. It might be two times a day, it might be three times a day. But each time he sees me, he gives me ten dollars. He's a professor that works at NYU. He got a funny name, I don't remember ... He's a heavy-set guy, with a moustache ... NEEDCOM: You have conversations? DONALD: We got to be friends. You know, we got to be real friends. He's a nice person and everything. Real nice man. I even went up to his house and had dinner one time. Invited me upstairs, he cooked me a nice little meal. We sat and talked for a little while, I ate, and I left. Very nice man. NEEDCOM: Tell me about the most generous person you ever met, while panhandling. EASY: I used to sell books by NYU, and this guy—man, I forget his name, Elliot, whatever his name was—he said I want to do a biography, or something he was writing, and he took me, Russell and Hassan. Every day he gave us fifty dollars. And that was for three months. Every day he gave us fifty dollars and he fed us, and we drank, we drank a lot of beer, you know, we were alcoholics. I really started liking him. And we talked, and we shared things. And we'd sit in the restaurant all day drinking our beer, but ... But see, he wanted to give back to us, man. He did a lot of writing while we talked ... I don't like to talk to someone and he writing, but it was all right, cause it was him. NEEDCOM: Is this the usual place that you panhandle? ROBERT G: I just happened to run into my friend and we just ... It's not usually one place, it's usually 5th Avenue. We usually go over by where the NYU students are, 'cause they're very ... they're too kind sometimes. Wherever we sit down, really. Sometimes the police tell you to get up, and if you don't get up, then you get the handcuffs on and you have to go through all that.
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