Chapter 17

17

By noon a cold snap has come rolling into town, graying the sky and angering the air. My toes may be close to frostbitten but I have managed to panhandle seven dollars and some change from holiday shoppers coming into and going out of some giant bookstore called Barnes and Noble.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like Mark Twain?" a woman enclosed by a black fur coat asks me.

"Yes they have, mam. Could you spare any change?"

She shakes her head, "no", and begins to walk away. Tis the season. Tis the season.

I've started opening the door for people as they enter and exit. I figure if I'm going to be a beggar I should at least be doing some kind of service.

I wish I had time to explain my situation to the passersby. I need them to know that I simply woke up one morning, lost, alone and confused without a penny in my pocket. I've found myself in the middle of a city twenty years older, twenty years more foreign, and twenty years more cold.

I've never asked for anything in my life, maybe borrowed, but always returned. I feel a little more than pathetic now, standing outside of this store, bothering people for their loose change. Some look at me with pity, others, disdain.

When I reach ten dollars I'm heading into this bookstore and buying a cup of coffee. I'd be a rich man with ten dollars, or at least a little more than a pauper.

I can smell the coffee every time I open the door. The aroma swims in my nose and warms me just slightly. This time I ask a bald man for money, and this time, the man looks me in the eye.

He is short, stout and strong, with a brilliantly white moustache covering his upper lip. He reminds me of a man I used to know many years ago.

Mr. Olson was the father of my best friend in high school, a man who rarely spoke, but who carried an assortment of faces. Some nights he would be inviting, offering Jon and I slugs from his favorite bottle of whisky. Other nights he would be withdrawn, silently pondering something inside while watching World War II documentaries on television. He'd offer me no hand; no glance of recognition, but his pipe would be churning out steam, like the locomotive of his mind.

I'd often sit with Jon on the family sofa and stare at his father. He was a powerful force in my life, yet I hardly knew him.

"How mucha need, son?"

I am old enough to be this man's brother.

"Whatever you can spare, sir."

A gust of frigid air comes hurtling at us, a force powerful enough to rob the wind from your lungs. My teeth chatter and he hands me a dollar.

"You take this now, and you use this later." Folded up with the dollar bill, he has given me his business card. He extends his hand, we shake, and the bald man whistles as he walks away.

I pocket the dollar and examine the card. His name is Jon Olson and he looks just like his dad.