Change to Spare

“Can you spare some change?” The “s’s” whistled between the few teeth the man had. His hair was stringy, long, and seemed to dangle lifelessly from the sides of his head in a vain attempt to get back to the top of it. His skin was tanned, blackened at his heavily calloused fingertips, and hung loosely from his delicate frame; almost as loosely as the shirt he wore which was frayed on the ends of the sleeves and neckline. No one knew his name. No one bothered to learn. He had been at that corner for so long that he was considered more a part of that street than the sidewalk he stood upon.

“Sir,” he was always polite, never insistent, “Some change please?”

“What?” Marcus Lyme wasn’t familiar with this part of town but found himself on his way to the movie theater to escape a reality that, much to his chagrin, refuses to oblige to his very limited expectations. “What did you say?”

“Could you spare some change, please?”

“Why?”

“I’m just--”

“No! You know what? You’re what’s wrong with this country today! Why don’t you go out and get a job, make something of yourself! Not this!” Lyme felt he was winning this one-man screaming match. “Don’t do this! Not here! We don’t need you leaching off our hard earned money! This is mine and I intend to enjoy what I worked very hard for! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!”

Lyme crossed the street as if he had just won the argument of the century. His head was held high and he thought himself a genius, a hero to the local working man. There was an odd sense of pride as he felt heads turned towards him and he almost wished that his girlfriend had been there to witness such a momentous occasion. Instead, he went to the theater to watch a movie as originally planned but the thought of saving that corner from the perils of a panhandler occupied his mind the entire time. It didn’t help his ego when he found that the old man had left that particular street corner. In his place, Lyme found a single penny.

“This belongs in the pocket of a real working man,” Lyme said to himself as he picked it up. But as he lifted the brass colored coin off of the ground he noticed his hands were dirtier than he remembered. Dirt was caked onto his fingernails which were also rougher than they should have been. His back ached from bending over but he had never had trouble with his back before. The clothes on his back were worn thin and very ill-fitted. And the smell was just unbearable. He ran to a window of the adjacent office building to look at his reflection. He still looked like Marcus Lyme but his skin was like dried leather.

“What the hell? How did this happen?” Marcus ran down the street and into a restaurant.

“No! Restrooms are for paying customers only! Get out!” The restaurant manager yelled.

“I just have to--”

“You just have to get out of here!”

“You don’t understand!”

“Out!”

“Just let me use the phone!”

“OUT! Before I call the police!”

Lyme rushed outside and was tempted to curse out the manager through the closing door of the restaurant until he spotted the phone booth around the corner. He reached into his pocket and realized that his wallet was no longer there. Frantically he stuck his hands in all his pockets and only found some lint and the penny he so carelessly picked up off the ground just a few moments ago. He picked up the receiver and hung up hoping to dislodge the last coin put into the phone. Lyme desperately looked for a coin to fall out of the coin return slot but came up empty.

“Maybe if I call collect,” he thought to himself. “No, she’d never accept the charges. I need to find me some change. I can’t even afford a bus ride home.”

He looked in the gutters and the alleyways and even hoped to find some nearby some old parking meters but Lyme couldn’t a single coin. He made several attempts to use the phone of other nearby restaurants and retail shops but he was always met with the same answer. There was only one thing he could do.

“Spare some change?” he said quietly. The first passerby could barely hear him. “Sir? Madam? If you could spare some change.” The couple just looked away and shook their heads.

“This is ridiculous.” Lyme said to himself. He continued for about an hour before asking for change became an automatic response to anyone walking near him. Only one man who was dressed in a nice suit stopped for him.

“Change, sir?” Lyme looked up and saw a familiar face staring back at him. His mouth was full of teeth and his skin softened without the years of turmoil on the streets but Marcus recognized that face instantly. The man reached into his designer coat but Lyme grabbed his arm. “What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!”

Frightened, the man in the suit stepped back and a police officer on bike patrol stepped in to interfere.

“Is everything okay here?” the officer asked.

“Damn it!” Lyme said under his breath.

“Everything is fine. There was just a misunderstanding.” The officer gave Lyme a suspicious look before pedaling away. The man in the suit pulled out a few one dollar bills and handed them to Lyme.

“I don’t understand,” Lyme said.

“What don’t you understand?” the man replied, “You need spare change and I’m giving you money I can spare.”

“No, I mean all this. How am I begging on a street corner and you’re living the high life? We switched!  I know we did!”

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You were the panhandler asking for change! I picked up—Of course! This penny! It has to be this penny! Here, take it!”

“That’s very gracious of you but I think you need that money much more than I do.”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s magic or something. I picked this up and we switched places.” Lyme took the man’s hand and placed the penny in the man’s palm. Lyme then curled the man’s finger into a fist and let go anticipating… well, he didn’t know what to expect. But nothing happened. The man stood there, amusing Lyme, but offered the penny back to Lyme. “No, that’s ok. That penny’s brought me nothing but trouble today. But don’t keep it! Spend it, throw it in the trash, but just don’t keep it. There’s no telling what will happen if you do.”

“Suit yourself,” the old man responded as he put it into his jacket pocket. “You take care of yourself. I hear it’s going to be freezing tonight. Please, take this money”

“Yeah,” Lyme responded as he took the few bills the man could spare.

A bus hissed across the street as it braked to a bus stop and Lyme realized he could take that bus home eventually. It would take much longer than usual but at least he had the money to get on. Lyme ran across the street and jumped into the bus before the doors swung shut behind him. He handed the money over to the bus driver and walked directly to the seats in the back. His seat rumbled as he leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes so gradually that he didn’t noticed that he had fallen asleep.

When he woke up, the credits just finished rolling on the large screen. The theater was empty and the ushers were preparing to enter and clean up the bits of candy and popcorn on the floor. Marcus Lyme rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and walked out of the theater. He headed towards the corner in the hopes of running into that old man asking for change but no one was there, but a lonely penny on the sidewalk. Marcus never ran into that old man again and wondered if that dream was a dream at all whenever he passed that corner. Whether or not it was just a dream, Marcus was given a rare opportunity to walk in the tattered shoes of one less fortunate than he and the result is a little change in his perspective along with some to spare in his pocket.