Wishbone

For Brian

It was a bright sunny morning in San Diego and the day held a mysterious promise, like a surprise wrapped in a clenched hand begging me to unlock it finger by finger. I had just eaten the richest omelette ever imaginable paired with the sweetest blueberry pancakes and I was in the middle of a kiss more nourishing than sustenance, when I heard a voice.
"Forgive me for interrupting you", the voice said. "Could you spare some money to buy me something to eat?"

The voice belonged to a man who looked like a messiah of sorts: longish-hair, dark-complexion, haggard body clad in baggy black garments. A man who, as it turned out later, went by the name of Chris. Was there an extra "t" at the end of this name that remained silent? One couldn't help but wonder.

Something about hIs humble approach made his ask remarkably audible. I didn't have any cash on me and there was no supermarket around us, so I turned my back on Chris and started walking towards my hotel. Yet the stranger's ask was gaining more and more volume in my head. It didn't make sense for someone to be hungry on a bright sunny morning in San Diego. I changed direction and returned to Chris. 
"Let's walk to the supermarket", I smiled at him. "I'll buy you food."
"There's a 7-11 two blocks up", he said with unconcealed joy.

I knew that giving and receiving was not as simple and unconditional as it looked on paper, so the cynic in me prepared himself for additional requests, bigger asks, guilt trips. None of these materialised and the cynic's squeaky voice was silenced straight away. 

Chris and I conversed about his birth state Mississippi, Mark Twain, Jack London and the narrative technique in "Uncle Tom's cabin". And just when I was about to throw Hawthorne in the mix, he reached into his pocket and produced a quaint object. A chicken bone...could it be? Indeed, Chris held a dry forked bone in his soot-stained hand. 
"Why do you carry a wishbone with you?", I asked. 
"It's a good-luck charm", he mumbled.
"Do you want to pull on it? If you win, you can make a wish."
"I don't dare", he answered. "I wish that one day I'll have the courage to make a wish."
"And...what is your wish?"
"I wish for my daughter back in Mississippi to go to University."
I felt powerless. That was a wish I couldn't grant. 

At the 7-11, his ask was far from big. Three protein bars and a drink was all he wanted. 
"And how about a place to sleep tonight?", I asked.
"The cheapest one is 18 bucks". Chris shrugged helplessly. 
Right! I saw an opportunity. A tiny flicker of an opportunity to make a messiah who'd lost the will to wish a little happier.
I marched to the supermarket cash machine but it grimaced at me as if to say: "I got the money. Now work for it"
And work I did. After a fierce game of give and take which included multiple false dispensations, calling fraud alert numbers that promised me a mortgage, free cable tv and an a-list online selection of singles, I got hold of the coveted 20 bucks. And so did Chris. 

"Here you are, my friend". I handed him the 20-dollar bill and the protein bars,  shook his hand hastily and hurried back to my hotel.
I wished I could do more. I wished I could erase the soot off his hands and paint his world bright and sunny. Like the morning in San Diego. Yet the only thing I could do was encourage him to break the forked bone in his pocket and dare to make a wish. 

I could hear his footsteps behind me and then his voice, this time more familiar, called me again.
"Hey dude...thanks for coming back. That was pretty awesome."

With this pretty awesome blessing, I ran into the bright sunlight, beaming. Back to my world, back to the kiss which was more nourishing than sustenance and was about to taste even sweeter. In less than 15 minutes, I had become rich. Rich with the fulfilment of the day's (no longer mysterious) promise. 

Comments

  1. Beautiful. Tears here. You really are the human form of a hug.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Banya

London

Busy day (somehow)