The Beggars Deal

The beggars deal

"Penny for your thoughts, young man?"

I glanced down at the old man as he sat in the snow, his jeans getting crusty from the ice.

He held a grubby coin in his threadbare glove and his eyes looked up, imploring me to take it.

Homeless people weren't exactly rare in the city, and I was honestly tired of being asked for change today. I had been asked for change as I went to work that morning several times. I had been asked when I stepped out to have a smoke around ten that morning. I had been asked again as I went to lunch, and twice more as I returned. I had been asked for handouts throughout the day, but this was the first one who had offered to give me anything.

I reached down hesitantly, and when he moved it out of the way, I figured he would make his pitch now.

The coin would be rare.

The coin would be special.

He would want something for it and then I would be asked to give.

"Your thoughts first, son. An even trade, I'm sure."

I drew in a nose full of cold air, thinking about making something up before finally settling on the truth.

"Okay, you want to know what I was thinking about? I'll tell you. I pass people like you every day, people on the streets with nothing better to do than beg. Why not try to better yourself with all that time you have? Why not drag yourself out of your situation rather than sit and huddle in it? You have the ability to get out of your current quagmire, you choose not to, and that makes me angry."

I had expected the old man to get mad, I had expected him to get quiet and take his coin back, but he surprised me when he laughed.

"Is that what you think? That we're all just lazy bums out on the road with nothing better to do? I imagine you might change your mind if you had to do it yourself."

I scoffed, "Please. Living off the generosity of others? This is a city of thousands. Even if only one percent showed you charity, that's still likely more than I make in a week."

The old man smiled knowingly, and that should have been my first indication that something was amiss. Even then, I sensed that something didn't feel right here. This wasn't the usual kind of banter one had with a person, even someone like this guy, and it was starting to prickle the hair on the back of my neck. Why had I stopped to talk to this fellow at all?

This whole thing just felt odd.

"Wanna make a wager on that?" the old beggar asked

He still had the coin out, and when I got a good look at it, I could tell it wasn't what I thought it was.

It was filthy, but it had the underlying gleam of gold, unevenly milled, and thick on the edge he had showed me.

"Live for a week as I live, if you can. After seven days, if you're still alive, I'll grant you any wish your heart desires."

I shook my head, thinking the old man had to be crazy. What was he, some kind of genie? My mind flashed to the Beauty and the Beast story too, however. Hadn't the fairy come to him on a snowy night and made requests? If I declined his offer, what would the consequences be?

I shook my head, I was a grown man out here weighing fairy stories, what was wrong with me?

"Sure, old-timer. It's a deal. What do I need to do? Prick my finger? Promise you my firstborn?"

"Just take the coin," he said, holding it out, "but make sure you hang on to it. If you go the full week but lose your coin...well, I can't promise it will end well for you."

I rolled my eyes, reaching for it without thinking. I wasn't really afraid that it might magic. It was more likely to be coated in something like fentanyl or acid. I had gloves on, and I didn't expect that whatever he had coated it in could soak through my leather wraps. I lifted the coin to my eyes, looking at it in the dim light of the lamp post, and saw that it was bigger than I had thought it would be.

It was the size of a half dollar, one side picturing a proud king while the other had a grinning skeleton. The words percussum est dela were printed on the front with vivere vel damnari ab eo emblazoned on the back. I knew they were Latin words, but that was all I knew. The coin was old, some ancient edifice of commerce, and as I looked at it in the street lamp, it flashed in my eye with a sudden stab of pain.

The last thing I heard was the old man laughing and then I fell into darkness for some undeterminable time.

I was awoken not by my alarm, but by the less-than-kind tap of a stick on my foot.

"Hey, HEY, I've already told you that you can't sleep here. Pack it up before I call the cops."

I came groggily awake, aware of being cold and slightly damp before anything else. I put a hand up to my eyes, wondering what had been on that coin the old man had given me, and as my vision came into view, I saw a large man in an apron standing over me with a broom. He held it with the blunt end raised, prepared to swing if I made a sudden move. I put a hand out and told him there was some kind of mistake, but when I raised my hands I saw they were wrapped in the threadbare gloves that had been holding the coin. What's more, my clothes felt scratchy, like bugs had been crawling on me, and as I got up, the man with the broom tensed like he might take a swing.

"I'm serious. Get out of here before I call the cops."

I told him I was going and as I stumbled out of the alley I saw that it was early morning. There was still ice on the ground, steam coming up through the sewer vents, and people were milling up the sidewalk on their way to work or wherever. I must have looked a mess because they walked past me without a second glance. The man with the broom was watching me from the mouth of the alley I had been sleeping in, and made it pretty clear that if I didn't start moving again he was going to make good on his threats to call the police.

As I made my way down the street, I was already reaching for my cell phone. I'd call an Uber and get back to my apartment. I was unsurprised to find it was missing, as were my wallet and my house keys. No problem, they had no idea which apartment I lived in so the keys wouldn't do them any good. A car was something I never saw the need to own, so I had no vehicle to steal. The old man had gotten away with about eighty dollars from my wallet at the end of the day, and anything he took from my bank account would soon be returned.

I would go to my apartment and tell them I had been mugged and they would help me get into my place.

I hoped the old man had a good laugh about drugging and stripping me, leaving me in an alley dressed as a vag as he took my stuff. "Live a week like us" indeed. I'd be back in my apartment in a matter of minutes and then the police could show him what it was like to live as an inmate.

I was full of indignant rage as I passed in front of the big shop window not far from my house and caught sight of myself in the reflection. At first, I thought the old man was taunting me, following me to see what I would do once I woke up, but when I rounded on him to give him a piece of my mind, I realized I was looking at my own reflection. I was the old man, his leathery skin and short gray hair, and I just stood there touching my face with my hands as I tried to make sense of it.

"Live as we live for a week if you can."

I suddenly understood that there would be no going back to my apartment. There would be no talking to my banks or getting my phone replaced. I felt something heavy against my left butt cheek and reached into the back of my threadbare jeans to find the coin nestled there. I looked at both sides, the Emporer and the skull, and suddenly discovered I could read the words there.

"Thus the deal is struck," said the Emporer.

"Live or be damned by it," said the skull.

I wanted to fling it into the street, but I remembered what he had said and slipped it back into my pocket.

I had noticed something else that both sides had shared, the minting date was a week from now and that mirrored what the old man had said too.

"Live for a week as I live, if you can."

I nodded, how hard could it be?

That first day was probably my highest point. I was full of resolve as I walked around the city. I didn't have any luck with breakfast, but that was okay. I didn't see any need to beg, I would find money if I needed it. Besides, begging would just prove that he was right. I was going to do something with my week, start a new job, or find an honest way to make money.

So, I set out to find work.

One look at myself was enough to tell me I would be turned away from most upscale jobs. I needed a shave and a haircut badly, my clothes were old and stained, and I needed a bath worse than I needed a meal. All of these things were outside my grasp without money, but I knew where I might get some of them. I had heard of the Mission Shelters, everyone had seen their billboards or heard their commercials, and I knew they had clothes I could use and maybe facilities I could use to shower. If I could get myself back to rights, then I could secure employment and not have to beg. I would likely have to spend a night or two in the Mission, but I would have a job and money and I could get back on my feet before the week was out.

I came to the Mission around nine and was met at the door by a man with a clipboard.

"Good morning, sir. Are you checking in?"

"I was hoping to get some clothes for an interview, maybe a shower and some,"

"Terrific," the man said, cutting me off, "are you part of our employment program? You don't look familiar."

"Well, no, but I want to use the clothes to gain employment so I can,"

"Unfortunately, sir, those clothes are only for people in the employment program, and there is a sizable waiting list for that program. I can get you on that waiting list, but it's likely to be some time before we can,"

I started getting a little indignant, "I mean, the clothes are donated. As a taxpayer, those are my taxes at work. I'll bring them back, I just want to look good for an interview."

The man's well-crafted smile was beginning to slip, "Do you have an interview lined up, then?"

I realized my mistake and admitted I didn't.

"Well then, you have no reason to need these clothes. Now, if you would like to get on our program list, we can do that, but, again, that takes time."

I was a little put out, the process seeming a little daunting, and told him I would like a meal and a shower if I could.

"And I want you to have those things, but if this is your first time here then we need you to fill out some paperwork so we can get you in the system. If you'll step over here we can,"

"Do I need to register for a bowl of soup and a hot shower?" I asked.

I didn't mean to become belligerent, I was just put out by the rigamoro.

"Sir," the man said, "Have you been drinking? I believe I detect alcohol on your breath, and you're becoming quite upset. We can't allow you in if you're inebriated, and you have to be twenty-four hours sober before you can enter the Mission. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."

I said some things then, things I regret now, and I didn't even see the young bruiser who stepped between us as I got in the clipboard man's face.

When he tossed me onto the sidewalk, the man with the clipboard saying I wasn't welcome at the Mission again, I got creakily to my feet and checked to see if I was all there.

Other than some bruises, I was none the worse for wear.

I was still hopeful that I could make my way without them, and so I set off to find employment.

By the end of the first day, I was shivering on a bench in a park I had never been to before. The park was less for joggers and bird watchers and more for drunks and needlers. A pair of them were sharing a syringe near an old oak tree not far away as I tried to get warm under some newspapers I had scavenged. I tried to ignore my empty belly too as I lay with the cold wood beneath me. I hadn't eaten much today, just a part of a sandwich I had found in a garbage can, and I was feeling empty as I tried to sleep.

I told myself tomorrow would be better, and I fell asleep praying it would be so.

Just six more days to go.

The next day I woke up ravenous, my head spinning and my mouth dry.

It was early, first light, and I knew that if I wanted to eat today I needed to get some money.

As luck would have it, I found something not far from the park.

There was a warehouse nearby, and I heard men unloading a truck as they prepared to load up another. I offered to help, most of the workers looked like scabs, and the guy with the magazine and the cigar told me that he'd beat whatever I broke out of me and to get to work. I spent a few hours moving boxes from one truck to the other, and when the guy came out and told us we were done, he put a ten-dollar bill in my hand and told me thanks.

"Come back tomorrow if you want another one," he said.

I wanted to be happy as I looked at the crumpled bill, but I realized this wouldn't take me very far if I wasn't careful. I tried to make it last, buying coffee from a gas station along with some simple breakfast foods, but by noon it was spent. I had been walking the streets, trying to luck into more grunt work. I found another warehouse offering under-the-table work, but as the sun went down and we all came to the office to get paid, it seemed the boss had left and we were left with no other options but to disperse or answer to the police.

I went back to the same park again that night, but the cold after the sun went down was too much to bear in the open.

I walked around trying to find somewhere to sleep out of the elements, and around two, I found a doorway that lacked the little rounded spikes they usually put down to dissuade the homeless from sleeping there.

As I shivered in the doorway, I told myself it would only be another five days.

As I slipped into thin sleep, I hoped I would be alive to see the end of those five days.

The next day, the third day, I finally gave in and began begging. The job I had found the day before wasn't open, the gates barred and the snow deep enough to keep the trucks off the road. I was hungry, I was cold, and I didn't dare go back to the Mission. So, I found the warmest spot I could find and began panhandling. The crowd that morning was small, the snow closing a lot of businesses, and they weren't overly generous. By the time noon rolled around, I had a few dollars and some change in the can I had managed to scoop out of a dumpster. It got me some junk that wasn't very filling, and I walked around looking for work as the snow began to melt. I was a little more weary about taking odd jobs, lest I get taken like the day before, and as night began to settle and people made their way home, I once again set up to beg.

I was dozing against a wall, feeling weak and tired from the cold, when someone cleared their throat loudly.

I opened my eyes to find two cops standing over me, both looking cold and grumpy.

"Move along, sir. You know you can't do that here."

He poked my can with his foot, sending it tipping over as the small amount of change rattled out.

"I'm not hurting anyone," I breathed out, "I'm just hungry."

"Doesn't matter. Hungry or not, you can't do that here. Get moving before we move you."

I wanted to get indignant, but I simply didn't have the energy. I scooped up the coins and started trudging through the snow again. I didn't know where I was going, but I remembered the old man's words and knew I would lose that precious coin if I got arrested. I wasn't even halfway through the week and I already felt like I might not make it to reap the rewards.

The next two days were a blur. I remember trying to donate plasma and being turned away for various reasons. I looked for work, but the snow had ground a lot of businesses to a halt. I found warm places that would feed me, churches and soup kitchens, but they weren't equipped to let people stay. I ended up sleeping rough both nights, shivering on stoops or under the slight cover of alleys, my blanket soaking up the snow as it melted beneath me.

It was the most miserable I had ever been, and it made me wonder where I had ever gotten the idea that the homeless in my city were lazy. Looking back on my words to the vagrant, words spoken out of ignorance, I felt a deep sense of shame as I remembered that night. He was just trying to survive, just trying to get a meal or somewhere that wasn't a chilly bench for the night, and all I had seen was a leech trying to get fat off the hard work of others.

As I lay beside a dumpster Friday night, watching people drink in the warm lights of a familiar bar, I knew I'd never make that mistake again.

Saturday dawned cold and stark, the snow melt making the ice thick on the sidewalk as the world came awake again.

I had some luck after helping the owner of the store I was sleeping beside clear the ice from in front of his shop. He patted my shoulder, giving me a plastic bag of sandwiches he was about to throw away. I marveled at them, counting about twelve of the plastic-wrapped squares, and he even threw in a large cup of coffee to go along with it. I tried to tell him it was too much, but he waved his hand and laughed.

"You're doing me a favor, really. Those sandwiches were going into the garbage before I almost busted my ass on the slick sidewalk. If you can get some use out of them, more power to ya. Take them with my thanks."

By ten I had eaten about five of them, the coffee was long gone, and I felt full for the first time in quite a while. It was something I had taken for granted, that feeling of being nearly too full, but as I sat in the park, my blanket keeping the worst of the snow from soaking into me, it felt good to be here again. I had refilled the coffee cup from a nearby fountain, and as I drank water and soaked up the sunshine, I felt pretty good about the direction I was going.

"Hey, friend," came an unfamiliar voice, and my eyes snapped open as I started to bolt.

It was a man in similar dress, his face a scraggle of many days of beard growth, and he was smiling through his remaining teeth at me. I could smell him between the ten feet that separated us, but it wasn't an altogether unpleasant smell. He simply smelled earthy as opposed to bad, stale in a way that made me think he was taking care of his clothes when he could, and the jackets he wore bulged tumerously, making me think he wore at least two.

"Whoa there, didn't mean to scare you. I was just wondering if I could trade you for one of those samitches? I've got some of the vitamin C packs from the free clinic. You could mix them with that water and get something nice to drink to go along with your full belly."

He was holding out a crumpled silver packet with the words Emergen C on the front and I nodded as I held out a ham and cheese for him. He smiled again, asking if he could sit as he tore into the sandwich with gusto. He had clearly not been eating well, and I realized that must have been the way I had torn into the one I'd eaten earlier.

"Names Carter, good to meet you, friend. Haven't seen you around, are you new to town?"

I told him I was since it wasn't technically a lie. He laughed and told me I had picked a heck of a time to come to town. It was the worst snowstorm they had seen in a long time, and the homeless guys were having a hell of a time keeping warm.

"Between the missions and their paperwork, the cops and their endless rage for guys just trying to get by, and the shopkeepers not wanting us in their alleys or stoops, it's getting hard to find a place to lay your head most nights."

A few others had wandered over to see who Carter was talking to, and they traded some food for sandwiches as well. I ended up giving away a few of them, and as the afternoon stretched on, they all decided to migrate somewhere to find warmth for the night.

I told them goodnight, meaning to find my own place to sleep, but Carter called my name before they left the park and asked if I was coming.

"There's always room for one more around the fire," he said

I spent that night sitting in an alley that in the middle of a four-way intersection of buildings. It cut the wind nightly, and someone had secured a tarp to keep the snow off us. The barrels here had coals burning in them, and the people who stayed here had created a kind of oasis in the swirling snow.

"It's not much," Carter said, "but it's better than nothing."

I spent the evening in the company of the other cast-offs, laughing and sharing food around as we warmed ourselves by the fires that glowed through the night. Someone had a guitar, others told stories, and I fell asleep against a wall in the best shape I had been in for the last five days. I wished I had known these people from the start, and wished I had found this place from the first day, but I was introspective enough to know that I would have insulted them when this strange journey began. This was a place I had to come to naturally, a state of mind I had to reach on my own, and as I slipped into blissful slumber, I hoped it wouldn't simply disappear when I woke up like some kind of dream.

I wish it had now.

The alternative was a lot worse.

I woke up to the sounds of people yelling and running. One of the barrels had been turned over, the coals making smoke as they tried to catch a sleeping bag on fire. People were screaming, scooping up what they could as people moved in the dancing shadows with purpose. I shivered beneath my blankets, certain we were getting attacked by demons, but as the shapes got closer, I saw they were police officers. They had discovered our camp, and now they were taking away our one refuge from the cold.

I sat as still as I could, trying to be still and unseen, and when they moved away, I made a break for the nearest alley. I saw flashing lights and heard someone yell at me, but I just kept kicking up snow as I ran for my life. The sun was turning the horizon into a hopeful pink, but I just kept moving. When people got in my way, I went around them. When bus stops or stoops rose up to block me, I moved around them too. I didn't dare stop until the sun beat down on my neck, and only then it was because I just couldn't go anymore.

My legs were tired, my head spinning from over-excursion, and when I flopped down onto a bench in a bus shell, I was out of breath.

I kept trying to make sense of what had happened, but it just wouldn't mesh in my brain. Why had they come after us? We weren't hurting anyone, we were just looking for a warm place to gather. They had come in like we were terrorists, and I hoped that Carter and some of my other friends had made it away.

I don't know how long I sat there, but as my stomach started to growl, I knew I would need food. I thought I might put my hat out and try to get some money. The longer I just sat there with my eyes closed, the more I wondered what the point was? The oasis now felt like a dirty trick. They had allowed me a moment of happiness so they could pull the rug out just as I thought I might have found something better. I almost preferred the uncertainty of not knowing what to expect, I thought, and as the day passed and I continued to sit on the cold metal bench. What was the point, after all? If everything could change in a second, if all safety was just an illusion, then why do anything?

"Enjoying your new life of leisure?"

I jumped, realizing someone had sat down beside me.

I opened my eyes and realized it was me. I looked exactly the same as I always did in the mirror, but I realized it had to be the old man pretending to be me. As I sat here, day had become night and, just like that, we had passed seven days. I had done it, I had weathered the storm, and I liked to hope I was a better person for it.

"Just basking in my newfound sense of understanding," I answered, realizing it was true.

I took the grubby coin from my pocket and held it in my hand, feeling a strange warmth coming from it as we sat in the chill.

"Well, you made it, and a deal is a deal. What will you wish for now that you have all this knowledge?"

I put the coinin his hand, feeling the warmth transfer between us.

"I want the means to make sure no one else has to live like this. I want to help people, even if it's just in this town. Is that too vague?"

He closed his hand around the coin, and I felt that warmth radiate through my stomach.

"I can work with that."

I opened my eyes and suddenly I was me again.

I was sitting there as if waiting for a bus, and when I got up, I knew what I had to do.

It was hard starting out, but the backers came and the money came and slowly I fed them.

Slowly, I brought them off the street and gave them a place to stay.

A decade ago, I took a coin from a beggar.

Today, I own one of the largest shelters in the city. There are no confusing forms, no prerequisites, and no red tape. We feed those who are hungry, we house those in need, and when I see the hope in their eyes, I know my wish has come true.