Today, I made ten dollars. I sold an old board game to a man that drove a black Jetta. He texted me when he was outside. There was no one there. I called him. He told me to look for a black Jetta. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t close. It wasn’t even in the right city. I had given him directions to my cross street, not my house.
He had arrived at an intersection in the next town over. My cross street does not exist there. I don’t know how he ended up there. The map only shows one location when searching for the cross streets I had given him. I was standing there. He was not. It was strange, and kind of annoying, but he chuckled and apologized and said he would be there in twenty minutes, if I could wait.
There was another man on the corner dealing with bicycle issues. After hanging up, I approached him. Asked what happened. He told me his bike’s derailleur arm had broken. He was removing a length of chain to make it a rideable single-speed. I noticed he was using wire cutters to snip the chain. I asked if he had a chain-breaker. He told me he did not. I asked if he needed any help. He told me he did not. I wished him the best of luck.
Soon after, the man for the game messaged me again. Told me he was outside, perhaps. He was outside, for real, this time. He was more excited about this board game than I would expect. He told me it was no longer being made, that there is a similar version, but it’s not as good, and that for about a decade, he had been searching for it in whatever city he would visit. I told him it had been living with me for about a decade, mostly collecting dust. I told him it had all the pieces, except the die. He told me that was fine. That he was only interested in playing it, not reselling it. I gave him the game. He gave me the money. We went our separate ways.
After the exchange, curiosity convinced me to search for the game online. To see how difficult it is to find. It must have been rare. It was selling for ten times as much as I asked for. Twenty times, if new. The black Jetta was still outside. I imagined the guy in the Jetta looking through the contents of the box, making sure all the pieces were there.
I looked at prices for other games I was selling; nothing special. I chided myself for not being more diligent about what I had. Gave myself mental-lashes to remember to check for next time. Checked if the black Jetta was still there. Then resigned to the fact that in the end, that’s how things work, and the game was moving on to a better life than with me.
After some time, I heard a knock on the door. Rarely, do I receive knocks on my door, so I wondered what could be wrong. To my knowledge, there wasn’t anything missing or wrong with the game. But there was something wrong with my assumption. It wasn’t the man with the Jetta. It was the man with the bike.
He asked if I was the same person that had offered him help earlier. I told him, I was. He asked if I had a chain-breaker after all. I told him, I did not. But I had other tools he was welcome to, one of which, he said, would do.
His hands were as familiar with tools as they were with ink, callouses, and dirt. I watched silently until curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about his past, pointing out that he clearly knew what he was doing. I wanted to ask about his tattoos as well, but that would have been too much.
He told me that he’d recently cut wood in Vancouver. That he’d built some shelving for a shop, but that job was pretty much over with. That he used to have a car that he would work on, but now he only had the bicycle. He told me things were pretty rough these days. That not a lot of people need his kind of work. He looked to me like he was in his late twenties or early thirties.
Having felt the weight of hard time and no work on my own shoulders, I tried to commiserate, but the words fell flat somewhere between the disparity of our current circumstances. Silence filled the gap as I thought about the current state of the world, my past, and how easily things could have found our roles reversed. I’ve been out of work. I’ve gone without food. I’ve lived in my car and on couches. Hard times and I have met a few times before, but never as intimately as I suspect this man has.
When the bike was fixed and the conversation over, I offered him my hand and my name. He took both and returned in kind. Then, he offered me his wire cutters. I refused, seeing as they were the only tool he had in his backpack. He insisted. Told me they’re the kind that bike shops like to use. So I accepted, said goodbye, and went inside.
I stood there, reflecting on the events of the morning. On the two men I had just met, and the self I am still getting to know. The thought crossed my mind, that if I was a better person, I would have given the money for the game in exchange for the wire cutters. That the money would surely have found his pocket to be a better home than my wallet. By the time I looked outside, the man with the bike had left to somewhere I did not know.
After enough time had passed for the man in the black Jetta to get home, I received a message. “Thanks man.” I wanted to comment on the game’s rarity. I wanted to ask about his search coming to a close. I wanted to mention what a good deal he got. “Sure thing. Hope you enjoy it.”
I’m glad the game found a better place to live. I’m sad the money did not.
Today, I made ten dollars and one person happy, but perhaps I could have made more…
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