Pennies

A young Navajo man sits outside the most popular breakfast place in town. Niyol sits cross-legged most mornings as I walk my boys to school, sits with the same ripped jeans, the same black sweatshirt that speaks of a thousand nights near the river. Sometimes I raid my penny jar and give him a small handful. My penny jar sits nearly empty, reflects the morning sun off its thick layer of coins, reminds me my days are spent collecting these bits of copper, a hundred makes a dollar, five thousand makes a good day selling Avon. He begs for his pennies. I beg for mine. No difference between us.

I passed Niyol the morning after first frost. I didn't have pennies to share. I gave my last change to the checkout clerk at Wal-Mart, the one with hands skinny as death. She folded her arms and stared as I counted out six hundred thirty-five faces of Lincoln, handed them to her as I dropped five remaining cents in my back pocket.

"Why do I always get the ones with pennies?"

She spoke to the register as if I didn't exist. Time dropped her constant tug of invisible rope, and I stood a moment, a minute, all the linear vibrations of a century, my eyes dark and expressive, eyes of a homeless Navajo man, eyes of a thin-armed cashier, eyes on the consumer shuffle of those only slightly more content.

I saw Niyol as I crossed the street. I walked near the curb, left deliberate cowboy boot prints in the frost.

"Sorry, no pennies today, but here, have some Avon," I said, my hips near his head. I grabbed a few hand cream samples from my purse, let them float into his cup, and he reached out an arm and grabbed my moving leg just above my boot.

"Don't get lost!"

Niyol's voice cut the cold. I let him hold my leg. Sharp fingernails pressed through my tights. I felt them snag, rip. I towered over him, my leg frozen in place.

"I'm not lost. Not much, anyway. I hope you don't get lost, too."

His hand eased, and I shook my leg free. I reached back into my purse and grabbed all my samples, left them at his feet, some kind of guilt offering to a sweatshirt street buddha.

"Don't get lost!"

Niyol yelled as I passed the old pharmacy.

His name means Navajo wind, means change, means nothing because he's too poor. Selling Avon allows me to pass through a doorway carved far from comfort, allows me to erase concepts, projections, allows me to get lost, get lost.

I turned my head to see him once more as my feet turned the corner. He held an Avon sample up to his eyes, as if it were a holy monocle, an aperture to a land of pennies.