The old man in the ragged knit hat stands by his pushcart at the entrance to the park and stares straight ahead. In his cart is a metal stand of the type used to display jewelry, and clipped to the stand are several dozen small ziplock bags. They are all empty. The plastic of the bags is cloudy, as if they have been handled many times, by people who had to take a closer look, convinced that there must be something inside, that no one really tries to sell bags full of nothing. Today nobody even takes a closer look; they slow down, appraise the cart, flick their heads in disbelief, and keep on walking. But you linger. You have more curiosity than most people, or maybe just less to do. You wonder if it’s some sort of performance art.
The old man manages to convey, without movement or eye contact, that he has noticed your interest and might allow himself to be drawn into conversation should you care to make the effort, and so, thinking, what the heck, you walk over and handle one of the bags. It is indeed empty.
“So what’s this about?” you ask, with a disarming smile. “What’s supposed to be in these bags?”
“Forever,” says the old man– the way a sandwich vendor might say, “Pastrami on rye.”
“Forever?” you echo, in tones of, “with mustard?” to show that you can play along.
The old man looks impatient. “You buy one of them,” he says, “you live forever.”
You laugh. “Tell me more.”
The old man shrugs. “Ain’t no more. You buy one, you live forever. That’s it.”
“Really?” you ask him. “Eternity, available here? Immortality, now in stock? Infinity, new and improved?”
“No,” says the old man. “Just forever.”
And you see him a little better this time, and you think how old he really does look, not so much aged as worn, as if he is slowly eroding and will eventually, like the Sphinx, have no real form and only a semblance of a face. There is nothing he gives the impression of more than dust; not grime, not street dirt, but the kind of dust that layers thickly upon things set aside and forgotten.
“It’s a bargain at the price,” he says, in a voice that doesn’t really believe itself but still hopes someone else might.
And there is absolutely no reason why you can’t buy one of the bags, take it home, open it up, shake it out, stick your fingers inside and wiggle them around, absolutely no reason at all, because he’s just a crazy old man who’s found a clever way to beg, a case of unmedicated something, surely, but nothing that ought to concern you. But when you drop a five and some change on the cart, and the man goes to unclip one of the bags, you back up with your hands in front of you: “No, no, that’s ok,” and he doesn’t insist. Neither does he seem surprised. You start walking again, rather quickly, like you have something you really have to do, and when you glance back, from a block away, the old man has returned to his original position, staring and disengaged, as if he could stand there forever.
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