Twenty-Seven Cents

Part 2

Emilio Morales could not sleep. He seldom got more than three hours a night, as most times he would spend the wee hours of the morning, watching the changing Manhattan skyline. The beaming towers of the World Trade Centre had only recently become New York's show piece.

He fumbled his way down the narrow steps, a hurriedly rolled blanket stuffed under his arm. His wife had been too slow to react, and her frustrated grunt echoed behind him.

"That blanket was a gift from my mother!" she yelled at him in her thick Italian accent.

He didn't respond. It would be an exercise in futility to argue with her. He felt a slight twinge of guilt for yanking the blanket off his wife at three in the morning. The Fall of seventy-nine was already promising a harsh winter. She would get up and fetch another blanket from the closet.

He walked across to the dimly lit park bench just opposite his coffee shop, and quietly covered the young man that had finally fallen asleep. For the last three nights, Emilio had watched him return to the park after everyone had cleared off, and made the weather-beaten bench his bed, and his duffle bag his pillow. The weather had been kind to him all that time, but he would have had no way of knowing the temperatures were dropping overnight. He made his way back to his apartment above the coffee shop. His wife was still staring out the window, grieving for her blanket.

"You could've said something Milo." The frost from her breath blurring the scene on the park bench.

"Come back to bed Linnie. We gotta be up in a couple hours."

The next morning the young man was the first customer in the coffee shop. He wore a red summer jacket, a blue scarf, and a worn New York Yankees baseball cap. His jeans were a bit washed-out, but his shoes were well polished. There was a purpose in his stride, as he placed the neatly folded blanket on the counter.

"Thank you very much sir." His accent was thick; he was from the islands.

"Thought you could use it. The weatherman said it was gonna be a cold one. You need a coffee?" He'd just brewed a fresh pot.

"I only have twenty-seven cents. Maybe tomorrow." His tone was lighthearted, and he spoke in the singsong cadence that islanders always did.

"Twenty-seven cents it is. Where you from son?" he started to pour a cup.

There was a moment of hesitation from the man across the counter, but his eyes betrayed his hunger and his pride. Emilio had watched his customer walk around the greens picking up idle pennies and loose change. Last night he hadn't found any.

"I'm from Canada sir." It was no Canadian accent.

He blew the steam from the coffee, causing little ripples across the top. Tepidly he sipped the liquid fire.

"You Canadians sure talk funny." Emilio winked.

His patron rocked nervously on his heels. Sipping more boldly now as his body was beginning to warm up.

"I best be on my way. Thank you for the coffee and the blanket sir."

"Don't mention it buddy. Folks 'round here call me Milo." He extended his hand to the young man.

"I don't know anyone around here, but you can call me Ray."

"Have a good one Ray." He watched him walk out into the cold November air with his hands clasped around the cup of coffee. The neatly folded blanket still on the counter.

The next few days as they became more acquainted; Emilio with the accent, and Ray with the very talkative Emilio, a routine and an inevitable friendship developed. It turned out Ray was really from the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. A chance encounter with a childhood friend at the coffee shop had revealed that secret. Emilio learnt that Ray had come to the US with nothing but the clothes on his back and twenty dollars in his pocket. The night he had given him the blanket on the park bench, was the third night he had slept on the streets since he had arrived from Canada. He was looking for his uncle, but as luck would have it, he was out of town for a few days, and Ray had nowhere to go until then. Not once had Ray contemplated returning home; he had no money and too much pride ensured that he would struggle through until the God's of fate decided to smile on him.