Down to the Last Dime

As I gazed into the reflecting glass this morning, I spied a face I almost failed to recognize—the countenance of a younger, more optimistic version of myself.

The sight summoned forth a memory that had lain hidden in the recesses of my mind like an old coin lost behind the cushions of a sofa. It was the day I earned my food handler certificate—a prestigious parchment that, in the right hands, meant access to the hallowed grills of McDonald’s on Fremont Street in Las Vegas.

Having conquered the rigorous examination of sanitary wisdom and burger-flipping acumen, I had an entire afternoon with nothing to do but squander it.

The valley wind blew sharp and cold, but it carried a kind of freedom in its bite. My VW Bug, a noble steed of dubious reliability, awaited me in the parking lot. I fed it the last ten-dollar bill from my wallet, an investment of faith that it might carry me somewhere worth going.

Three blocks east, I discovered the new aqueducts—a marvel of modern engineering, though a bit dry on spectacle. There, I perched upon a wall and watched as the dust devils frolicked in the basin below, each a miniature tempest, spinning and whirling like dervishes drunk on the desert air. It was a fine enough pastime, but I tired of it before long and returned to my chariot, which remained where it was left, indifferent to my comings and goings.

Sitting on the sidewalk with legs crossed and feet in the gutter, I felt as content as a prince surveying his dominion. That’s when my hand chanced upon a Roosevelt-headed dime minted in 1967. I turned it over in my fingers, the small coin glinting in the sun.

The year tugged at my memory–1967–when we moved into our new home and my sister was born. A fine year, as I recalled, unmarred by the complications of adulthood or the indignities of gainful employment.

Then came the epiphany: the dime, this Rooseveltian relic of the Johnson administration, was all I had money-wise. Nary a fund in the bank, no jangling coins in the car’s ashtray, no secret cache buried in a coffee can. Just this dime.

But if I’d expected despair to descend upon me like a hungry buzzard, I was sorely mistaken. Unlike that illustrious sage, Mark Twain, who once contemplated throwing himself off a wharf in San Francisco for want of a coin, I felt no such melancholy.

My circumstances were simple: I had completed my military service, severed ties with most of my family, and counted but a few friends. Yet, for all that, I felt richer than Croesus.

As I turned the coin over in my palm, admiring its luster and imagining the small miracles it might perform—a phone call, perhaps, or a fraction of a cup of coffee—a shadow fell across my reverie. A flatfoot, resplendent in municipal authority, stood before me.

“You can’t sit here,” he said, suggesting that sitting on sidewalks was a crime on par with horse thievery or jaywalking. “It’s loitering.”

I rose with an exaggerated courtesy, brushed off my trousers, and tipped an imaginary hat. “Apologies, Officer,” I said, tucking the dime into my pocket. “I was merely reflecting on the nature of wealth and the absurdity of human existence. But since that, too, appears to be prohibited, I’ll take my musings elsewhere.”

With that, I climbed into my trusty VW Bug and drove off with ten cents to my name and the world before me.