Throw Your Voice

I was walking up Banbury Road on the opposite side of the pavement from a guy sitting cross-legged against the stone wall. I’m moving quickly with a cigarette hanging from out of my mouth.

“Can you spare any change?”

I stop. It’s apparent to me that it takes something to willingly throw your voice across the pavement to ask for change. There’s a honest nakedness to it. He’s put himself out there in the arena, despite my distance. Teddy Roosevelt would have been proud. I look up, realizing I was walking with my head down in the first place. I turn to him. He’s looking at me with his good left eye. His right one is askew. He’s got on a knit cap on that his hair pushes out from rebelliously in thickets around his ears and the back of his neck.

“Yeah I do.” I play pot-luck with my back pocket. I’m not sure if it’s his lucky day or mine, but I come out with a pound in my hand. When I hand it to him he’s pulled both eyes forward to look at me. I think about asking him if he wants to chat with me. But he looks tired, and I am tired, and this is enough of an answer for both of us.