Pay it forward

It was the "pay it forward" that caught my attention and made me start listening more intentionally to their conversation.

"Yeah, you know, 'pay it forward,' " he repeated to his friend, as though it were the most natural of human impulses that surely everyone must understand and practice in some way.

His friend -- every Saturday they meet to talk about everything and anything, at the coffee shop where I like to write my sermons -- seemed at a loss for words.  Either because he didn't get the concept, or because he couldn't believe his friend would actually do such a thing.

"Yeah.  You remember that time I put up my house to post bail for that kid?  The one who was picked up and charged.  His mom contacted me to see if I could help.  He didn't do it, and we knew it.  I believed her.  So I used my house to put up $100,000 for bail so he could stay out and keep his job while it got sorted out."

"And what happened?"  I was glad his friend asked the question that I didn't feel free to, sitting at the next table over and just kind of listening in.

"The charges were dropped.  He didn't do it.  And he got on with his life.  And he's done well."  And then a few seconds later, "And you know ... he never thanked me for it.  Or the lawyer who helped him."

Spell-bound until that moment by the wonder of his friend's risky generosity, the second man almost thankfully now had something comfortable to say.  "That's pretty low class!" he offered.  Pause.  "Really low class!" he repeated.  "Some people in this world just don't know how to act."  He was clearly glad to be back on familiar territory, back from that strange world where his friend's story about paying it forward had taken him. 

His friend didn't follow him back there, though.  Just quietly said, "I felt good.  It felt good.  I was glad the way it turned out okay for him."

Silence.  

And then from the second man, a quiet "You're a good man."  Guarded, but not grudging.  "I don't know if I could do that."

Pause.  Then a quiet, accepting, non-judgemental repeat of the three words, "Pay it forward" from the first man, before the two of them got up to say goodbye and move on to other, separate appointments for the day.  A warm hug, and they moved from their corner table back into the heart of the shop on their way to the front door and the street.

No more than a half-minute later one of the shop staff came to wipe their table, and noticed a leather satchel left behind on the floor tucked between the wall and the leg of the chair where the "Pay it forward" man had been sitting.  The kid picked it up, and it was clear he had no idea who had been sitting there.

I told him it was the two elderly black men.  That that chair was where the bigger of the two had been sitting.  

He knew immediately who I meant.  They were regulars.  He ran off to see if he could still catch them.

And maybe ten seconds later, from my table inside the front window, I saw the "pay it forward" man walking out the front door, out into the neighbourhood, across the street towards where his car was parked.  

With his leather satchel restored to him, carried nonchalantly under his left arm.