It wasn't much to ask was it? It wasn't like he wanted a house or a trip to Hawaii which he had always dreamed of. He'd given up on all that years ago. He wasn't long for this world and he knew it. The doctor always said you are taking your meds? and he always said yes even though he hadn't had the money to pay for a prescription in years. His neighbor gave him some herb stuff he drank every morning. Rue and dandelion root. Not bad.
He was a plumber by trade and a good one too. For fifty years he'd been a plumber. Unbonded. Unlicensed. Cash on the barrel head. And not a complaint about his work. Nothing to bring the county down on him. Not much of a Social Security history though. Now he was seventy four and his vision was about gone. He struggled along with drug store glasses, and he found some 4X glasses from China for $2.00 the pair at a sidewalk sale and he bought three pair and they were his salvation, but now even those were not enough. What he needed, what he really needed was some prescription bifocals with the lenses reversed so the close work lenses were at the top. Think about it, he'd say, when you're under a sink or in some other close place and you have to see up but you can't move your head you got to focus up and I can't see nothing up there, not good enough to work.
Not much to ask.
There were other problems of course. His arthritis, his emphysema, his heart. People didn't call him anymore.
He thought he could keep on working at least a little if he could maybe switch the lenses on a pair of bifocals - just turn them over in the frames - but he would have to find some bifocals and there weren't any at Goodwill.
When he got a call from an old customer to come and fix a toilet that wouldn't stop running he thought he'd do it. Took his best Chinese 4X pair and got on the bus with his few tools.
Well there were more problems with that toilet than the customer let on. Took him all morning. He was just finishing up, down there on the floor by the shut off valve, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Building inspectors.
``I been railroaded,'' he said.
They busted him for everything they could think of. No business license was what they kept harping on.
At home at the kitchen table he went over the papers they had given him and he cursed out loud in two languages and as the German of his childhood came out of his mouth the voice of his long dead wife returned to him.
``You won't need them funny glasses you was always talking about now. Just give up. Just give up. You worked long enough. Time to rest.''
The weight of his life lifted off his shoulders. Time to give up the fight.
``I believe you're right, old woman, its time to give up,'' he said.