Winning Short Stories

The Pawn Shop won 5th place in the National Writer's Association Short Story Contest, 2006

The Pawn Shop
By Kelly Hayes


In a small, red-brick, ordinary-looking building squished between two ominous, official limestone towers, Mr. Garrity owned a pawn shop. As ordinary as the little shop looked, Mr. Garrity did not sell ordinary pawn shop items. He bought and sold one item in various shapes, sizes, and makes. No matter what the condition, Mr. Garrity found there was a buyer for everything, and sellers of all kinds as well; a buyer for the broken, a seller for the brand new. Mr. Garrity sold the things of life.
At 8:00 sharp every morning, except Sundays, Mr. Garrity opened the red wooden door of his little shop, and jangled the bells over the door with his hand. Unlike other shops, this one had an audible life of its own-it pulsed with it. Some said you could set your watch by it. He checked that everything was in place, just as he’d left it the night before. There was a garage-style clutter to his displays, stuff that seemed to amass like algae on a warm pond. Mr. Garrity straightened a cluttered shelf here, blew dust off of the trophy case there, and headed to his counter.
To begin his day, Mr. Garrity polished his magnifying glasses and then put them away in his paisley vest pocket. He unlocked the register, retrieved the money from the safe, and opened his book of transactions. He sharpened his pencil, then sat on the stool, unfolded his daily paper, and waited.
The bells on the door soon jangled in the grey hair of a man just removing his hat. The brim knew well the course of his fingers as it turned again and again in the man’s hands. The grey-haired man began to walk among the shelves, peering into cases, grazing over tables, all the while inching to Mr. Garrity’s counter with his eyes and spinning hat.
“Can I help you, sir?”
The grey-haired man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown bag.
“I, um…I…I want to know…know if, what I can get for this?” He gently put the bag on the counter. Mr. Garrity peered inside the brown paper.
“It looks a bit dirty to me.”
“Oh, well, um,y-yes, but a little bit of polish could fix that right up, don’t you think?” The hat was spun in his fingers. Mr. Garrity looked him over, put on his magnifying glasses, and looked closely at the contents of the bag.
“Well, let’s see now…I guess I could give you twenty-five for this, or twenty-five off an exchange…if you find anything that interests you.” Now the protruding magnifying lenses were studying the man with grey hair. Mr. Garrity stuck his hands into his paisley vest pockets stretching over his paunch and watched the man work his way to a table, all the while stuttering out to Mr. Garrity.
“My, my wife had a gold chain for that one, you see,” he pointed to the brown bag. “You know the saying, distance makes the heart grow fonder.” He snorted. “They never really clarify, though, just who the heart is supposed to become fonder of.” The man with the grey hair let out a little titter, punctuated by another snort. “So…um…well I don’t need that chain anymore, you see…um, w- what about this one?” The man pointed to a table and Mr. Garrity leaned up on his toes, hands on the counter to see at what the grey-haired man was pointing. “Ah, yes. That used to be an athlete’s. Young man was a runner, good one too.” Mr. Garrity massaged the scalp behind his ear. “But he met a girl and got a new one, couldn’t use that one anymore. It’s still in good shape though, still ticks.”
The man looked it over, then picked it up, turning it in the one hand that was not still soothing the worried hat brim.
“How much?”
Mr. Garrity thought a minute. “Oh, I’d say sixty-five. That’d make forty for you…if you want it.”
The man with the grey hair looked at it one more time and stepped up to Mr. Garrity’s counter. He put his hat on the glass top and dug for his wallet. The cash exchanged, the register rang, and Mr. Garrity held up the empty brown paper bag. “You want a bag?”
The man shook his head and reached underneath his coat, slipping his new purchase into his left shirt pocket.
“Thank you, sir. I guess you’ll put my old one up there on the shelf.”
Mr. Garrity nodded. The grey-haired man looked morosely at the shelves, then picked up his hat and walked out through the jangling bells, fingers quiet as he fixed the brim around his head.
Mr. Garrity took off the magnifying glasses and replaced the empty spot of the man’s purchase with the one he had exchanged. Someone would want that one too.
The bells jangled again just grazing the dyed hairdo of an older woman. Like the other man, her hair could have been grey, but her fingers were resting easy on the edges of her heavily beaded, bulging pocketbook. She rustled in fur up to Mr. Garrity’s counter, not daring or stopping to look around at the rest of the merchandise.
At the counter, in front of Mr.Garrity with his magnifying eyes back in place, her demeanor melted just a bit. She extended the glittering pocketbook slowly, paused,
then carried on. Mr.Garrity clicked open the gold clasps and the magnifying lenses peered in.
“This looks like it’s still got quite a few good years left in it.”
She swallowed and patted her false brown hair.
“My son doesn’t want it anymore.” She looked straight into the lenses leaping two inches from his face.
“Well, I’d say it’s worth forty. Would you like to look around,” he gestured to the rest of the store, “maybe exchange it?”
“No thank you.” She didn’t turn her head. “I don’t want to be heartless, but, I don’t need another one.”
The register rang and the woman looked at the two twenties in her hand. She blinked up at Mr. Garrity, then folded them into her much flatter, beaded pocketbook, and rustled out through the bells.
Mr. Garrity smoothed down his paisley vest and likewise, his white mustache, still with the magnifying eyeballs slung over his ears.
Hours ticked on. Just before closing, the bells jangled over the bright blue eyes of a young man. He carried a small white box in one hand, the other dug into his pants pocket. He blue-eyed the tables, counters, and shelves with the air of a man heading into a hopeless battle.
He picked something off a shelf and brought it up to the counter and Mr. Garrity’s tall magnifying eyes. “I want to exchange this, if I can sir.”
Mr. Garrity opened the white box. “Son, this one is perfectly fine, and the one you’ve picked is broken.”
“I know,” said the blue eyes, “but I need a broken one to be a good writer.” The blue eyes began to fill up with more blue, “and I want to be a good writer.”
“Hogwash,” Mr. Garrity said, but the young man looked sadly determined. “All right then,” sighed Mr. Garrity, and the register rang. “Here’s fifty dollars, the difference.”
The man with the blue eyes shoved the wad into his pocket, keeping his eyes on his new purchase. “Thanks.” He turned and shuffled to the door. The blue eyes did not see the bells that called out his going, and he didn’t hear Mr. Garrity’s “good luck.”
Mr. Garrity pulled out his pocket watch and seeing that it was five minutes of five, removed the magnifying glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The store was as straight as he’d found it that morning, so he clanged open the register one more time, and counted the money. He jotted in the inventory book next to the register what transactions had taken place, what was lost or gained. And finally, he slipped his chubby arms into the sleeves of his coat, squashed his thinning hair under his hat, and jangled the bells with his hand as he left.
He turned, locked the door, and glanced up at the sign of his store with the large wooden figures of magnifying glasses over a simple red heart and red words: A Change of Heart.