Changing Fortunes

Drifting off to asleep, Tony DeAngelo, 70, millionaire and widower, longed to be young again. It was his only desire.

Thirteen miles away, also drifting off to sleep, Dylan Madden, 20, single and scraping by as a dishwasher and busboy, longed for “the good life.” It was his only desire.

Both men fell into a deep sleep. A ghost appeared in their dreams.

“Who are you?” they said.

“A spirit from the beyond. I’m here to fulfill your deepest desire. Just tell me what it is.”

“To be young again,” said Tony.

“To be established and rich,” said Dylan.

“Very good,” said the spirit. “When you awaken, you will possess that which you most desire.”

Then the ghost faded away, and both men slept peacefully for the rest of the night.

But when they awoke, looking around, they were stunned. Tony didn’t recognize the bare walls of his small room, and Dylan’s spacious, well-appointed bedroom seemed like something out of a movie.

Each brought a hand to his face and felt strange skin over unfamiliar cheeks and jaws. Rattled, they hurried to their bathrooms and looked in their mirrors. They were shocked at the images before them. Tony could scarcely remember looking so young. Dylan had never imagined looking so old.

Then they remembered their dreams. The ghost was right, they thought.

“I’m young again,” Tony whispered, admiring his handsome face, full head of dark hair and athletic build.

“I’m so old,” Dylan muttered, horrified by his wrinkled skin, bald head and potbelly.

Even stranger than their appearance, though, was what they now knew. Each knew something about the other.

The now-young Tony knew, for example, Dylan lived in a run-down apartment in the inner city and worked in a nearby restaurant. The now-old Dylan knew Tony lived in a mansion in the most affluent part of town.

It was as if each man now had two lives but was inhabiting a new body.

So Tony now had to go to work as a dishwasher and busboy, and Dylan had nothing to do but survey his palatial home and count his money.

***

Tony descended the rickety, dimly lit stairs in his flophouse and pushed open the metal door. His body felt so strong and light.

He squinted in the bright morning light and instinctively turned to his left on the sidewalk.

In the street, cars honked and revved their engines. Someone yelled, “Hey, baby!” The pungent odor of urine wafted up from the cracked concrete.

A haggard-looking man holding a cardboard sign that said “Help” sat on the sidewalk, resting against the brick wall of a bar. Tony stopped and pulled out his wallet. He was a sucker for beggars.

In his wallet, he found a $5 bill. But he wasn’t sure how long that would have to last him, so he closed his wallet and said, “Sorry.”

Tony walked on for three blocks, until he saw a sign that read “Luigi’s.” This is where I work, he thought. He pulled open the heavy wooden door.

Inside, an old man wearing a white dress shirt, a thin black tie and black pants was standing at the pass-through kitchen window, saying something in Italian.

He looked over at Tony and said, “You’re late!”

“Sorry,” Tony said, guessing this was Luigi.

“Well, you’ll have to work fast. Rose left the dishes last night, and the tables need to be set.”

Luigi spoke with an Italian accent. He was small and thin with slicked-back white hair. He reminded Tony of his father.

“I’m on it,” Tony said, making his way through the tables to a swinging door at the rear of the room.

“Kids,” he heard Luigi say.

Guided by memory, Tony washed, rinsed and dried the dirty pots and pans, dishes, plates, bowls, glasses and silverware as fast as he could. Then he carried the pots and pans to the kitchen.

“Thank you,” said the elderly woman inside, smiling sweetly.

She too had an Italian accent.

Then Tony returned to the dish pit, draped a white linen cloth across a cart and gently placed dinnerware on top. He pushed the cart to the door and shoved it open with his backside.

“Easy,” said Luigi.

Tony set the tables, 12 in all, which were covered with white linen. Then he grabbed a box of matches and lit a small candle in the center of each table.

“Just in time,” said Luigi, looking out the window.

The front door swung open, and an older couple stepped in. Luigi greeted them by name. Tony retreated into the dish pit.

That day, Tony learned, or re-learned, the system. He bussed tables, refilled water glasses and washed dinnerware. Rose, Luigi’s wife, cooked. And Luigi greeted patrons and waited tables.

It reminded Tony of his childhood, when his parents, Italian immigrants, owned and operated a small restaurant in a middle-class suburb, where Tony grew up, about five miles north of Luigi’s. It was called DeAngelo’s. Tony washed dishes and bussed tables then too. His sister Maria helped their mother in the kitchen. Tony’s father, like Luigi, played host and waited tables.

Tony was the first person in his family to go to college. His parents insisted on using their savings to pay his way. He majored in business.

Even before he graduated, Tony had developed a plan for modernizing and expanding DeAngelo’s. A year after he graduated, DeAngelo’s opened a second restaurant, which Tony managed. Five years later, DeAngelo’s had five locations throughout the city. Five years after they, they’d added five more.

DeAngelo’s success enabled Tony’s parents to retire when they were in their late fifties. Tony then officially took over, although he’d really been running the business for years.

Under his leadership, DeAngelo’s kept growing. Eventually, it became one of the largest regional Italian restaurant groups in the country, and Tony became a wealthy man.

Along the way, he married a beautiful young woman named Sarah. They had a son and a daughter. By the time they were in grade school, Tony was doing well enough to afford a mansion.

During high school and summers in college, Tony and Sarah’s children worked in DeAngelo’s restaurants, but neither of them wanted to follow Tony into the business. They both got married and moved away.

When Sarah turned 60, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Despite aggressive treatment, she died six months later. Tony was devastated.

Two months after Sarah’s passing, Tony suffered a massive heart attack. He required open-heart surgery. Tony was in bad shape, and his recovery was slow.

Unable to keep up with the demands of running a business, and with no one in the family to take it over, Tony decided to sell DeAngelo’s to a large restaurant group.

Home alone, feeling weak and useless, Tony fell into despair. He spiraled down for years. After his dream, though, he felt like he had a new lease on life.

One day at work, he tried to gently suggest to Luigi a couple of ideas for modernizing his restaurant. But Luigi was not only unreceptive, but resentful.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” he sneered.

“Vecchio pazzo,” Tony muttered in the Italian he had learned as a boy.

“What?” Luigi exclaimed.

“Nothing,” Tony said, heading back to the dish pit.

***

Dylan spent a day exploring the inside of his mansion and another exploring the grounds. Although he had long wanted to be rich, he’d never imagined such opulence.

He ate and drank whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He relaxed in a hot tub overlooking several acres of well-tended greenery and flowers. He watched movies in his home theater.

Now this is the good life, he thought.

But it came with two big drawbacks.

One was his body. He was heavy. He moved slowly. And nearly everything ached.

The other was the loneliness. Aside from grocery and restaurant delivery people and landscapers, he saw no one.

Dylan had lived alone in the inner city, but he walked the streets nearly every morning, and he was always around people.

He never imagined being “established” would have downsides. Now Dylan had everything he wanted, but he missed seeing people on the street. He missed chatting with restaurant patrons and Rose’s sweet smile. He even began to miss crusty old Luigi.

***

Tony had looked all over his tiny apartment. Whoever had been living there hadn’t put any money away.

Tony was glad he hadn’t given away that $5 bill. He needed it. Thank God for the restaurant. Rose always sent him home with a care package. At least he was sure of one good meal a day.

It was a far cry from the life he had known. More and more, Tony thought about his real home. He longed to go see it. But how? He had no car. He wondered if a city bus ran out there.

He picked up a bus schedule and learned there was a route from just down the street from his apartment to just up the road from his house.

Fortunately, the round-trip fare was only $10. However, each way took nearly two hours. There must be a lot of stops, Tony thought.

But he really wanted to see his home again, so he bought a round-trip ticket for the following Monday, when Luigi’s was closed.

On Monday morning, Tony boarded the bus and took a seat near the back. He’d been right. The bus made a stop about every 10 minutes. He’d never seen so much of the city.

At last, Tony reached his destination, about a quarter of a mile from his house. He confirmed the final pick-up time for the day with the driver, then got off.

He walked down the road until he reached the stone pillars at the beginning of a long driveway to his house. Fortunately, the iron gates were open. Tony hadn’t considered what he would do if they’d been closed. In fact, he hadn’t thought about whether someone else might be living there.

Midway up the driveway, Tony stopped and gazed at his house. He was struck by its enormity. He had taken it for granted before. Now, though, having lived in such a tiny space, he knew he would never take his house, or any house, for granted again.

He came to the covered, pillared porch and stepped up to the front door. Should he ring the bell? What if someone was living there? How he possibly explain he was the rightful owner? Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier?

He chose to knock. A few moments later, he heard footsteps. Then the door opened — and there stood 70-year-old Tony DeAngelo.

Tony and Dylan, inhabiting each other’s bodies, gasped.

“You are ...” said Dylan.

“And you are ...” said Tony.

“Come in,” Dylan said.

***

It wasn’t long before both men realized they’d had the same dream and were visited by the same ghost, which had fulfilled their greatest wishes. For anyone else, it would have been beyond belief. But for several months now, these two had lived it.

Yet even though they inhabited each other’s bodies and had been living each other’s lives, they knew only a little about one another. So each shared the story of his life.

Tony talked about his humble start and how exciting and fulfilling his life had been, until it wasn’t.

Dylan said he’d been aimless. He’d taken a job as a dishwasher and busboy because he didn’t know what else to do.

“But the truth is,” he said, “I miss Luigi’s.”

“Did you like working in a restaurant?” Tony said.

“Yeah, I did. I wasn’t crazy about my job, but there was something about the restaurant I really liked.”

Tony smiled.

“How would you feel about owning and running your own restaurant?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” Tony said, “one of us has access to all my money. Whoever that is, let’s use some of it to get you started.”

Dylan was incredulous.

“You’d do that for me?” he said.

“Is it for you,” Tony said, “or for us?”

Tony stayed for dinner, then Dylan drove him back to his apartment.

That night, the ghost reappeared in their dreams.

“Well,” said the ghost, “now that your greatest desire has been fulfilled, how is your life?”

“Okay,” each of them said. “But I want my old life back.”

“Very well,” said the ghost.

In the morning, each man awoke in his original bed, in his original place and in his original body.

About an hour later, walking down the street with a youthful spring in his step, Dylan sensed a car rolling alongside him. He looked over and saw Tony driving an Audi.

“Need a ride?” he said through the open window.

Dylan laughed.

“Yeah,” he said.

Tony stopped the car, and Dylan came around and got in.