

After Jay leaves, Gardner lacks the money to pay the fare and chooses to run instead, causing the driver to angrily chase him into a BART station. While Gardner is trying to sell one of the scanners, he meets Jay Twistle, a lead manager and partner for Dean Witter Reynolds, and impresses him by solving a Rubik's Cube during a taxi ride.

The financial instability increasingly erodes their marriage, in spite of them caring for Christopher Jr., their soon-to-be five-year-old son. While he is able to sell most of them, the time lag between the sales and his growing financial demands enrage his already bitter and alienated wife Linda, who works as a hotel maid. The scanners play a vital role in Chris's life. In 1981, San Francisco salesman Chris Gardner invests his entire life savings in portable bone-density scanners, which he demonstrates to doctors and pitches as a handy improvement over standard X-rays.
