To Live In Seattle

Then it came to be known that King Oton had taken ill and as had been decreed he was to select an heir to the kingdom as he had no son. King Oton ordered that he should give forth his kingdom to any man that came to show purity in character, that no man should rank above him in valor, strength or generosity and that he should not be shown lacking in any area.

The first to ask was Ginath. Ginath was well known for his cattle that gaze in the fields of the south. Ginath worked in the field from the time of the sunrise until the time of sun set with pause only for the prayer to the LORD. On the second day Ginath approached King Oton.

And King Oton said to Ginath, I shall not give to you this land as you have disappointed me. While you are here asking for the kingdom who is keeping watch of your cattle?

Ginath said to King Oton, As king I shall not have need of the cattle.

King Oton was unpleased with Ginath, Why should a king not have planned for all needs.

And King Oton had Ginath return to his cattle.

Ramoth was the second man to ask for the kingdom. Ramoth was a farmer and had a brother called Ribai. Ramoth and Ribai had lost the LORD's favor when they divided the land of their father and Rabai took over the land on the river. The river flooded and Ribai lost one forth his crop while the land of Ramoth was spared. Ramoth offered to let his brother purchase his excess harvest. When Ramoth came to King Oton he was denied the heir. King Oton was angry with Ramoth for his actions, You did not help your brother.

And Ramoth said to King Oton, Did I not offer my brother first choice of my harvest?

And King Oton said to Ramoth, You are his brother and yet you let him suffer. You are his brother and yet you make him beg. As King would you let your people suffer and make your people beg?

Then Ramoth said to King Oton, What shall you have me do for my brother?

And King Oton said to Ramoth, For your brother you are to give all of your harvest you do not need. For your brother you do not cease to help after one deed; after one obligation met. For your brother, as your people, you must do more than you knew you could.

And with that King Oton sent Ramoth back to his land.

Then Zaleb went to King Oton and asked after the inheritance of the kingdom as he had been a good man and faithful to his wife. But when Zaleb spoke to King Oton he was denied the kingdom. King Oton said to  Zaleb, I know you have been a good man and faithful to your wife but where is your neighbor?

And Zaleb said to King Oton, Have I not put my wife above all else? I have helped her in all manner and been loyal. I have done nothing but bring honor to my house and family. Why do you ask now of my neighbor?

And King Oton said to Zaleb, It is true that you have brought honor to your house but as you bring such joy to your home you ignore your neighbor who called for your help.

Then Zaleb said to King Oton, I did not hear my neighbor call as I was heeding the cry of my wife as she needed me more.

Therefor King Oton said to Zaleb, You bring happiness to your home by closing the door on your neighbor. You have not put in order your home and neighbor and would bring turmoil to the kingdom letting many die hearing only the voices in your own home.

And King Oton sent Zaleb away. Then the LORD came to King Oton in a dream saying, I have seen you speak to the people of your kingdom and yet you have not chosen an heir.

And King Oton said to the LORD in his dream, LORD I have not wanted to fail You and place the wrong man as king. I have found fault in all these men for not doing more as each has failed to try as hard as You would require LORD. And I do not want to make the same mistake so I shall seek for one worthy to serve you LORD.

Then the LORD said to King Oton, I have seen these men and I have seen you King Oton. The failing you find in your people is the failing of you. It is your role as king to lead your people. As you ask of them to do more you have not inspired in them the desire. You have condemned your people by not preparing them. As you have prepared no one to take your place as king I will destroy the kingdom.

Then the LORD let out a fire that fell from the sky to destroy all of the kingdom.

Hunter S. On Suicide

She died out there; I left her with the coyotes. I held the money for a while, the leather bag in my clawed hands. Caked with sweat and dust, after so many days of cacti and sunsets a hundred thousand seems to mean less. The javelina wont stop charging ‘cause I waive some marked bills.

When we left she was wearing a navy suit with a jackets with big shoulders; I told her that it made her look right, professional. She bought it from goodwill, along with my jacket and the shoes I’m wearing. All told they cost three dollars by the pound. She wore it to the interview at the bank when they offered her the job. Maybe if they’d looked closer they’d have known she wasn’t a good fit; they’d have told her ‘we’ll keep your resume; let you know if something turns up.’ Then I’d never have had this idea and her bones wouldn’t be licked by the blue blooded animal I hear screaming after sun down. But that’s not how it went down and that’s not going to help me get water now.

The desert is God forsaken land, he threw the snake to here, on his stomach, in hell-that’s where I chose to run. The people here before, we saw pictures in books back in grade school, they built homes in the side of the mountains, hiding from the world. That’s what brought me here-needing to run, hide. The thing about the desert is there doesn’t need to be a place to hide-no one comes looking. God won’t look for you out here ‘cause anyone who comes this way aint looking for God. Sarah’s mom bought a house in Tucson: sent us picture of flowers and green grass: we all create mirages, I wish mine had a damn pool.

I kept the gun. Seemed more likely I’d need protection than money but I think the sound would wake hell and I can’t see Sarah yet.

I see gila monsters and trees now that stab me with green thorns and give no shade. They all lie to me; they hide the water and lie. They started talking to me in the morning when the sun conspired. I started hearing the tails going, mechanical sounds like they were getting wound up, sent lose on a mission, the flowers closed up and the birds tried to get me to follow them as they disappeared before my eyes inside green men with outstretched arms. The night is no better: bound by mud that throws off heat from satan himself. Still no water.

I hear the voices more. I don’t worry about food. I want to know who talks to me. The dead guard? My pop? I shut my eyes and go back to sleep-safety off, dreaming of water and death.

When I wake, old man Christmas is in front of me. He’s fat and his beard twirls around a mouth with scabbed lips and missing teeth. He’s chewing something, looking down at me. I think of shooting him but what’s the use of wasting a bullets on ghosts?

“You come for me?” I ask not caring the answer. The sand is stuck in my mouth, between my teeth, catching my tongue.

“Nope,” His gray face flat.

“What ya want ol’ man?” I start to get up but there doesn’t seem a use now. “Why you out in the desert? You die here with me, today?”

“I'm not ganna die, son.”

“You ain’t got no water, neither. You’re not lasting any bit longer than me.” Everything hurts. My body heavy and the sand burns running over my skin.

“I don’t need any.”

I don’t bother to ask, my body wont move.

“There’s water all around. What you think them animals live on? No, I don’t need any water ‘cause I know it’s here, I know it’s an option. That’s that gives me freedom to not hunt for it.”

I feel my pupils grow wide, everything is bright. Sarah and the man stare at me-waiting to stake a claim. 

Smoke

We were close to my hometown; we used to play in this tunnel as kids. It was dark as the coal back then but we would run down there to drink, to get high or just disappear. It was a long tunnel but she was right, people held their breath through it believing if they could last the entire length, their wish would could true. I would watch the kids do it on the morning route and I’d seen old women try to do it in secret, their faces growing red before they gave up and stared off at the past. It was on top of us now, the first cars already deep inside the moss covered blackness, Hailey’s chests rose, eyes grew wide; she took her breath and smiled-wishing for love, for forever. Hands held, he mimicked her. The couple in the front continued snoring. I closed my eyes but still I heard it, faintly, over the hum of the wheels, over the echo off the walls, I heard him, Hailey's new fiance, head turned to the aisle, I heard him exhale. I walked out the back door of the train into the screaming wind and lit my first cigarette in three years.

Costs

This is a story about numbers, about facts and odds; this is a story about black and white figures and the numbers in the columns on your spreadsheet. That’s all it is.

The American penny is by many people considered worthless. In fact for a while there was talk of discontinuing the penny. On average though, 30 million new pennies are minted every day. 30 million. It’s a number so large I can't comprehend it. That penny will pass through the hands of over one hundred people in its twenty five year life span, one hundred people all across the country with difference thoughts, desires and financial status. It’s the weight of a penny that is making me write. There is a rigid acceptability threshold. Pennies are to weigh 2.5 grams. That is there dictated weight and that’s all there is to it-initially anyway because by the end of their life they tend to be a bit heavier. Its sweat, dirt and grime, that’s what is layered on the small copper coin day after day that makes it weight just a fraction more, that adds just one more layer to the little coin, that changes the entire consistency, the meaning and the fate of that penny.

In September 1983, a new Lincoln penny left the mint in Denver composed almost entirely of zinc; the two percent copper gave it the color and the new lighter weight. The coin moved quickly from the mint to an armored truck to a bank and then into the teller's station, the far one, by the window. It was Sydney gravis who first owned that penny. Sydney wanted to close out all of his accounts from the small First National Bank of North Carolina. He had been banking there for over fifty years, knew every detail of the wall paper on the boxed rooms as he had sat in that first office for hours the first time he applied for a loan and couldn’t look the manager in the eyes when he was turned down. The second time he applied for a loan he didn’t have to stare at the gold stripes on the wall, he was too infatuated with his new wife. He had been going to the bank longer than half the employees had been alive. This day would be his last time there. His blushing bride passed on three months ago and he was closing out his accounts to take his money with him for his move to phoenix, his son was out that way and the weather seemed a good notion. The teller, Stephanie, a young girl whose parents had been in cub scouts with his Bobby, cashed out his entire savings, six thousand one hundred forty-eight dollars and twenty-one cents. He took the money and put it into his blue satchel along with a photo of Margaret, his blue cap and his bus ticket, the coins he dropped in his pocket. Sydney waited in that hospital room for months, hoping wishing for a miracle, something to stop the cancer but it grew and Margaret was frail. Now he had a new wish, to leave and escape the memories that haunted him. Now he hoped to be happy in a different life no matter the cost.

The station was crowded: people bustling in and out of taxis, cars and busses. Men with suitcases and women with heels were walking by too quickly for him to ask any questions. It was the commotion, the noise that made him confused; he set the blue bag down on the metal bench to get another look at the ticket, hidden on that paper there would be clues for him, directions on how to get on a bus that would take him far from this city of memories. But there was nothing printed in that grayed smeared ink that would help him. He fumbled the penny over in his left hand feeling the impression of Lincoln’s head between his fingers as he looked at the signs posted in the station: “Taxis”, “Tickets”, “Departures.” there was no one to ask, no one was alone, everyone was hurrying to see someone else, hurrying to see loved ones, business associates, hurrying somewhere else. “Arrivals”, “Magazines”, nothing helpful. Sydney decided any direction would be better than standing and waiting, standing and remembering how frail Margaret looked in the hospital’s pale green room, so he walked away, walked away from the double doors he had entered and in towards the hustle.

Lloyd, or Sarge as he insisted he being called, was propping himself against a cement pillar at that moment. He was stealing quick glances at his new Mohawk in any reflective surface that passed while he waited for Cyndi to arrive. Sarge was twenty-two and stoked to try anything and everything. That was the best part of Cyndi, nothing was old, everything was fresh. Cyndi was the one who convinced him to drop out of school and take the gig setting up shows. She, however, was late. The first bus in from Raleigh had come in over three hours ago and since then another bus had come and left. He was trying to keep up his appearance but this waiting around stuff was not making him look good. He was decidedly more hip leaning, his pants were a bit on the tight side and the attitude was easier to pull off when there was prop but he'd been standing a while and the bench by the door was starting to look good. He could probably see when another train was near and get up before Cyndi would have the chance to see him from the tiny windows anyhow. But where was she? The message said the first train.

It could always be that her friends had kept her up late the night before and she was sleeping it off still, Sarge walked purposefully to the bench as though it had always been his intended target, or it would be just like her to have forgotten that her ticket was for today. By the time he got to the bench a hundred ideas passed through his conscious mind but even he knew it was all just an illusion to not have to think that she wasn't coming. That’s probably why he didn’t notice the blue satchel next to his left converse. A boy playing with his toy car was the bag noticed. Running through the terminal, the boy tripped over the bag and Sarge, startled by the sudden change in the scene stared at the child until the boy's mother noticed the hold up and made her son apologize to the nice man on the bench.

That was the first time Sarge understood there was a bag near him and that the bag had no owner. Sarge looked pitifully around the station to see if there were any obvious candidates to deliver the lost bag but finding no one seeming to be missing anything, he rummaged through the pockets. Inside he found a wallet that also contained a nice little surprise: a decent amount of cash. He wanted to tell someone but there was no one around and the office was around the front side of the building, where he would be sure to miss Cyndi's train. He sat with blue bag in his lap feeling the leather wallet heat up in his palms. Another bus drove through with tired, disheveled passengers pulling off and grabbing their cases. No feathered bangs, no chunky bracelets; no Cyndi. Another hour passed in dead lock: wait around for Cyndi looking like a doob or take the bag and leave.  The wallet turned over in his hand again and again. 2 o’clock Sarge announced to himself. When the clock on the wall reached 2 o'clock he would give up, he would take the bag and he would give up on Cyndi. Then at 1:58 he remembered that the 2'clock bus could be running late and agreed on 2:15, a few more minutes just are on the safe side. 2:15 brought no good news either and Sarge took the bag. He stuffed the ID in the worn wallet, put it back in the bag and zipped it closed. Sarge's converse screeched on the cement floor. He felt obvious, everyone would know he had been there for hours, had come alone and would be leaving alone. Everyone would know that he had been stood up. He pulled the glass door open and walked forward.

Before he could announce himself he heard an old man sobbing to the woman at the desk. The old geezer was clearly disoriented but more than that he was hopeless. His gray hair matted to the sides of his head by his glasses would have made him looked distinguished if he hadn’t been leaning over the desk with tears falling off his wrinkled cheeks. Sarge recognized him instantly: Sydney Gravis. Sarge extended his hand with the blue bag out to the old man never taking his eyes off the ground. If someone else had snatched the bag Sarge would never have been the wiser but it was Sydney’s pale, cold hands that grabbed Sarge and took the blue bag. Sarge turned to leave muttering only a short 'yours,' but Sydney was triumphant, Sydney had his escape, he had his freedom. Sydney took the young Sarge by the shoulders and leaned in with his argyle green sweater to hug the boy with the ripped shirt. The gratitude was palpable as even the woman at the front desk had clapped her hands and exclaimed: it was a wonder that such generous boys still existed in the world! The last thing Sarge wanted was to be seen as a generous and king boy but he looked up at Sydney and was proud. Sydney took out his wallet and asked the boy to take a reward. He shoved two of the new hundred dollar bills at the eccentric lad but the boy shook his head never pulling his gaze from the stained floor. Sydney asked, pleaded with the boy to take something, take some reward for his kindness, not every young man would have turned in such an amount of money. Sarge wanted nothing. The old man became more animated insisting that Sarge take something, twenty dollars at least, he brought his arms back to his side then back to his face to wipe a last remaining tear from his glasses and that’s when Sarge heard the familiar jingle of coins. That’s what he would take! He would take the coins to make a phone call; he would call Cyndi.

The two dimes were eagerly shoved towards the open hands along with the one mostly new, mostly shiny, but slightly heavier penny. Relived of that weight, Sydney walked onto the bus and headed west, his hope now settled, released.

Sarge, newly hopeful, forgot his new Mohawk, forgot his tight jeans and hip posture and ran to the pay phone. The received in hand he pushed all the coins in the phone including his new penny and dialed her number. It was after pushing the last number he wondered if he shouldn’t have waited if he shouldn’t have kept the coins in his sweaty palms a bit longer, just in case she showed up soon; he wouldn’t look so eager, so desperate but, the dimes had already put the call through and the wires had already carried the call and the phone had already begun ringing. Sarge had no other choice but to wish she would answer, to offer an excuse or explanation.

The phone ran gave a shrill disconcerting ring but by the ninth ring it was clear no one was going answer. Sarge didn’t know why he just let it keep ringing- perhaps the tinny sound carried in it some weight of hope. His eyes fixated on the phone as though he could gaze in and see Cyndi, remind her why she should answer. The sound was painful; seconds were passing, welcomed in with a shriek of loneliness, more empty moments bringing the receiver away from his ear he looked at the station: everyone was hurrying by no one was alone they were all going off to meet someone. Sarge was alone. The phone returned the two times and the now heavier penny. Sarge left the coins where they fell.

Fairly sure the next person to take the penny was Donald. Donald is the type of person everyone enjoyed being around, always talking, and telling tall tales. He used to work for a network news program, the 4 o’clock evening news on channel eight, but six months ago his team was laid off. Donald did what he needed, took the first position tat he was offered: a janitor at the bus station.

He didn’t much mind the filth he saw, there was always dirt and muck in the word, he could tell you stories by golly of muck and dirt. It wasn’t the stares either that bothered him as he wheeled the 40 gallon trash can up and down the gray floor night after night dodging bums between each stop. No, for Donald it was the monotony of the whole thing. As the man who put the finishing touches on the “Local Leisure” segment he got to see, even if he didn’t meet, a lot of interesting folks. Donald fancied these men, the ones with lives of mystery; he wanted that more than anything else. He missed his job, sure, missed having a family around the holidays but his buddies were enough, sometimes he missed not having a garden a place to grow some tomatoes of his own and maybe squash but it was travel, it was excitement he wanted. He’d had a chance years ago you know. Back when Donald was in the navy he was nearly sent off to the Korean War, he was ready to go, even picked up some local expressions to use when he got there, but before he boarded his unit was told they would be staying stateside.

If it was Donald who found the coins in the pay phone, he would have put them in his jar at home, the coffee can he casually kept on the kitchen counter next to the bread saver. Working at the bus station he had filled and refilled the can many times, he was always able to find loose change at work; people would drop their coins and let them roll away down the cracks of the cement, behind the stands, off the platforms. He collected the all and when the can filled up, he would take the afternoon and make the coins fill out the paper holders before heading over to the tiny green and white bank on the corner where Stephie, the nice teller, would help him deposit the rolls into his travel fun. By last statement he had already accumulated $1,748 and another can had started. Right now there was only a handful of coins, not enough to buy a dang newspaper anymore, soon though soon he’d be able to cash in all the coins, all the savings-he’d be able to pack up and take his trip: Indonesia, Hong Kong, maybe even Africa. There’d be talk sure; old Donald finally taking that trip of his, the town would be a buzz with the news. He’d have to send an awful lot of postcards and remember to bring everyone back a little something, and he’d have to find someone to water his plants and collect the mail for him, but he had time, he still needed to collect his coins.

Donald added to the coffee can daily for the next three weeks, one day putting in almost eight dollars. It was becoming increasingly hard to ignore that the days were getting shorter, his feet a little colder when he woke up in the morning: Florida would be a quick trip, wouldn’t cost very much he would tell himself often yet he would wake up, put on his grey uniform and head to the Central Charlotte Station. October had come and gone, November was subtly taking over and Donald was tired. The night of thanksgiving Donald took an extra shift, let Jim spend the time with his family, he got himself a nice looking family, the extra money would be good too. Donald came in to work the graveyard shift, it was quite that night, most of the bums went to the soup kitchens a few miles over and wouldn’t be back till the next day, the station lay empty, echoing Donald’s footsteps as he dragged the broom under the first bench. There were loose pages from the evening paper crumpled by the trash can, empty paper cups in the corners and the usual cigarette butts dotting the floor along the walls. Donald started in the north east corner emptying one trash can, putting in a new green plastic bag, sealing the metal can back and moving to the next one, he didn’t notice the group of kids coming up behind him, he stopped to pick up the Spider Man abandon under by the water fountain, he didn’t hear the stifled laughter a few yards away, he saw a red child’s jacket forgotten by the visitor’s information booth, he bent down to rescue it, the kids were closer now, his knees cracked as he got low, he kids behind him had to do so little.

He never saw them coming. He didn’t feel the blow to the back of his head. He had a few memories of being in the hospital but never enough awareness to remember his name, his address, his hopes.

It took almost a year before his nephew would come to Charlotte to go through his things.

Buster had only met Donald once, thirteen years prior at his wedding to Gloria. He had been thrilled to have Donald there! The entire affair was disaster-it rained hard enough the preacher joked everyone should start building an ark! Donald helped everyone have a grand time, dancing with every woman at the wedding, telling his wild stories to the children running around, Donald made everyone laugh that day and Gloria was grateful to have such a calming influence. Oh Gloria, it had been years. Gloria was radiant day-too bad the rain lasted longer than the honeymoon. They divorced a short year later. She moved up to Boston and he to Chicago, they sent Christmas cards because what else was there to say, they were too young.

Now he was back in Charlotte, small town, deep south Charlotte. He had barely known Donald and yet was the closest thing to family he seemed to have. The apartment was a mess, on top of a bakery that seemed to only be open until noon, Buster climbed up the stairs with the yellow carpet, yellow wall paper and intermittent railing up to the fourth floor every morning for a week unsure of what to keep, what to throw away and what to donate. He hadn’t spoken to Donald in years, how was Buster to know what was important and even if he did, what would he do with anything of meaning? There was no family to pass it on to and while he had heard there had been a nice turn out for the funeral he had found no one who wanted to take anything of Donald’s. Some days he would climb the stairs, open the wood door with the hand drawn “2” and just sit on the white and brown flowered couch hoping the artifacts would speak to him but he had already taken a week off work for this trip and couldn’t stay much longer and so it came that on Friday, the coldest day of December, Buster stood in the middle of the old man’s apartment in his undershirt and boxers lifting heavy box of photographs, tax papers and take out menus and carrying them to the fire place. The documents went easily, the books and records the same way. He had a melted mess of ash, plastic and whatever residue cheap wool caps left at the bottom of the fireplace. Everything he couldn’t burn he took to the junk man two and half blocks over, that was 623 steps that he did not including the stairs, and he did it three times before he finally thought to ask just how much it would cost to have the junk man come to Donald’s place and clear the whole lot out. It was worth it.

He kept nothing except a silver tie clip, a pocket watch he found that clearly hadn’t worked in some time and the little bit of coins from the tin can near the refrigerator on the counter; the coins would come in handy for laundry before heading home. Buster just wished to get home, wished to never feel the loneliness and emptiness that Donald must have felt. Buster wanted to get home and see Mikey, hold his son and never let him. The dank apartment, the lack of photographs on the wall, he was even starting to miss the magnetic letters on the refrigerator, the weight of what Buster imagined to be Donald’s lost dreams was too much, he had to leave. He took the coins in his pocket, put the mementos in his bag and shut the door. The penny, our little traveled penny, made it back to the Chicago where it promptly was handed over to Mikey who promptly stuffed it inside his dragon piggy bank where it would rest with three other coins Mikey’s dad brought home for the next eight years.

The reason was quite simply that Mikey, being three, forgot entirely about the bank until he moved to El Paso at the age of 11. He unpacked the boxes from the move slowly and initially when he found the purple dinosaur bank with yellow and green spots he put it right back in the cardboard box to find something more interesting but came back when he thought he heard the faint shake of money emanating promisingly from the ceramic bank. The hammer blow to open it was mercifully quick; the subsequent crushing blows from all of his friends were not. In total, Mikey netted $11.93 for which decided the best and only possible use would be to buy a set of pogs of Paul. Paul had the best sets and the best slammer of all of the slammers. Him and the other boys would play under the oak tree on the play ground during lunch as long as principal Jennings wasn’t around-pogs had been banned and all the boys were on a final warning. The trade was made and the milk caps exchanged. Mikey now how what he had wanted, he had traded his blackened penny for a new set of pogs, now he could be the best, now he could stop just being the new kid and could just be good at something.

Paul knew exactly what he needed to do with the money. Paul worked after school in the school store mainly because his mom also worked there and had explained it was good for him to learn some responsibility, which really meant that she didn’t want to hear anymore about it. Paul needed the money after a small incident a few days early that his mom was yet to notice. Paul had, yet again, left his lunch box at school and he knew full well what fate awaited him if he were to announce this loss at the dinner table but the school store kept the same Ren & Stimpy lunch box. Paul had already taken the box and this week his mom was going to be doing inventory, she would figure out what had happened and there would be the punishment waiting for him when he got home so as soon as school let out he ran to the store figuring if he was quick he would have at least fifteen minutes to put the money in the register and mark down the lunch box as sold. Putting the money in the till he recited his wish over and over in a hushed whisper because he was sure that would help the wish come true: ‘don’t let mom come in, don’t let mom come in.’ she didn’t. He was safe and so was our penny which sat in the register until the end of the week when all the money was transferred over to the safe in the office for the fun to get supplies for the school physical education class, it took over two years for the school to raise enough money to get new basketball hoops and even then it was only half as Jim & Jack’s First Class Carpet Steamers agreed to match the amount the school had raised.

Our little penny was counted out and paid over to Jack of the Jim & Jack’s, the process being rather time consuming. Jack kept the money and wrote a check to the local sporting goods store. Jack gave his son $205.49 to pay for the books he needed for his classes at the University of Washington. It was Jack’s most sincere hope to provide a better life for Cole, better than sanitizing stains off twenty-year-old carpet in houses that smelled of mildew. Cole was going to do better, he was already on a better path: college! This would be his senior year studying, well studying something to do with chemistry and science. Soon Cole would graduate, soon his son would be standing on stage accepting a diploma, moving back home and starting his work and a family, that was a good life, that was what Cole should do.

Cole didn’t have a grand plan for after college, or even for after getting off the plane. Landing back in Washington in the middle of April it should have been decent weather, not the cold mist that linger in the air around Cole. School didn’t start up for another two days and even then the first day of his classes wouldn’t take any energy which meant he had more time to wonder around the campus in a daze, more time to go down to the gym and run the track endlessly thinking about the girl who left him. Cole already knew that he would be seeing Nicki when he was in class, they had the same program and had never gone a quarter without at least one class together, it was as if fate wanted them together, she just didn’t see it, didn’t want to see it any more. He wanted to not think about it, to get through the normal beginning of the quarter tasks, buy his books, help the guys get the house cleaned up, he wanted to put off thinking of Nicki for as long as he possibly could. Too bad his former self didn’t see the break up coming, former Cole could have prepared, could have taken the pictures off his desk, thrown her stuff out, and most importantly could have removed the love note still holding on to the fridge. He was alone in the house when he got back and saw the note in her perfect loopy cursive under the Budweiser magnet. “Love Always, your Nicki,” she had said. Always. They had been together three years and all it took was one spring break to drive them apart. He hadn’t spoken to her since the break up and seeing the note was too much. Cole didn’t bother to unpack; he threw his bags in his room, pulled on his hoodie and walked over to campus. In the center of the university was the plaza with the fountain that overlooked the city and framed Mount Rainer; it was where he first kissed her. By the time Cole reached the fountain that night it was past 11, he was the only one there. The other students wouldn’t come back until Sunday so he had two days to wallow. He sat under the foggy moonlight looking at the twisted, swollen moon reflected in the fountain.

The coins in his pockets jingled as he laid down on the edge of the fountain. Always, she had promised him always and now he was alone. Love she had promised him and now he was lost. What good was a view, what good was hope when there was no one with him. The dime he fished out of his pocket was minted in 1978; it hardly made a splash before sinking to the bottom of the fountain. Three years he had loved her. The nickel sank faster. He had wanted to marry Nicki. Two more dimes. He had been out to this very fountain with her and wished to be with her forever. He threw the last nickel hard. Penny. Penny. Penny. She wasn’t coming back. Penny. Penny. Penny. If he could just have one wish. Penny. Just one more wish, just one wish granted, to be back with her, to be loved by her. Penny. To hear her say ‘Love’ to hear her say ‘Always. Just to have one wish. And in went our penny. With the weight of so much hope, with the weight of so much love.

The fountain would be emptied out in another two weeks. Our penny would go back to the bank soon. Eventually it would make its way back to the Federal Reserve Bank and then, in time, be melted down. In its life it will have carried the wishes of men who would never know what became of the little coin, of men who would never think that someone else had made a wish on that same small piece of copper. The lightness of the penny faded somewhere in those years, somewhere in the hands of those men, somewhere in the fountain. So many wishes to be carried on the penny, each the most important wish to be wished, each drowning. And the poor penny, and the weight.

But then this was never a story of cost no matter how much it should have been. This could never have been a story of odds because what are the odds the penny could carry the wishes, the hopes and the feelings of the person who holds it. How much weight can be transferred from a sweaty palm. This could never have been the black and white figures on a page advertised. 30 million new pennies are minted every day. How many wishes are sitting at the bottom of that fountain, in the bottom of the pay phone. This story could never have been about anything other than 2.5 ounces melted down, and starting over.