Primordial: An Abstraction

37

I got to go to the bank.

I got to get some money from the money machine.

I put in my card and press the buttons and wait and press the buttons and wait and wait and wait and my money comes out of the slit.

I take it, count it.

The money blows away. It’s windy.

I go inside the bank to get reimbursed. The teller gives me a hard time. She has to talk to her supervisor. They go back and forth and the supervisor makes a phone call. They look at each other. They look at me.

They decide to reimburse me.

I count my money as I exit the bank.

When I step outside, the money blows out of my hands. The wind has picked up.

I go back inside the bank to get reimbursed and the teller sort of laughs at me and her supervisor comes out and laughs at me and they call somebody on the phone and I can hear them laughing really loud on the other end of the line.

I’m persistent.

My persistence wears everybody out. They reimburse me just to get rid of me, although I’m careful to explain that I’m not breaking the law, that I didn’t do anything wrong, that I can’t help it if the forces of nature are against me, against all of us, and finally that I resent the allegation, veiled or otherwise, that I’m trying to take advantage of the bank and get away with something. Apologizing like henpecked spouses, the bank staff nod perfunctorily and they dole out idle reassurances and they call me sir and so forth and I back out of the bank staring at everybody with my jaw flexed and my eyes round and wet and insane.

This time I’m careful to hold on tightly to my money in two fists.

I’m angry now.

I don’t like those people in the bank.

I might have had too much to drink earlier.

I can’t hold my liquor anymore.

I may just relax the muscles in my fingers.

I may just loosen my fists a hair so that the wind can rob me a third time.

Nothing happens. The wind has died a quiet death.

I open my hands and the money falls onto the sidewalk between my feet.

I stand there for awhile, like a soldier at ease, observing the crisp bills and wondering if the wind will rise from the grave and do something.

Nothing happens.

Somebody comes up to me.

They see me looking down at the money.

They look back and forth between my face and the money and my face and the money.

They bend over.

They take the money.

They run away.

I run into the bank. “Did you see that!”

Nobody saw anything.

Getting reimbursed a third time is difficult but not impossible. It never is. Given enough time, the patience, temperament, and psychological endurance of the human condition will always run its course.

“At any rate,” I explain to the teller, singling her out, “why would I lie?”