Twenty-seven Cents

 Finding a penny brings a childish flush of success; I imagine it's a message, an omen of luck.  A nickel is more fun, a dime is like passing Go in Monopoly; a quarter is a slot machine of cherries; and a dollar?  Holy crow, a whole dollar blown against a fence or lost in last October's leaves entitles you to polish your buttons, straighten your shoulders, and be nice to people for at least half the day.
Someone cuts you off in their car?  Bless them, they may have to get to a bathroom; you say hello and the other person woodenly stalks by on stiff legs? They are preoccupied with their inner life, a sorrow, a shyness.  The words "blithering snot-nosed drooling idiot" don't occur in your happy dollar day mind.  Half day, really.  A whole day is a five.

Where do I find the most pennies?  In the parking lot, which boggles because this is a subsidized housing complex that I was able to get into seventeen years ago when I was making $13,000 a year.  They can't kick you out.  But the point is, the folks living here are not rolling in dough, (yet for the life of me I can't figure out how some of them afford the cars they drive), but when some clean out their car, the change is tossed to the pavement.  Few others pick up the pennies, stepping over them as if they were toadstools.  Not me.

I have a piggy bank resembling a double decker British bus, thanks to Brit friend Rachel, and here is where I deposit the cashola, some barely recognizable or whose shape now resembles a potato chip due to plow blades or several hit and runs.  Whee for me!  The tin bank rattles with free money, and I pretend that I am ahead of the game.

Last mid-week, on the way to the car, two pennies were lying in a parking space; hot diggity!  Two!  Next to them, blending into the gray tamarack, lay a banged up quarter.  What?  Who throws out money when a can of cashews is now approaching $9.00?  Did it fall from a child's hand?  Was it someone new to the country who has a driver's license but not a good grasp of currency?  A young person who has not yet had to forage for food or go to a soup kitchen?  What is this 27 cents doing here, unattached to any human hand except for mine, which scooped up the treasure and tossed it into my purse before anyone could run up and ask if I saw a lost quarter.

Of course I would give it back, you ask me for money, you'll get what I have; last week a man asked for help, I gave him ten, no questions or admonishments.  An older fellow came up to me in the thrift shop, and asked for a dollar so he could buy a Stevie Wonder cd.  You'll need the tax, too, sir.  Were they scams?  Maybe, but their clothing and body carriage were not the sassy, hold the tiger by the tail sort.  They were poor, beaten by hardship, thankful.

The ones I don't attend to are the cardboard sign people that wait at the exit ramps of highways.  You have the strength to stand for hours, you can try to get a job or real help; the leader of the ring sends these usually drug-addled folks out and gives them a small percent of what they collect.  They get a few bucks, drugs, and imagine that they have a job, poor fellas.  Sometimes there's a dog with them, a golden Lab that looks dirty but well-fed.  One ring was busted this past spring, but they are slowly showing up again in different parts of the city, as the usual spot is now under construction, and construction guys are nosy to what's doing.

Finding a penny is my four leaf clover, and since Canada has done away with theirs, I cling to our Abe Lincolns like they were unicorn gold.  Don't mess with my money; the different states on the backs of quarters, yeah, cute.  I still think the Mercury dime is cooler than Franklin D. Roosevelt, the flying eagle quarter is missed, and the Walking Liberty half-dollar was taken over by a Kennedy which also disappeared.  A good, solid silver dollar is now a flimsy, brown thing that you rarely see at all, and the workers at the mint must be bored silly or have gotten into ye tankards because they are fiddling with the nickel, enlarging Jefferson's face till it looks plain weird.

Today, on the way home from the layers of shale, a long train was running through; well, not really running, more like a fifteen mile an hour saunter.  It held up traffic while the lights, bells, and gates of the crossing signals were doing the job of alerting us that this was dangerous, and to keep back.  Eventually, the train plodded on and the gates lifted.  And went back down.  And lifted, stayed, hesitated, and then began waving like a demented clown while the red lights kept blinking and the bell clanging.  Things were on the fritz; Stephen King was in charge.

Finally, the gates went up and stayed, and the first few vehicles rumbled over the double track, then over another single track.  Then gotcha! The gates dropped down. We waited nervously, for all our mothers (except the ones who had violists for children), had repeatedly taught us that railroad tracks were extremely dangerous.  Not to be fooled with.  Especially the sentient ones.

The gates flim-flammed up, you could tell the drivers each held their breath for a moment; they proceeded cautiously, and the blue pickup truck on the opposite side then lost half of his windshield as the possessed gate guillotined down. The striped barrier bounced on the roof of the pickup, giving it deliberate whacks while the rest of us watched in dismay.  After five good hits, the monster raised to attention and stood still.  GO GO GO I mentally messaged the car in front of me, for logistically, he had time if he didn't dawdle once the thing was at it's apex.  But who wants to rev across three sets of train tracks?  He hunkered down and went, making it.  

My turn.  I pinned that blinking bastard to the sky with a look, glaring at the thing with justice and the American way while I got me and my car past the gauntlet.  I will rip your wooden guts out and shove your wiring up your black and white circuit box if you even think of coming down on my car, you crackhead signal from hell.  No, no, I know it's an inanimate object with a malfunction, and can't react to human mental commands.  Or swears.  But it made me feel better.

Home, and at 8:55 in the evening the last of the sun lingers, telling you that it's summertime.  I am tired, for whacking rocks is hard business, but I found a few treasures.  Gladly, slip yourself to bed after a day of monsters or of happily being pleasant.  Did you find a penny?  I am sure you found something, whether communion with another, the surety of love and constancy, or just a leaf, a feather, a song carried from the throat of a warbler.  It all ties in.  Sit under the crescent night moon and write your story; tell a tale.  I will read it.  Good night.