The Junior
The woman sat in her SUV, shouting at the police officer. He’d just pulled her over. Terry was on his weekly jog, and noticed them a block away. He loped over and stood by them, panting.
“Who the fuck are you?” Officer Jauntahay asked him.
Terry was rich and bored. He’d conquered money, so what else was left? Chivalry, this week, Karlheinz Stockhausen, next. It’d be shrivelry, ignoring the damsel in distress.
“Maybe,” he said, “we could just talk this over. Like adul —.”
“I’m handling this,” the woman spat out, and Jauntahay cuffed him.
“Okay,” Terry said. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
He loped away as best he could with wrists cuffed behind his back, but Jauntahay coasted up to him on his motorcycle and walked him back.
“Look,” Terry said. “Let’s take care of this. There’s a wallet in my pocket. But I can’t — ”
“What do you take me for?” Jauntahay asked.
“For a guy so poor he reeks,” hissed the woman. “I’ll do it.”
She got out, plucked the little wallet from Terry’s back pocket, pulled out a $1000 bill, and threw it at Jauntahay. It flitted to the pavement. His hot water heater broke the night before; his daughter’s braces the day before that; and the girl he was seeing was getting bored. He picked up the bill and undid Terry’s cuffs. The woman tore away.
…
An hour later, in a coffee shop, Jauntahay laid the grand on the table and stared. It’d cover heater, braces, a big night with the girl.
Grover Cleveland stared back. God it was good to be out in the world again. Like most $1000 bills, this Cleveland sweltered in a collector’s safe. I commanded two presidencies with dash and style, he snarled. And now — a paltry three-million Google hits, and I’m stuck on a bill last made in 1969. Goddam this fucking forgottenness.
He had to get off this oily countertop. So Cleveland threw everything he could into his stare, silently imploring the schlub cop to get him out of there. Anywhere with a titch more class. A local bank would do.
…
A professionally effusive teller greeted Jauntahay, then went beady-eyed on seeing the bill. Quick and silent, he called the manager, who appeared before he hung up. Dough-haired, dough-cheeked, dough-elbowed — the manager was essentially the Pillsbury Dough Man, grey and floppy and grim, now plopping his gaze all over the Cleveland. He called the district manager from across the street, and he blew in with exceptional finish, finished gait, finished gaze, finished manicure — essentially a checkered flag of a man. He grabbed the bill and stared at it with menacing precision. Jauntahay snatched it back and walked out. He needed the company of real men. Not clucks.
He went down the block to Cousin Morty’s Pawn Shop, expecting seediness and the requisite knowing grin from Cousin Morty. But Morty was angular, detached, careful, and very, very clean.
“What can I get with this?” Jauntahay asked.
Morty held the bill to the light for ten seconds. Finally: “Those.”
The ski boots’ buckles were broken. All requisite pawn-shop greasy overfamiliarity flooded the room, as if uncorked. Jauntahay snatched the bill and left.
He stepped outside. A dingy jingle, a bicycle bell, and tooling towards him, Jody’s Hot Dog Stand. Gimpy but coasting, Jody’s was a bike with a tabletop affixed somehow in front. It held a metal tub with weakly flavored franks in weakly steaming water.
It’d been a long morning. Jauntahay was hungry.
“How much?” he asked.
“$1.79. $1.19 for the Junior.” The top half of a bun fell off the bike twenty minutes ago. The bottom half would do. “For a meatier taste experience.”
Jauntahay flashed the Cleveland. “Can you break this?”
Jody jangled together $11.47 in his change apron.
“No. Give you the rig for it, though.”
Jauntahay paced a thoughtful circle around the vehicle. He’d paint the baskets black, and never offer Juniors. Easy to ride away from it all, from braces, broken heater, girl.
Grover Cleveland glared in primal disgust. Three million Google hits, insulting, yes. But getting thrown down for a gimpy hot dog stand — no: much too much.
“Nah,” Jauntahay said.
“Okay,” Jody said. “Well, here.” He expertly slapped the Junior together. “On me.” Jauntahay took a bite.
“Even worse than it looks,” he chuckled to Jody, who gazed past him, clinged a dingy chime, and rode away.
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