Pocket change savior

• Essay

								
    It’s Friday again, another work week passed. I mean, another week passed. Well.. I guess there really isn't a difference anymore. My weeks are tallied off by the work. Pointless and ever passing. My paycheck is the only evidence there is, that I was even alive during the week, or any week for that matter. My existence is substantiated by a little number scribbled on a sliver of paper. Oh Joy! Ehh, beats checking a mirror.

    It’s cold tonight, but that's alright. I prefer the cold anyway. I’ve got to spend this money on something and heats’ as good a reason as any. Even still a little warmer would be alright by me. It's the breeze that gives this night its bite, but it's also the incentive for the leaves to wave me goodbye, So.. bite away.

    Overgrown patches of crabgrass shabbily embroiders the sidewalk towards the parking lot. Wind possessed folia cheer me on as I slowly make my way to the truck. 12 hours on can really ring out the speed in your stride, even in front of such an encouraging crowd. But I get there nonetheless. 15 years I’ve had that truck and it's been a hunk of shit every one of ‘em, but hell at least it's mine. I crack the creaking door and don't mind the whine. “Shit” I say aloud as I tiredly look at the bag of laundry in the passenger seat.

    It’s become a weekly tradition of mine. I wake up late, hunger over, with my sights set on the lukewarm beer from the night before. Kill it before it kills me, shove my clothes in a trash bag and bolt. Go 20 over just to be 20 minutes late. Show up buzzed, mad, and already ready to be going home. Just to remember I meant to do my laundry the night before, but I got too drunk and pawned it off on today's fool. To the father, the son, and holy ghost. Amen, God bless tradition. I push the fading form that is my laundry over. Crank the key a couple times till it catches, and start begrudgingly towards the laundry mat.
This graveyard shift rattles on.

    Ya know, I’ve always found the term “graveyard shift” too cruel a phrase. Especially to describe such a gentle time. The eccotone between the latest the night can get and the earliest the morning will ever be. The “bewitching hour”, a lady too dainty to be smacked around by such conjecture, but you try telling that to a world already frothing at the mouth for a fight. My standing up for something days are far behind me. Call it whatever you want, I'll just call it home.

    Turning out of the parking lot leaving one prison for the next. I’m stuck thinking about the 20 minute drive, the half hour for the wash, another for the dry. An eternity in waiting. I do nothing but piss my own time away, why is it that when I need to finally do something for myself it feels like torture. Irony or self-inflicted cruelty I do not know. 

    Carving my way through tattered streets. Shot shocks help me feel every bump along the way. I shoulda replaced them ages ago but working the nights keeps me out of the shop. I turn my favorite corner, and am reunited with an old friend, the true graveyard. The friend I've been waiting to see all day.

    The hodge podge hills and the crooked graves that adorn them form a jagged, welcoming smile. I drive a little slower as the snaggletoothed tombstones can’t help but laugh alongside me. The residents gloat, flaunting a resolution I’ve never been able to achieve for myself, and they were able to do it with their eyes closed. A passing smirk with a stranger on the sidewalk. a fleeting taste of comradery, and an appreciation for the shared moment. Even if it is one sided. “Don’t go nowhere, I’ll be back tomorrow.” I say with a smile at a steering wheel that couldn’t care less.

    The gleam of a neon sign lights an empty parking lot and guides me to my spot. My tired eyes get flogged by a flickering 4 as the rest of the ‘Open- 24 hours’ sign stands steadfast in their gloating. Showing off in front of their ailing contemporary. “ with friends like these” I say as I recollect my trash bag, toss my clothes over my shoulder and make my way from one door to the next. I place my clothes in front of my chosen washer, and walk over to the vending machine to buy detergent. I wrangle a handful of the eager coins from my pocket and use them all. I don’t play favorites. I return to my station and get to work. As I unbunch my work worn socks. An empty handed man walks through the door. A crowd has a large presence, but a single person in an otherwise empty room has a larger. I finish my load and deplete my reserves of change, and the baton of toil passes from me to him. In a row of empty seats I pick the one on the end closest to the door. I open my phone and go to the 5th chapter of a book I’ve been pretending to read for a year. An excuse to stave off social interaction. The "Do not disturb” sign I staple to my forehead.

    He starts on the first machine on the far wall opposite of mine. Beginning in tedium checking each coin slot in tandem. Practiced hands, flaunt mastery as they garner wealth that exceeds my own. Machine after machine, jackpot after jackpot. A mounting windfall that can be heard from all corners of the room. I’ve chosen the shortest cycle, to shorten my torture. So as his work gets to the last quarter of some 75 machines, my buzzer goes off startling us both. I look up to offer a chuckle but he continues doing an expert job in ignoring. I reunite with my clothes and start the transfer. The first armful of damp clothes falls into the well worn dryer. “They should really buy replacements.” I think, reminding me I'm out of money. I reach for my wallet so I can break a bill or two, and am met with an empty pocket. My preoccupation with my mourning beer blinded me to the wallet sitting right next to it. “Damn!” I say aloud, a little louder than I meant to while having company. I frantic my pockets already knowing the fruitless answers they’ll bring me. “Need some bread?” an unfamiliar but pinpointable voice drifts over my shoulder. I turn around to meet the yellow teeth and sweat stained denim jacket that offers me respite. “Yeah, if you don’t mind” I say ecstatically, half for the money and half for the sudden company. His eyes move from me to the hand he freshly pulled out of his pocket. He opens his hand and reveals a treasure trove. Every shade and sheen of each denomination. He picks out 4 georges and slides me the stack. I pull out a twisted pack of cigarettes and offer my second to last cigarette as tithing to my pocket change savior. He smells like winstons already, but any smoker knows you can always use another. He accepts, I go to hand him my lighter, to which he retorts by flashing his own. He turns for the door, while I turn to my clothes.

    I go back to the washer to retrieve the last of my laundry, grab everything but a lone sock and take the last armful of clothes to my dryer. Dump and return. As I walk back to collect my straggler, the top side of the drum settles at the bottom. Revealing… A soaked 10 dollar bill plastered perfectly to the tumbler. Met by the falling sock that beat me to it. I pick up the sock and peel off the paper. Wet and useless. All the money in the world, and there ain't a single machine that’ll take it, just my luck. I shepard my sock to the rest of my flock, slip in the only real money I have and start the load. I follow the exhaust line down the row of dryers and that deepens me into the laundry mat. I find one of the air ducts that’s spitting out hot air, pull up a chair, paste my bill to the seat, and place it under the heat. If I dry it out, I can get dinner. Dinner being, a fresh pack of smokes and a bag of chips from two of the many vending machines trying to sell me their wares. Dinner worthy of a king's ransom.

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