My Two Million Cents

“You need money in this world to survive. You need a place to call home.”

Gus typed away on the blackened keyboard only partially taking in what the library technician was saying. He could take advantage of the free Wi-Fi but his tiny screen didn't work well with his gloved hands. They were full of holes and unfortunately the fingertips that did pop out were the wrong ones.

“How would you define wealth?”

“What do you mean?” The tech looked confused.

“Wealth is something that seems easy to define. You have a certain amount of special paper, objects deemed worthy whether due to form or function. It's an accumulation of things.” He continued to jump in and out of forums and social media pages. “Do you collect anything?”

The library worker was a young but with seemingly old world views. He had the stereotypical glasses hanging around his neck but they seemed small and ineffective. Gus hadn’t seen him use it since he came in 40 minutes ago. “Not books believe it or not.”

Gus let out a deep chuckle. There were nights when he couldn’t find a place to crash where he would use the low vibrato of his laugh to calm his mind. He felt like a cat purring when he had to do that.

“My dad was a bit of a British stickler so I inherited some of his model trains. I’ve casually kept on that tradition.”

Gus looked up from typing. Even in the heated library he had the hood of his under-jacket up. The dirt and wrinkles around his eyes were more visible than his actual eyes. “Are they worth anything?”

The tech folded his arms all the way up to his chest, and leaned against his cart. “I did go online a few times due to curiosity and they’re fine in terms of price. There’s no Antique Roadshow miracles in those plastic carriages.”

Type-type-type. Gus was fast on a keyboard and good with hotkeys. A very long time ago he had used a typewriter and was paid for his speed and accuracy.

“Wealth is the ownership of the right kind of things. People collect and hoard but no one cares if you have millions of packets of soy sauce or newspapers or subscription cards from various magazines. You need shelter, food, and water to live. And yes some of those things cost money even though they're a human right. The wealthier you are, the less the items you own have to do with the basic tenets of life.” Gus had a lot of time to think of his personal brand of philosophy when wandering from town to town.

“Are you going to tell me that real wealth is family, friends, and the power of love?” It seemed that this library tech was the one employee that readers would purposefully go to the back shelves to avoid

Success! He had found a couch to surf on. Or an inflatable mattress. Or a rug. Or a floor. Gus didn’t care which one. The only place he found it difficult to crash was in a bathtub. If one knew the new underground networks of stoners, anarchists, the former homeless, and sometimes sketch-bags, one could find accommodation in the strangest of places.

“Wealth has so many meanings that you can’t just box it up and call it a day.” Snakes do not set off metal detectors. They can also hide in your inner coat pocket if they’re small enough. And they make cute pets and names like ‘Slerp’ fit them perfectly. However, they can sometimes squirm and tickle you. That creates the domino effect of an employee coming to see if you’re okay, assuming that you’re homeless, and passive-aggressively trying to get you to go to a shelter to make themselves feel better about the world at large. All Gus said was ‘I don’t need to have money,” and it was all downhill from there.

“Do you steal food?”

“What gives you the damn right to ask me that.” Gus stopped typing and balled up his left glove.

The tech looked a little uncomfortable being called out but he pushed on. “The point is if you don’t steal food, you pay for it. And paying for things requires money which is, in fact, the very start of wealth. You say you travel with no fixed address and very few possessions. That there’s some Kerouacian sense of spiritual freedom in just the idea of being on the road. The road costs money and without money, you can have nothing. In the government’s eyes you don’t exist.”

Gus had issues with anger. Once when he was trapped in a psych ward, another ass with glasses had told him he had ‘intermittent explosive disorder’. He pushed past the tech and scrambled for the door. The security guard started towards him but backed off for some unknown reason. Perhaps the technician actually had a pang of guilt and called off his goon.

The steps didn’t hurt that much as he tumbled down him. The good part of always wearing so many layers was that they kept you warm and provided padding.

Gus immediately checked if Slerp was okay. He could feel the cold, scaly skin, and her fluid movement. He could feel his heart beating right underneath where is pet was. It didn’t feel right. Some days that’s just how it was. His face was red and hot. Luckily he hadn’t left anything behind in the library because he didn’t really have much. He had also copied down the address of a Vicky A. Kant on a ripped page from a book. He just needed to borrow some Wi-Fi to bring it up on the map and he would be warm for another night.

-----

Gus spotted a shortcut on the screenshot on his phone. This was even more impressive given his poor eyesight. After squeezing through an impossibly narrow alleyway, he came to an opening. The lot was square shaped and in the middle sat a dump truck. The door was open. There were long tubes emanating purple light all along the walls to this open area.

A monocled, well-dressed bobble-head sat on the dash, which looked like it had been wiped clean. The vanity item did not move even when Gus shifted his weight.

He instinctively reached in. Slerp slithered, albeit slowly. He looked around, trying to make sense of the situation. It was then that he noticed the small, bound notebook on the passenger side seat. Both blacks melted into each other and only a small glint of purple light betrayed the rectangular outline.

Before he knew what was happening, Gus was flipping through the pages of the book. The black band had snapped at some point and hung like a useless tassel on an exorbitant scarf.

The pages had tiny scribbling on all white areas. The symbols were chaotic yet somehow orderly. Everything was divided into 2 columns with 5 or 6 of those carving up the vertical real estate of the contents of the notebook. One side contained what looked like could only be described as stylized scratches. Parallel to that were individual numbers that were at least were 9 digits long. They didn’t seem to follow any pattern but there didn’t seem to be any repeats. The same was true from the scratch symbols. Somehow the small ideograms were all distinct.

Gus climbed the side of the dump truck. The large, metal base of the hauler was easy enough to scale, with indents and beams running along the exterior. He reached the top and jumped over.

Wealth is material. Wealth is immaterial. It can weigh you down or set you free. It can make you brave or make you a coward. It is everything and it is nothing. It is the hushed secret of a species’ tainted existence. He couldn’t shut his brain off.

There must’ve been upwards of two million of them. It was like it was out of children’s book or a cartoon. The ludicrousness was on par with a terrible reality show plot. (Gus didn’t care much for TV. Television was for the stationary whereas movies were for the ones who wanted to rest their bones for just a bit).

Gus picked some up and let the disks fall through is hands. The pebbled ground was as firm as they come. He took out Slerp to take in the marvel. However, the snake was more interested in exploring the warmth and subtle vibrations of his owner.

His eyes took in the spectacle and his mind was starting to crack. This was impossible! He had seen some strange shit travelling across the country (ghosts are definitely real) but this was beyond belief.

He picked up a copper slug. It had the markings of money. They all had heads and tails. Different designs spread out across the rusty red sea. But there was something off about them. Gus held one right to his eye. And then he brought another one to his other eye.

Marks. Almost indistinguishable from the other engravings. Gus picked up one and then another and then another. They all had them. Individualized scratches on all of them. They had been tallied and they had been categorized.

He had never seen this much money before. He doubted anyone had seen this much money like this before. He tried to contemplate what to do but his brain was running overtime. Part of him wanted to dive into it like a pool, and another part of him wanted to run away from all of this and never speak of it.

The gilded ground was cold even through Gus’ thick boots and multiple layers of mismatched socks. His bones still were under a deep freeze. It shouldn’t feel this comfortable. The metal mass underneath connected with his chills and acted like a magnet. Gus started to take heavy steps away but some kind of gravity was slowly pulling him down. The once solid ground was now acting like small pebbles being displaced by feet in a shallow lake.

As he sunk, Gus was wondering what he needed. He wondered what drove him. He never wanted to be rich or be tied to material things. He thought the Zen and Eastern aspects of his philosophy made people think they understood him. He wasn’t shedding possessions. He just didn’t want any weight in his head, heart, or in his wallet.

One day your pockets will get so heavy that you sink forever down.

He was waist deep now. The disks were chattering against each other. Slerp was on the top of Gus’ hood, somewhat aware of what was happening. The slow descent continued but a path started to clear in front of the wanderer. There was something white amongst the rust. Pieces of it formed. Digits, ribs, joints. A skeleton half emerged from this quicksand clearing.

The skull was abnormal. It looked like the jaw had been broken and rearranged and put back together. It gave the dead person a disturbing looking grin straight out of one of those horror movies that Gus refused to watch. This person had supposedly been happy before dying. Or he was made to look that way. One of his arms was outstretched and contained an unknown piece of paper. It looked like currency. However, the bust and words printed on it were alien to Gus.

The skeleton was slowly buried again as the disks begun to shift. Gus was up to his armpits. He tried treading money but it just scratched and tore his sleeves.

The remains had disappeared. The only part left was the skeleton’s right arm holding up the bill.

-----

Slerp coiled around the hand. It did not move. The snake stayed there for some time before being pulled away by the need for food. It slithered across the pile of pennies and they held firm.