The Fickle Nickel of Fate (Assignment #2)

My father’s successes loomed large in my boyhood imagination. Mother would point out the first money he ever earned, a worn five-dollar-bill he’d gotten for washing a car, framed over the door of his old office, which had become my playroom.

She would spin the globe that still sat on his desk in the room and point out the countries he’d visited for business and adventure. She traced her finger down the mighty Amazon and always stopped abruptly at the point she said he was last sighted.

When I mowed the lawn for the first time she took down the frame, pulled out the five and handed it to me. The first money you’ve ever earned, she said. I found an old plastic license-holder in Father’s desk and folded the money carefully into it. I transferred that plastic card from nylon Velcro wallet to faux-leather wallet to brand-new supple Italian leather wallet as I moved up in the business world.

As I grew up, I assumed some of the tale must be Mother’s fabrication, but we did live well on money he’d left us. I enjoyed the fantasy and would tell it to my associates with a wink and a smile. Therefore it took me several seconds to recognize the face on the man wiping my windshield with a yellowed newspaper. I didn’t have time to feel but I did take the plastic ID holder from my wallet and I passed it through the window to him. His sun-darkened face and bleached eyes began to stretch and change as I pressed the accelerator. I thought I heard a triumphant or angry bellow behind me.

Now my rusty push mower runs over a newspaper on the sidewalk, over a photo of Father at a business awards banquet. I don’t believe he knew the bill’s true power or he wouldn’t have left it behind. I do, but he’ll never part with that one, so I’ll mow lawns and take fivers until I find one that works.