Five Dollars

The first man who gave me away cherished me for a long time first. He saw me as crisp and unblemished and I reminded him that new, glorious things would come to him in the future if he kept his outlook positive and his hopes high. To his fingers, I felt smoother and silkier than the skin of a goddess. I smelled to him like freedom. He hadn't experienced that in a long time. The man felt he'd earned me and while most would have only kept me in wait for so long to save me for something special, he held onto me for a far more intense purpose. To remember. But time passed and the man's memory waned and so did my perfection. He realised the future wasn't so beckoning and bright and simple and I was worth little more to him than a pack of cigarettes, and he needed far more than a pack of cigarettes to get by, if he wanted to reach that dream that freedom had granted him, once, so long ago. So he gave me away in exchange for that pack of cigarettes, while he gathered up the nerve to take something more, something he thought he deserved, and later, the EMTs found me clenched inside the fist of the shop clerk, who had hung onto me as he clung onto his dwindling life.

I didn't save the shop clerk's life, but he held onto me regardless. Maybe it was the fact that I was now stained with his blood that he felt I was suddenly a part of him. I reminded him of something he had almost lost. I thought that must mean I meant the world to him, because I had kept in such close company as his blood ran out, as his clothes were sheared off, as he was shocked by the defibrillators, but later, as the shop clerk lied in his hospital bed, his vitals now having returned to normal, I learned that I meant nothing more to him than the key to a young girl's heart.

The shop clerk had told the little girl to get a special treat with me, and so, after awhile, she did. Unfortunately, I couldn't go into the machine, I suppose, because the blood stain had made my codes unreadable to the lasers. The little girl kept tugging on me and running me over the edge of the machine to flatten me like someone had taught her in school, but nothing worked. She grew upset, not because she couldn't get her chocolate, but because she couldn't get her chocolate with me, the gift from her uncle who she so adored and had nearly lost. She was about to run back to him to let him know the bad news, when a warm-hearted doctor, who couldn't stand to see a little girl upset, told her not to worry a moment, and quickly gave her some coins in exchange for me.

To the doctor, who immediately took notice to my gruesome stains, I was simply a reminder of germs and illness and the misery of working in a place where people went to expire and give bloodstained gifts to little girls to hide the darkness from their worlds for a moment longer. She didn't want to hold onto me. She didn't even want to touch me. After work, she thought about spending me on a bottle of sauvignon blanc, but wound up buying two and using her card, and she forgot about me while she drove home and cooked her meal, which she ate alone with her two bottles of fine white wine. When she slept, she dreamed of me, though she didn't remember it in the morning. And why would she, for it was such an insignificant dream? The next day, her senses mulled by the lingering after-effects of alcohol, the doctor had forgotten all about me. She passed a homeless man on the way to work, and sensing the urge to redeem herself for her previous night's weakness, searched her pockets for the loose change which she'd already given to the little girl. Instead, she found me, looked for a moment at my sorrowful stains, and smiled as she passed me, gently, to the homeless man, and felt satisfied knowing she'd done her deed of good for the day.

The homeless man, who had sores that oozed and had slept with the filthiest of whores, didn't look twice at my dishevelled appearance. To him, I was the reminder of a full stomach. A feast. I was a Big Mac with a side of fries and ice cold cola and a night where he wouldn't have to worry about whether or not he was going to wake up the next morning due to starvation. He could have devoured me then and there. He didn't waste a second before running to dispose of me at the nearest fast food chain, and when he did, he didn't care that the whole restaurant was watching and judging. He was blinded with the glory of me, his prize. He didn't look at the sign on the wall posted next to the register, apologizing for enhanced security measures, and could barely keep his hand from shaking when he handed me over to the eager, pimple-faced boy behind the counter. Perhaps if the boy hadn't just dropped out of college and wasn't so eager to impress his manager and become Prince of Burgers, and perhaps if the homeless man had slept with fewer filthy whores and had worked harder to make himself presentable, things would have transpired differently. But the pimple-faced boy apologized for the inconvenience and pulled out the clear felt pen as he'd been doing dutifully all day, and ran the tip over my face. He frowned at me like no one had frowned at me before and I knew something was wrong. He shook his head at the crest-fallen homeless man and said seriously, "I'm sorry, sir, it's a fake," and after the homeless man let out a slew of curses and the pimple-faced boy was congratulated by his manager, the manager crumpled me up and threw in the garbage like a used napkin, and at least before I perished, I reminded him of a job well done.