Story-A-Day, Day One

The Friday after my final paycheck fails to be deposited into my account I call the law firm and learn from the disembodied voice of HR that it's being withheld. I feel the accusation of embezzlement shouldn't be taken so personally, even more so because I have behaved, but how can the truth of one's self not be taken personally?

The truth is I have behaved. The weeks leading up to my resignation, payments received by clients were followed by carefully written receipts; those made in cash were counted and recounted for accuracy, stored in the safe deposit box in the office of the founding attorney, a man whose handshake I've found to be crushing.

I find cash to be a dirty business, new bills especially tricky to handle, the texture of stiff fingerprints, and that part becomes an indecipherable language. I wash my hands after each handling.

My mom's mind worked in associations, so she talked without really saying anything or getting anywhere. She talked to strangers, to anyone really, until she felt satisfied, but I don't think that's the right word. When I behaved badly she would threaten to leave, drive away and never come back, then I would be alone with my stepdad, and then where would I be, she would ask.

She was true to her word, and the road did take her. I think of how her mind worked then, what associations were made with that pain.

My stepdad forgot cash in the pockets of his work pants stained in motor oil, left crumbled at the foot of the full bed. The bed became his own shortly after my mom, when I began to stain my own pants. Early in the morning I would creep in to steal, my bare chest close against the carpeted floor, as my stepdad shifted in sleep.

I guess some things people don't forget, and its weight presses down. When I got off the phone with HR my mind worked in associations. My stepdad never really forgot his cash. In my bedroom back in the home that no longer exists, I would have licked the rug burns on my chest if I could.