Five Hundred Poor

by Milligan, Noah;

  “I just think maybe it would be wise if we tempered our spending a little bit,” he said. “For Hux’s sake.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’m just thinking. She’s probably due for a growth spurt. She’ll need new shoes and dresses and a jacket and stuff. You know, stuff that fits.”

  The nerve of him!

  The absolute, motherfucking—yes, she swore—nerve of him!

  For years she had been trying to get him interested in Hux. She’d plead with him to attend parent-teacher conferences, her ballet recitals, to just spend a few minutes after work playing tea party. “But, babe,” he’d say, “the big game,” or “the big meeting,” or “the big whatever.” And now, now that she dared do something for herself for a change, he had the gall to open his mouth and invoke their daughter? The one she had just about single-handedly raised since birth?

  The motherfucking, hair-splitting, homicidal-raging nerve of that guy!

  And so she kept spending. She bought new curtains and new rollerblades and new china and new silverware and new stemware and new wood floors and new showerheads. Everything had to be replaced. She hired contractors to remodel her kitchen and to add a new family room to the back of the house. She bought new beds for Hux’s room and the master and even the guest room, despite it only having been used maybe a dozen or so times. She bought workout equipment, a treadmill and Bowflex machine and free weights, and called the contractors back out to add another room to the house, an in-home gymnasium, and soon, and this came as a surprise even to Sara, more people started to notice. Neighbors dropped by to take pictures and the homeowner’s association wanted to feature her home in the annual neighborhood garden show and an editor at Edmond Living called her and wanted to do a profile of her and her beautiful home. “Just how do you do it?” she asked, and it seemed like everyone came to know her by name. She’d walk down the street, and strangers would call out, “Sara! Sara Jones! Can we take your picture?”

  And the craziest thing happened every time she would pass by the Von Maur display window—the mother in the scene just looked happier. She smiled and she beamed and she dominated the scene, the puny little husband now dismissed into the dark, dank little corner, and the woman wore the prettiest red dress, this strapless little thing with a pencil skirt, her head cocked to the side, declaring to the world that she was ready. Whatever life threw at her, she was ready. She was so much happier, in fact, that Sara couldn’t help but buy that red dress and wear it home just to see Daryl’s stupid face when she walked through the door.

  SOON, STUFF FILLED EVERY SINGLE room of the house—new, shiny, smile-inducing stuff—and for the first time in a long time, Sara felt happy. Truly, undeniably, cheek-hurting happy. It wasn’t long, however, until the phone calls began. The first happened one day after dinner. The family was sitting on the new sectional—this classy, creamy, modern thing Sara had picked up on sale, actually—and watching a movie, the cartoon one where the characters were actually a group of superheroes in hiding, and Sara couldn’t help but think that she related to the mother in that movie, to be a superhero all these years and to suffer through life an ordinary, plaid-wearing soccer mom. Well, by God, not anymore.

  That was when the phone rang. It was the home phone and not one of their cell phones, so Sara knew it was something important. It wasn’t Kathy with the latest extramarital gossip going around the PTA or Chase calling Daryl about tickets to see Rush. Rather, it was probably the school, calling about Hux pooping in another kid’s backpack, or maybe even one of their doctors, asking he or she to come into the office first thing in the morning, “as soon as you possibly can, actually.” So Daryl and Sara had a stare-off over Hux’s head. He gave her the I’ve-worked-all-fucking-day look, brows arched, mouth puckered like he was eating something sour, and she gave him her best I-always-have-to-deal-with-this-type-of-shit grimace, eyes wide and nostrils flared, like she was on her very last straw, and all the while the phone rang, and rang, and rang.

  Finally, the stare-down ended in a stalemate, and Sara’s chirpy, recorded voice filled the living area: “Thank you for calling the Joneses. We can’t answer your call at the moment, but if you please leave your name and number, we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.” The beep was mostly drowned out by some monsters shooting laser guns to Hux’s giggling delight. Because of this, it was difficult for Sara to make out the nasal voice on the other end of the line. It sounded like a Bob Allford or maybe a Tom Vonfeldt, and he was from some company or another, and Sara looked to Daryl for any signs of recognition, but he had none, instead having lost interest and begun perusing the illuminated screen of his iPhone, smirking at some other middle-aged man’s snarky comment on Facebook.

  Later, when Hux and Daryl had gone to bed, Sara listened to the voice message. It was from a Gary Pewter—she made a mental note to get her hearing checked—and he was from Legacy Bank in town. She googled the company online, and he was in their Securities department. They bought up bad debt from department stores and credit card companies and payday lenders and other banks and then went after the debtors for collection. Gary was actually a vice president, and he had an online profile on the company’s “About Us” page. He was bald, with Coke-bottle glasses and an upturned lip like he smelled something putrid. Right away, Sara didn’t like him, and it wasn’t so much that he looked like a squirrel, but it was because she knew, all the way deep down in her bones she knew, this man wasn’t there to help her.

  THE BANK, SARA NOTED, SMELLED of mold. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the source of the smell, but it was most definitely there, like a soggy ceiling tile, soaked from a leaky roof after a spring thunderstorm. No one else, however, seemed to notice it. Employees and customers alike smiled politely when she and Daryl and Hux walked through the revolving door. A teller greeted them like a hostess might, and Sara jumped when the woman seemed to pop out of nowhere, eyes darty and neck strained like an ostrich.

  “Welcome to Legacy Bank,” she said. “My name is Kara. How can we assist you today?”

  It didn’t help that Sara carried a snub-nosed .38 in her handbag. Daryl had gotten it for her years before when concealed carry became legal in the state. Usually, she kept it locked in her closet where Hux couldn’t get to it, but she’d grabbed it that morning, along with her license to carry, because of some loosely congealed plan that if things didn’t go her way when meeting with Gary Pewter, she would have to do something. What that something was, Sara couldn’t bring herself to concretely form in her mind, but she had the gist of it: a purse full of cash and a quick getaway. It was crazy, she knew, and downright stupid—she had a better chance of winning the lottery than pulling off a successful bank heist—but she was also desperate, and, for the first time in her life, happy. She just couldn’t dream of letting that slip away.

  Kara escorted them to Mr. Pewter’s office, a quaint little space adjacent to the teller line, where a squirmy man waited for them. He wasn’t what Sara had always pictured a banker to be—slick, double-breasted, smelling of leather—but rather a dork in a polo shirt a size too big for him. And she had been right; she didn’t like him—she could tell by the smug way he smiled that all he cared about was making a quick buck, padding the company’s bottom line, whomever be damned.

  “I sure do appreciate you two taking the time out of your day to come see me,” he said. He stood and shook their hands. On his desk sat a placard that read, “Gary Pewter / Serious About Service.” He knelt down to Hux’s level. “You must be Huxley,” he said. “Your father has told me you’re about to be six years old. Is that true?”

  Hux shied away and grabbed ahold of Sara’s leg, resting her head against Sara’s handbag, only a thin piece of leather separating her from a loaded gun, and, for a second there, Sara couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, she was failing as a mother.

  “She’s shy,” Sara said, and they all took a seat to begin their meeting. Hux sat on her father’s lap, and Sara made a mental note that
if things went south, she would force Hux underneath Mr. Pewter’s desk—she figured that might be the safest spot if bullets started flying.

  Mr. Pewter retrieved a file from a desk drawer, one he’d obviously just perused before they’d arrived, and laid it neatly on his desk.

  “I know this is a difficult thing to talk about,” he said. “And this is never easy, but I want you to know I’m not an unreasonable man, and we aren’t an unreasonable bank.”

  His nasal voice annoyed Sara. It wasn’t just the tone—a high-pitched, whiny register—but also because he seemed so sincere, like he was just trying to help someone incapable of helping herself, and it made her want to say screw it and reach down into her purse and take out the gun. It was a stupid impulse, she knew, much like buying a pair of sunglasses while in the cash wrap line at Von Maur, but it was there nonetheless, irresistible and strong. She wondered what Mr. Pewter’s face would look like when she brandished the weapon, that silvery, small little package of boom. He’d probably pucker up, shoulders shivering, nose scrunched as if holding in a sneeze. His face would be priceless.

  “But we are looking at a very large sum, nearly $250,000, and after looking over your financial statement here, it doesn’t seem like you have any collateral to pledge.”

  “The house,” Daryl said. “There’s got to be equity in it.”

  “The additions to your home cost more than the value they added. You actually now owe more than the house is worth, I’m afraid.”

  Sara could see it now—Mr. Pewter would fall from his chair, his petrified eyes locked on her, and cower to the floor. “Hands up,” she would tell him. “Get to your feet and grab the vault key. You’re gonna need it.” She’d jab the barrel of the gun into the small of his back, making his knees buckle from fear, and force him into the crowded lobby, and the whole time she would feel so powerful. So powerful—like a lioness protecting her cubs. Yes, that’s it, she thought, I am the Queen of the Jungle.

  “Like I said, though,” Mr. Pewter said, “We aren’t unreasonable. We don’t want to own your house. We don’t want to repossess your belongings. We’re not in the business of selling your personal items, and I’m sure we can come up with some sort of payment plan that would benefit everyone involved.”

  “What were you thinking?” Daryl asked, leaning forward as if he could just swoop in and save the day, and Sara decided that when she made Mr. Pewter open the vault, she’d make Daryl get inside, too. Yeah. She’d make some lowly teller tie Mr. Pewter and Daryl up in there, dirty socks stuffed into their annoying, know-it-all mouths, eyes duct-taped shut so when they were finally rescued, their eyebrows would be ripped out of their pores, and she would go around handing out money to all the hourly employees and the ripped-off bank customers, fifty dollars here, a hundred there, and they would thank her. They’d say, “Thank you, kind stranger. Thank you, oh, so very much.”

  “We would, of course, need to have some sort of act in good faith. A down payment, say, something along the lines of five percent of the outstanding balance.”

  “Twelve thousand dollars?” Daryl asked.

  “Twelve thousand, five hundred, actually,” Mr. Pewter said.

  “We don’t have that kind of money,” Daryl said. “Not just lying around.”

  She would then grab Hux and take the car and she would head south. She could be in Mexico in nine hours, just hit the highway and run. She’d be like Bonnie from Bonnie and Clyde. She’d be like Patty Hearst. She’d be Robin Hood.

  “Momma,” Hux said, tugging on her pant leg, eyes glazed with boredom. “I’m hungry.”

  But she knew, deep down in her bones she knew, none of that would ever happen. If she did pull out the gun, she wouldn’t really know what to do with it. She’d probably be more afraid than Mr. Pewter even, and when she started waving it around, she’d probably wind up shot dead, in front of her little girl no less, who would forever after be scarred. It was a fantasy, much like the life she had secretly hoped for while young, a teenage girl drunk on romantic comedies and fairy tales. Real life just didn’t end up happily ever after, and she knew that. She did. She’d just forgotten it for a little while, or at least ignored it for as long as she could, and now, she knew, it was time for the fantasy to end.

  “We’ll get you the money,” Sara said to that smug-faced prick Gary Pewter. “Don’t you fucking worry.”

  AND SO SARA ACTED QUICKLY. The very next morning, she went down to City Hall and applied to have a garage sale. She felt good about it in fact. The lady who took her application was elderly and purple haired and pink lipped, and just sat there with her arms folded and said the nicest things.

  “I just love those sunglasses,” she said when Sara approached. “Where on Earth did you get those things?”

  “Von Maur,” Sara said. “They were having a sale, actually. Picked up three for the price of two.”

  “That’s a steal,” the lady said.

  “I know,” Sara said. “Tell me about it.”

  As Sara filled out the one-page application, she and the little old lady talked. They talked about the weather and seasonal allergies and the unfortunate events that had transpired down at the post office. “Just terrible,” the little old lady said, and even though Sara hadn’t any idea what she was talking about, she nodded along as if she did. “I guess that’s why they call it ‘going postal.’”

  “I bet you’re right,” Sara said. “Just tragic.”

  The little old lady smacked her lips and smiled as she took Sara’s application. She put on her glasses and scanned the boxes to make sure everything was as it should be, and when she was done, she smiled up at Sara with the whitest teeth Sara had ever seen and said, “You know, I really do like those sunglasses.” She winked. “We could, if you were interested of course, if you had something to offer in exchange, say, bump the sale out one more day. Just in case.” She smudged out the ending date Sara had written in there and wrote in an extra day, free of charge.

  “Thank you,” Sara said, taking off her sunglasses and handing them to the old lady. “Thank you, oh, so very much.”

  The morning of the garage sale, Sara arranged all her for-sale items as best she could. She placed her new blouses and dresses and jackets on old, ugly roll racks and chipped folding tables, and it all looked so wrong. Most of the items weren’t but just a few weeks old, but they looked worn and beat up on these old racks and three slightly used mannequins. The mannequins were remarkably lifelike, almost off-puttingly so, like a painted portrait whose eyes follow an observer around a room. There was a mother, a father, and a young daughter, almost identical to the three in the Von Maur display window, and she placed them right in the middle of the lawn, decked out in the finest clothes she’d recently purchased for the family. On the daughter, she put a silky red ballerina dress, covered in frills and sequins. The father she displayed in a brand new, custom-made Tom James tuxedo, single breasted and double buttoned, a handsome three-piecer that, Sara noted, Daryl hadn’t bitched about when she brought it home for him. For the mother, she donned a black evening gown, strapless and form fitting and, if she was honest with herself, the most gorgeous and graceful thing she had ever worn. It felt almost evil to be selling it, but, she thought, she had messed up, and now she had to do what was necessary, even if it did feel wrong.

  It wasn’t long before people started showing up. The shoppers were mostly women, middle-aged housewives with oversized sunglasses and black-dyed hair. They wore dark red lipstick and touched everything—the dresses and the serving trays and appliances, the fur coats and wool scarves and velvet hats. It was as if these women felt entitled to Sara’s things, and each time they laid a finger on an item, Sara couldn’t help but flinch. These were her things. Hers. She had earned them, not these women, not the same bored housewives who had complimented her necklace and pearl earrings while in line to pay gymnastics dues at the YMCA. Not these bourgeois, pompous, child-women masquerading as prudent shoppers nitpicking at Sara’s most priz
ed possessions. They were scavengers. Lowly, soul-sucking parasites.

  But, she thought, she shouldn’t be so hard on these women. They were, if Sara thought about it, so much like herself. They desired nice things, but rarely had the means to splurge on themselves. They made do by buying last year’s styles in bargain stores or local consignment shops or estate sales. They would pick up three or four items and carry them around, perusing more, discarding one or two at a time, until finally deciding on a single, solitary item, not even the one they most wanted, but a compromise, one they were used to making at this point, and that was okay. It was just the way life was—an endless barrage of minor compromises that summed up to what could be described as contentment. That was the look these women had as they ambled up one by one to pay for their new blouse or clutch, contentment, and that, Sara decided, wasn’t all that bad. It was almost desirable, in fact.

  At the end of the day, most of Sara’s new things had been picked clean, with only a few stragglers remaining. She hadn’t made as much as she’d wanted, but it was enough. They would get to keep their house, though they’d still have years of debt to pay down, but they wouldn’t be destitute, which was a win, she supposed. There were a few other pieces still left to sell, not enough to make a dent in that debt, but that was okay. There was an umbrella she’d picked up at Target of all places, this bland, wooden-handled thing, and a candy dish, something she’d bought on a whim. There were also the mannequins, still sporting their evening wear, priced too expensive to sell. Standing in front of them were Hux and Daryl, playing. They seemed happy, smiling and laughing as they arranged the mannequins into poses and then mimicked them, standing lifeless in uncomfortable positions, arms outstretched like Egyptian hieroglyphs, knees buckled so that they half stood, half squatted, and they did a pretty decent job. Other than the difference in dress, they really did look alike, the mannequins and her family—plastic, frozen, scheming—and Sara had to admit that it could be worse. If she really, deep down thought about it, it could. It could be so, so much worse.