“Thanks for dinner,” C said.
“That was the best s’ghetti I ever had,” I added, laughing.
Dorothea broke into a big smile, then turned and rushed off to catch up with the boys.
I put my hand on the ignition key, but then stopped. I sat there a moment thinking. I had changed my wish for the wizard’s wand. It wasn’t about me anymore. Now I wanted the magic wand to take Dorothea and her boys to a home of their own, a home with a stove, a refrigerator, a TV, beds, lights, and toys.
“There’s nothing you can do, unless you’ve got a few thousand in your wallet,” C said, adding gently, “Maybe someday you can.”
I turned to look at him and saw the deepest sadness in his eyes. There was nothing I could say.
C motioned to me to turn the key, and I smiled. “Engage, Scotty,” he said.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Chapter 28
BANK OF AMERICA
A fine drizzle was falling as I pulled out of the Episcopal church parking lot, where I’d spent the night. I turned into the sweeping exit lane that merged into Wheaton Way, one of the main four-lane thoroughfares through town. It was lined with pawnshops, quick-money branches, and fast-food stops—shrines of Americana. I wouldn’t be welcome at any of these establishments this cold, wet morning—not with a mere fifty cents in my pocket. I had overslept and missed the eight-o’clock breakfast call at Sally’s.
With no specific destination in mind, I was just cruising along, following where the road led me. As I passed Money Tree, I saw the unmistakable figure of one of my friends from Sally’s. He was walking as quickly as he could along the sidewalk.
Randy’s black nylon raincoat and black hair were soaking wet as he dragged his club foot and swung his deformed left arm to help propel himself forward through the rain. He was carrying his small black gym bag in his right hand.
I hoped Randy had not seen me as I passed. I wasn’t in much of a mood for his company this morning. I had given him dozens of rides down this road after many breakfasts at Sally’s. With some frequency Randy would carefully observe my actions at breakfast, and when it appeared I was near my last sip of coffee, he would struggle to get nearer to me, and with a sad look on his face he would ask, “Richard, can I talk to you?” I would always say, “Sure.” Then he would lean even closer and ask, “Could you give me a ride to the tire center?”
It was hard—well, impossible, really—to say no to Randy, because when I said yes, he would break into a great toothy smile. And I knew how much a ride—and that ride in particular—meant to Randy. It was a two-mile trek to his destination, mostly uphill, across the usually windy Warren Avenue Bridge. It would be a workout even for an able-bodied person, and for Randy it was doubly so.
I knew that as soon as he got in the van he would toss his gym bag on the running board, pat Willow on the head, and then lean toward me and ask, ever so politely, if it was okay if he changed the radio station. I would always nod hesitantly as he took his good hand and punched the buttons to his favorite country-and-western station. And at the first few chords of that distinctive whine and twang, he would begin tapping his deformed hand against his knee, keeping the rhythm and wearing a big grin.
I don’t cotton to country. Fact is, from the days of Ferlin Husky and Patsy Cline to today, I could count on one hand the country warbles I’ve enjoyed, and most of those came from the lungs of Dolly Parton. I was sure the world had more than enough songs about Ford pickup trucks, coon hounds, whisky drinkin’, and true love lost in Laredo. I was more of a Rolling Stones man.
I would steel myself as Randy reached over to turn up the volume on a song that was playing, like “High in a tree on the top of the hill...” Then Randy would say, “That’s Randy Travis! He stole my name,” and he would smile at me.
I knew that as soon as we pulled into the tire center parking lot, Randy would peer out the window, looking for his friends who worked there. Men in matching blue pants and short-sleeved white shirts, with their first names embroidered on an egg-shaped emblem sewn over their hearts, would welcome Randy with a wave or a nod. “He’s got my name on his shirt,” Randy once proudly pointed out to me, as a man with “Randy” on his shirt pushed a bald tire out of the garage and around to the “dead pile” at the side of the building.
Gene, Bob, Roy, and Randy would let Randy hang out awhile every morning while they used their pressure drills to remove lug nuts and change tires, all to the blaring sounds of country music. “I wish I could work there, but I can’t,” Randy told me one morning as we pulled into the tire center lot. “I can’t,” he repeated, pointing to his bad hand. But the men also let Randy watch a little television and drink the complimentary coffee in the waiting room, and they joked with him when they weren’t busy balancing tires or aligning front ends. After an hour or so, Randy would sense that the men wanted him to leave, and he would walk up the street to K-Mart. He would hang out at the back of the store and play the free-demonstration computer games until one of the “associates” started giving him that you-just-can’t-be-here look. And after Randy had worn out his welcome there, he would walk back down the hill, dragging his foot, and try to get back to Sally’s in time for lunch. Randy would spend the afternoon walking around town, searching for snipes in ashtrays and coins on the ground.
I remembered C pointing out one day at breakfast that some might call Randy a little slow, while others might say he was a bit off. “Someone told me that someone told them that Randy ran away a couple of times and lived in the woods,” C reported. “But he couldn’t make it on his own, and he moved back in with his mom. But that’s what someone told someone, who told someone, and, well, now I’m telling someone something I really don’t know about someone else.”
I found that while Randy may not know who Dick Cheney and Alan Greenspan were, he sure knew Tim McGraw and Garth Brooks, as well as the words to all their country songs.
Randy seemed to be ahead of his daily schedule this morning. It was just nine thirty, and he’d already left the tire center. I wondered if the men had kicked him out. As the stoplight at the corner was changing, I peeked in my rearview mirror to see if he had spotted me, and, well, yes, he had. He was waving his bad hand and calling out frantically, “Hey, Richard! Richard! Wait! Wait!”
Randy reached the side of the van just as the signal was changing to green, and he pressed his sad, wet face to the window. “Richard? Can I get a ride?”
“Hop in,” I replied, motioning him in. Randy used his good hand to open the door, tossed his gym bag on the floor, and maneuvered his clubfoot into the van. “BEEEEEEEEEEP!” A woman behind me leaned on her horn as Randy got the rest of his body into the van and closed the door. I hit the gas.
“You’re soaking wet, Randy.”
“You missed breakfast this morning,” Randy replied. “I looked for you.”
“Yeah. I overslept,” I explained.
“I was hopin’ you’d be there.” he said. “Would it be okay if I changed the radio?”
“Sure. It’s okay,” I said. He reached over and pressed the buttons, searching for his favorite station. “Where can I drop you off?” I asked as I braced for the first notes of country twang.
Instead, there was an advertisement on the airwaves. “This is Ray Vincent of American Equity Mortgage,” the announcer said. “Are you tired of making interest payments of eight to ten percent?”
“I’m going to the bank,” Randy said, over the radio ad. He smiled, placed his wet gym bag on his lap, and unzipped it. Then he reached in and pulled out a check. “It’s my birthday today, Richard,” he said.
“Well, happy birthday, Randy,” I said.
“Randy at the tire center gave me a check for twenty dollars to buy me a new radio headset at K-Mart! Then I can listen to country music all day!” Randy was gushing.
“That’s great, Randy,” I said. “What bank are you going to?”
“Bank of America!” Randy said, showing me his check. He point
ed up the street in the direction of the nearest branch.
The mortgage company ad on the radio came to an end with its little jingle, “American Equity Mortgage, the future is up to yooooooouuuu!”
As we motored down the boulevard, a country song began: “American girls and American guys, we’ll always stand up and salute.”
“I love this song,” Randy said, leaning forward and turning up the volume. “This is Toby Keith,” he added, beginning to rock back and forth to the beat of the song. The Old-Glory-and-Uncle-Sam lyrics were interspersed with Randy’s own special brand of patriotic commentary. Both ceased as we pulled into the Bank of America parking lot.
As soon as we came to a stop, Randy opened the door, swung his good foot out, and dragged his bad foot behind him.
“Would you come in with me, Richard?” he asked. “In case I have trouble?”
“You won’t have any trouble, Randy,” I assured him. “The check is drawn on this bank, so they’ll cash it for sure.” I paused, reading the uncertainty all over his face. “But if you want me too, I will.”
“Please,” Randy said.
“Okay.” I set the parking brake and got out of the van. I was hoping they might have some complimentary coffee inside.
We were in luck. I spotted a coffee thermos and cups, and even a plate of cookies, on a small table. Randy got in the teller line while I grabbed a cup of coffee and a cookie. When I walked over to join him, he was wearing a big grin of anticipation. “I used to have a headset, but somebody stole it,” he said, looking at me. “I can’t wait to get a new one!”
It didn’t take long for Randy to get to the teller. “I’d like to cash this, please,” he said, passing the check to her.
The lady accepted the check and then looked at Randy. “Do you have an account with us, sir?” she asked.
“No,” said Randy.
“We just need to see a picture ID, then,” she said, turning the check over and preparing to write down his information.
Randy picked up the gym bag he had dropped on the floor and held it in place with his bad hand while he unzipped it. His face began to contort into that forlorn look he often wore. He reached into the bag and pulled out some of its contents, one piece at a time, and placed them on the counter. First came a small plastic bag, half-filled with the snipes he collected. Then a muffin left over from breakfast at Sally’s. Then a rumpled newspaper he had probably fished out of the trash on the way here. “Here it is,” he said, breaking into a triumphant smile. He pulled out his bus pass, complete with picture, and pushed it across the counter to the teller. “It was at the bottom of my bag all the time.”
The teller looked at Randy, looked at the pass, and then looked back at Randy. I watched her as she compared Randy’s picture to the real-life Randy with the same scrutiny she would use on a suspected terrorist. Her name was Mary Lou, according to the American-flag nametag pinned to her blouse.
“This pass expired some time ago,” the teller said. “Do you have another picture ID? We need two picture IDs to cash a check for a non-customer.”
Randy turned to me with a sad look in his eyes.
“Geez, it’s his birthday,” I began. “And one of the guys up at the tire center gave him twenty bucks to buy himself a present. The man who gave him the check has an account here. It’s a small check. Couldn’t you just cash it for him?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but our bank rules require two picture IDs to cash a check,” she said, matter-of-factly. “We cannot cash this check without proper identification.”
Randy lowered his eyes to the floor.
“How about the manager?” I asked. “Could she approve it? It’s only a twenty-dollar check.”
“You can try,” Mary Lou said, pointing to a lady standing at the credenza in the center of the bank.
“Come on, Randy,” I said, motioning to him to follow me.
The manager was holding a brochure and pointing to its contents with her red-white-and-blue pencil as she spoke with a customer. Randy grabbed his snipes, his muffin, and his newspaper and put them back into his gym bag. He limped along behind me. We got in line to see the manager, and I tried to help him relax with some small talk. “Well, Randy, how old are you today?” I asked.
“Twenty-five,” he answered, smiling.
“You were born in Bremerton?” I asked, keeping my eye on the manager.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” he said.
“Would you like to move anyplace else?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Randy said hesitantly. “I’ve never been anywhere else.”
The manager closed the brochure and handed the customer her business card. I cleared my throat in preparation for pleading Randy’s case to her. She smiled at me and nodded for us to approach.
“Hello. My friend Randy here got a twenty-dollar check for his birthday from his friend up the street at the tire center,” I began. “And because Randy really doesn’t have any picture ID other than his bus pass, we’re having trouble cashing the check. The check is from a man who has an account at your bank,” I added.
“Let me see the check,” the manager said. The nametag pinned to her blue-blazer lapel read “Marilyn.” Randy handed her the check; she looked at it, then asked to see the bus pass. Randy took it out of his pocket, and the manager took it from his good hand. She held up the bus pass, looked at it, looked at Randy, and looked back at the pass again before returning it to Randy. “Did our teller explain our rules about cashing a non-customer check?” she asked.
“She told us we needed two picture IDs,” I said.
Manager Marilyn nodded. “I can’t cash this check. The bus pass is expired, and we really need a driver’s license, a MasterCard with a picture on it, or a passport.” She handed the check back to Randy.
“Well, I thought because it was his birthday, and, well, since it was such a small check, you might cash it for him,” I said.
“It’s nice that it is his birthday, but this is a Bank of America rule,” she announced.
I realized at that moment that Randy and I were financial lepers—third-class citizens, untouchables. The bankers—the keepers of the cash—had created a colony where all the lepers with no ID or a credit score of under 300 must go and live out their days. Off somewhere in banking land, rules had been made, printed, and sent out across the country to protect investors from all the Randys and their twenty-dollar checks.
I thought if I could just talk to the rule makers, I could tell them about Randy and plead his case. I could tell them it was his birthday. I could tell them how badly he wanted that radio headset. I could tell them of his open face, his innocence, his smile. If they could just see his face, surely they would not need two pieces of picture ID.
“Can you give me the phone number of the bank president?” I asked Manager Marilyn. She seemed quite stunned by my request. I forged ahead. “I’m sure if I talked to him or her, I could get approval to cash this check for Randy.”
“You want to speak to the president of the bank?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I doubt he will talk to you,” she replied, coldly. I began to see the you-are-wasting-my-valuable-time look sweep across her face.
I wished so hard that I had the words to change this woman’s mind. I wondered what it would take to “free her doubtful mind and melt her cold, cold heart.”
And then the cowboy in me came calling. I saddled my emotional horse and got ready to ride in the name of the true Red, White, and Blue. “You know, Randy here can’t get a driver’s license,” I began again, “because he can’t drive. He’s got a deformed hand and a deformed foot. Randy doesn’t have the money to get a picture MasterCard or Visa, and he can’t afford a passport. He has never been out of this town. What he does have is a small birthday check he wants to get cashed. You know, the last time I was in New York, I visited the Statue of Liberty, and on the side of that dear lady it says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masse
s yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’ That’s what America is supposed to be about.”
I could see that I had struck the wrong chord with Manager Marilyn, as her face began to turn a crimson shade that matched the stylish scarf she wore around her neck. Her eyes widened, and I knew she wanted to have her boots go walkin’—all over me. She reached for a brochure on the counter beside her, circled something with her red-white-and-blue pen, and handed it to me. “If you have any complaints, you can call that 800 number,” she said, turning brusquely from the credenza and heading for her glass-enclosed office.
She picked up her phone. I figured she was calling the cops to take Randy and me to Folsom Prison.
I had little hope that other bankers would be any better at breaking the stranglehold of corporate regulations, but, for Randy, I had to make the effort. “Come on, Randy,” I said. “Let’s try someplace else.” Randy stuck the check back in his pocket and followed me out the door.
Randy was shattered and looking sad, sad, sad as we got into the van. “How about we go back to the tire center and ask Randy to give you cash?” I asked him
“He didn’t have any cash this morning,” replied Randy, as I started the engine. “That’s why he gave me the check.”
“Then how about we take the check back to Randy and ask him to bring you cash tomorrow?”
“Today’s my birthday,” Randy said, simply.
Randy had given me quite rational answers to my two questions. As I pulled back onto the boulevard, I decided I needed a financial advisor to help solve this problem. I headed for the Armadillo.
Randy managed a smile as another American Equity Mortgage ad came to an end with its now familiar refrain of “... the future belongs to yooooouuuu!” and another country song began with “Well, it’s a long way to Richmond, rollin’ north on 95...”
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