“Change?” Jonah asked nervously.
The man looked at his face, gauging.
“There’s a… ten percent surcharge,” he said.
Jonah reached into his other pocket and pulled out an identical stack.
“Fif-fifteen,” the broker stammered. “It just went up to fifteen the other day.”
“That’s fine,” Jonah breathed, scarcely daring to believe that something so foolish might actually work. One false move and he could go to jail for a long, long time.
He walked up to where the man sat behind the wire, not daring to look at the banjos and tennis rackets that lined the walls and the vacuum cleaners that lined the floors. Below the wiring and glass was a solid wall; a slot separated the two through which items and money could be passed. Jonah placed the two stacks on the counter and slid one into the slot. The man took it eagerly and ran it along his thumb. Jonah licked his lips and tried to keep the sweat from dripping down his brow.
“Gotta check it,” he said and Jonah froze.
The man pulled out a single bill from the middle of the stack and held it under what looked like an ultraviolet lamp. The man bit on his lip and turned the bill over, holding it there for an eternity before scowling and flicking it a little The sweat built on Jonah’s brow, threatening to become a torrent and drown him.
“Ummmm.”
He was prepared for the call to the police at any moment. His legs were coiled to run.
“All right,” the man said at last. “Looks good. So that’s…” He eyed the other stack of bills. Jonah slipped them through the slot. “One thousand dollars in tens, minus te-fifteen percent, is eight hundred fifty dollars. How you want it?”
“Hundreds,” Jonah’s reply was almost instantaneous.
“And the fifty?”
“Huhn?” The disruption in the flow was almost disorienting.
“You got fifty left over, man.”
"I..."
"Why didn't you just go to the bank, kid?" the man asked. "They ask a few too many questions?"
Jonah cast his eyes around the shop, desperate to get out as soon as possible. The constant beads of sweat expanded into droplets. What reason was there to pay this guy fifteen percent for cash instead of going into a bank? His brain seized on something his father had mentioned in passing while driving him to the mall to get a pair of boots one Thursday afternoon, a wad of bills similar to the one Jonah had just shoved through the slot sitting on the seat beside him.
"I-I don't want the government knowing about any more of my money than I have to."
The broker pursed his lips and then nodded slowly. "Smart kid. Damn government would tax my piss if they could. And my bank would watch me on the can writing down how much went in there."
Jonah exhaled as the pawnbroker counted off eight hundred dollar bills and shoved them through the slot as if resentful of having to give them up. Jonah relished a smile as he heard the bills shuffled and placed in a drawer. Jonah made certain to stuff the hundreds into his front pocket so they could not be seen.
"Wouldn't mind so much if they didn't insist on giving it all to the Indians."
Jonah's relieved expression evaporated.
"So, you just want a fifty? Maybe there's something in the shop that caught your eye."
"You know what? You can keep it," Jonah said with a flat disdain, turning on his heel away from the glass.
As he slipped on his gloves so his hands would not freeze he wondered what would happen when the pawnbroker realized that serial numbers on the ten-dollar bills in the stacks, though different than their neighbours were the same as their counterparts in the other stack.
Jonah McAllister had just doubled his money.
Jonah McAllister Goes Shopping
With the fast approach of the holiday season the malls were packed to brimming with people; a hot ocean of bodies and overcoats, worry and frustration and bleary-eyed consumerism. Even with a recession in full swing there was a sense of grasping, clutching hunger in the air, the overwhelming sense of obligation and forced cheer was nearly stifling. And yet Jonah found himself to be in a mood that he had a hard time placing, mostly because he had never felt it before. It was a complete lack of worry and obligation, the antithesis of the world that buzzed and hummed around him with breakneck speed.
He tested the weight of the coat skeptically, shifting inside of it and feeling it move with him. In all of his life he had never had a winter coat that met with his satisfaction. Mostly he ended up with hollow-feeling plastic affairs that caused him to bristle whenever his bare skin rubbed against their frigid sleeves or sometimes with nylon fibre lined things whose sleeves were too short, making his wrists chafe in the exposed space between his cuffs and his gloves.
This one was lined with some kind of woollen fibre, a little itchy, but tolerable. Its outside was made of a thick black wool that he was certain was woven so tightly that it would laugh off even the most grotesque of winds. But most important it was heavy, something he had decided was the key to a winter coat: stoutness. He looked carefully at the price tag and marvelled at the strange feeling of not being instantly repulsed. It was an alien sensation, but not an unpleasant one.
He threw the coat over his arm and made for the aisle, grasping a pair of leather gloves without regard for the tag. A
