Troy Stone

Pit

“Money makes people rotten.” Grandma would tell me repeatedly. She’d let out a whistle through the gap in her teeth and say with a subtle satisfaction after the noise, “You promise me here, you better never get rich. Money dirties souls.” I’d nod my head vehemently so she couldn’t look into my eyes. I didn’t want her to peer in and see my excitement. Nothing was more enticing than the thought of being rich enough to move out of our prefabricated house surrounded by lumped dirt and dying weeds steeped in fracking slurry. I knew she’d be able to see it, because I had seen it once. The look. It was probably when I was ten or eleven when my mother had just been let out of rehab or prison, by then I’d lost track. She had come home and ruffled my hair between yellowed fingers, leaving my hair smelling like cigarettes. She told me that she was going to be a better mom; that this time was different. I knew it was a lie but like most children, I chose to believe it. Three days later, I came back from school to a broke piggy bank and a note. What I missed more, I’d tell myself, was the piggy bank. I’d been saving up by pocketing some of the lunch money Grandma would give me. I’d gone hungry every Monday planning to buy a sewing machine, my ticket out of this town. But one heroine dose later and my dreams were in shards.