Between The Pages

The bandage was too tight on my arm. Why do they always make this bandage so tight? Good God, I can still feel the needle. I put a few quarters into the vending machine for a snack to make sure I wouldn't pass out. I had been donating plasma twice a week for the past six months. It was the only thing keeping me from starving. I had been through so many jobs over the past three years. All dead ends. I keep thinking a new job will make things better, but after a few months it becomes this place I hate, managed by people I hate, for pay that is never enough for the frustration and never-ending dread of being forced to trade my time for a few dull pennies. It's never enough! It's not worth it. So I quit over and over. I often think about how I might have done things differently. Maybe if I had made different decisions I wouldn't be unemployed, living with my sister, and having my plasma sucked out for money. I'm too old and fat to be a stripper.

As I sit down in the departure lounge at the plasma center to eat my sad sandwich bag of Gushers, I see a black book on the floor. It looks like a book I had in art school, one that I would sketch in and take art history notes. I pick up the book, almost hoping to open it and find my scribbles. I flip through the pages looking for any writing, but the only thing that I found was a quarter in the pages. And then another. Two more slip out from between the pages and onto my lap. Four more drop onto the floor. I keep my finger in the book and bend down to pick them up when a handful of quarters and some dollar bills fall, clattering to the floor.

Who keeps money in a blank notebook? More dollar bills and quarters fall out. Where is this money coming from?! I take a crisp dollar bill from the floor and put it in the vending machine. I see the candy bar drop to the bottom of the vending machine. I look down at the book, swelling and dropping coins onto the floor. Fuck it. I don't care how this is happening. I shove the book leaking cash into my purse, grab my candy bar and head home. I can feel more coins slosh around in my purse as I sling it onto my shoulder.

I park the car, and try to pick up my purse. It feels like it gained 5 pounds! I wonder how much this book has dropped in my purse. I get inside the apartment, dump out my purse onto the kitchen table. There was easily fifty or sixty dollars in quarters and single dollars. The book was still swollen and oozing dollars and quarters from the pages. I pick up the book from the spine, and I shake it. Bills! Hundreds of dollar bills! Sheets of green paper rain out of the book and flutter to the ground. I fall to the floor and pick up a handful of bills. Ten and twenty dollar bills. My brain starts to reel and my eyes begin to well. I can feel my skin buzzing with all the ideas of the things I can pay for. I can go to the grocery store, I can pay my phone bill, I can go to the doctor, I can pay off my car, I can pay for that plane ticket to Morocco that I've been dreaming about for years, I can pay for everything. I can stop donating plasma. I don't have to go to another soul-sucking job.

I shut my eyes with the comforting bliss of a magical money book. How did that just happen? How am I so lucky?

I drift into sleep... and see the book on my kitchen table, open. The open page had something written on it.

Spend To Get

Ask To Receive

Reap To Sow

I hear it ringing in my head as I wake up.

The sun creeps into my window to embrace me in the warm sunshine of a bright, new day. Today, I count. I need to know what the book gave me. What was were the words in that dream? Spend to get, ask to receive, reap to sow. That's it.

Oh no! Does that mean to get more I have to spend everything it spewed out last night?! How the fuck do I do that?! I've never had that much cash in my entire life, and now I have to spend it to get more?! OH SHIT! This is the best problem EVER! Oh no, what if it kept going last night. Is my kitchen just piled with money? Fuck, if Naomi finds all that money she will lose it.

Jumping out of bed in sheer panic, I stumble into the kitchen. Wait, what day is it? The money looks about the same. At least that problem hasn't gotten worse. FOCUS. What day is it? Saturday. Naomi is at John's place still Monday. Thank God.

Calm down. Sit with your cash. ‘Smell it,’ I think as I scoop up a pool of crispy twenties into my face to deeply inhale the scent of fresh money. It's like pheromones. That's the smell of security. Safety. This smell drains all the anxiety out of me.

A thought brings me out of my cash pheromone high. That dream. That was a weird dream. The book! I wonder if those words are written in the book. I pick up the book from the table, pulling a few extraneous bills hanging out from the pages. I open it, and I realize that this book has no discernable front. Maybe I missed the words the first time. This time when I open it, the words are there. I turn to the next page. At the top of the page it reads 'Spend To Get' with a half-filled ledger below. I turn another page. The header this time 'Ask To Receive' was above lines of writing. They were wishes. Wishes for certain amounts of money, types of currency, the number of bills, even the types of coins. I turn the page again, and sure enough it reads 'Reap To Sow' with boxes and lines connecting them, like some kind of plan I could fill out. They showed how other people invested their money to live their dreams.

I scoop up another pile of money from the floor, and inhale deeply.

I spend the next hour and a half picking up what I come to find is a cool twenty thousand dollars in bills and coins. Spend to get. I need to spend this to get more. Good grief, how do I spend twenty grand without being noticed? Especially paying in cash. No matter how amazing it is to have money just appear from nowhere, this book is not practical in this day and age. Everyone wants to know how you got everything. IRS, the bank, my family, mostly the IRS. I would have to start laundering money. I am no Walter White. I don't have time for that. I need a plan.

Over the next week, I keep trying to come ups with ideas while twenty thousand dollars sits in my closet. I should be able to spend it no problem, but I don't even know where to begin with it. It stares at me when I open the closet doors. Maybe, I could start with lunch.

I take the bus downtown to have a taste of something new and exciting. To treat myself to something good. Soul food.

A plate of hot chicken and waffles is set down in front of me and I see a man looking at me through the window of the restaurant. His eyes lock onto me and I see his face melt into an expression of sadness, longing, and hunger. He puts his finger tips up to the window, and my heart feels like it's collapsing in on itself. I look down at my plate, and back up at the man. I call the server over.

"Excuse me, can I get another order of this to go? Just give it to the guy outside and add it to my bill."

As I poke at my food, I see the server hand the homeless man the box of food. I wave at him and smile. He looks so happy, as if no one has ever been kind to him, and it gives me an idea.

It's Saturday and I'm packing a messenger bag. I have the money bundled into small rolls that look like perm rods someone's grandmother would use. I toss the bundles into my bag, and head out the door. I take the bus downtown, leaving the sack of quarters on my seat as I exit.

As I'm walking, I hand out the little money rolls to every person I see living on the street. I get braver. I start sneaking the rolls into women's purses and men's open jacket pockets. I pop the money rolls into people's shopping bags and hand them to little children with the shared excitement of a secret from their parents. I secretly hand out money rolls to homeless people, mothers yelling at their kids, teenagers taking selfies, focused kissing couples, distracted men staring at their cellphones, neglected backpacks, anyone with an open pocket of opportunity. I can feel this blossoming of warmth in my chest thinking about an unassuming person reaching for their keys and pulling out a mysterious gift of good fortune. I imagine the happy confusion. Where did this come from? How did this happen? Why was I chosen?

I am buzzing! I have become the reverse larcenist. An inverted thief. A backwards burglar! This felt better than buying a bunch of bullshit for myself. I have to do this again, but bigger. I look up, and I see a sign. A sign from the gods of serendipity to keep spreading good fortune. A sign for a parade Sunday afternoon.

This was perfect.

I feel a little out of place walking into the fancy hotel on Sunday morning. It doesn't matter. I have a magic money book. I could have whatever I want, whenever I want, but wearing it on my sleeve was not my style. It would be incredibly stupid to go out and buy some ridiculously expensive item that looks ridiculously conspicuous when being purchased in cash.

How do I suddenly become independently wealthy overnight and never work again? How would I explain a giant pile of cash in my closet? That's insane. I open the book and start writing.

Who would I be if I never worked?

What does work even mean? Is it the place that hate-pays me to do chores they don't want to do? Why do I give my time and energy to people I ultimately cannot tolerate? Maybe that's been my mistake all along. Forcing myself to show up and work for someone who is not me. I can do better.

It’s time. The grand finale. I open the window to hear the band below marching down the street. You can feel the happiness radiating from the crowd. I grab a skinny stack of ten dollar bills from my purse and fling them out the window and quickly duck back inside the room. The book! It's bulging and spewing out cash everywhere! I slam it shut, grip the spine, thrust my arms out into the world, shaking the book over everyone below me.

Thousands and thousands of green and white paper rectangles float in the sunny air. I could feel the heat of the sun on my face. I smile, feeling the warmth bursting through my chest. The sound of the crowd ringing in my ears.