I carelessly lost $20 today, so I decided to turn my self-loathing (and my self-loathing for being self-loathing) into art (or shit).
Lying in the snow, there was a twenty dollar bill. Johanna saw it when she stepped off the bus. The other two passengers just walked down the stairs and turned in their predetermined directions, but Johanna noticed the money, stuck in a pile of dirty snow piled up against the base of a street sign.
The bus sighed and drove away.
Johanna flung the end of her scarf around her shoulder and crouched down to pick up the bill.
The city sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians. She looked up and down the street to see if anyone was searching for the money they had lost. Any second now, she thought, someone was going to come flying around the corner, frantically looking at the ground, a distressed look on their face. But the people just kept on walking by, looking straight ahead, determined to get where they were going.
There was no way to tell if someone had come back earlier to look for the money. There were no tracks to trace. Commuters’ boots, runners’ sneakers, and stroller wheels had worn down the snow on the pavement to a thin layer of gray slush. A map with so many roads, there was no distinction of one from the other. No way to tell where each lead.
Johanna stood where the bus dropped her off, paralyzed in her ambivalence. Should she wait to see if the owner of the money comes back? Should she just leave the money where she found it? Should she take it? (God knows she needed it)
Had Johanna found herself in this exact situation six months earlier, she would have taken the money without a doubt. Her addiction had rearranged her priorities and, with that, the hierarchy of her morals. But now she had been sober for half a year, a huge accomplishment in her eyes.
Still, this huge accomplishment was only made possible because of her many small victories. The first, saying yes to an old friend’s invitation to attend Sunday chapel. The second, returning for the same service the following week. The third, listening. The fourth, responding. The fifth, believing.
Now, three blocks north, the bells in that exact chapel rang out into the winter air, chiming five o’clock.
Johanna suddenly had an idea.
The twenty dollar bill wasn’t hers. Even though it was pretty clear now that the owner of this money wasn’t coming back, the money still belonged to them. So, as Johanna’s train of thought followed, it would make sense to spend the money on something that would be considered a kind of universal good. Something that any rational human being could look at and say, I wouldn’t mind spending money on that.
Just across the street from the chapel was little theater where the neighborhood theater company put on productions. Their new show had just opened last week and already word had spread of how wonderful it was.
“From the time the curtain goes up, to the time the curtain falls, your heart will feel strained,” a reviewer for the local paper had written. “You will laugh. You will cry. You will forget where you and are and who you are. It is a marvelous feeling.”
Those words had resonated, loud and echoing, deep in the hollow corner that alcohol had created in Johanna’s chest. How she yearned to feel that marvelous feeling.
Now, she clutched the bill in her fist and began to trudge through the slush up to the theater. At the box office window, she purchased two tickets, $6.25 each. This left $7.50. Just enough to take the bus across town to the home of the old friend who had thought to invite Johanna to chapel, and then for the two of them to ride back for the eight o’clock show. Somehow, it had worked out to the dime.
Johanna put the two tickets, the five dollar bill, two ones, and two quarters in her coat pocket and walked back into the flow of people. She couldn’t help but smile as she imagined her friend’s face when she presented her with the tickets.
When she arrived at the bus stop, she sat down on the bench and crossed her legs, swinging her foot in the air. She put her hand in her pocket to take out $2.50. Her foot stopped swinging and her heart dropped her stomach when she couldn’t feel the cold metal of the two quarters. They were gone.
Johanna leapt up and walked back from where she had come from, frantically looking at the ground, a distressed look on her face. Fifty cents. That’s all it was. And in this city, that meant it was practically nothing. But this particular fifty cents was more than just half a dollar. It was Johanna’s pride. Part of her method of appreciation for all her friend had done for her. That’s what this whole affair was, a method of appreciation. To Johanna, that meant that she would supply everything herself. Even the $2.50 bus fare. She didn’t think she would be able to find the gut to admit that she was short on cash and needed some help when she knew her friend herself didn’t exactly have money to spare either. Even if it was just fifty cents. But it wasn’t just fifty cents. It was more than that.
But the bus was coming.
The next bus wasn’t coming for another half an hour and it was a good twenty minute ride across town to her friend’s home. If she were to catch the next bus, they would be late for the play.
The bus sighed to a stop. A rush of people filed off. Johanna got on.
Now she had two tickets, four one dollar bills, two quarters, and a racing mind. How could she have been so careless? She just had the money. It was just in her hand. She held it. She could feel the cold, rounded metal. And now it was gone. She had no idea where it could be now. How could she have been careless.
But there she sat. There was nothing she could do now. She breathe in, breathed out, and let her foot begin to swing again.
Another little victory achieved, surrendering.
A little while later (although it was what felt like three days to Johanna), she buzzed the intercom at the entrance of an apartment complex. The gate unlocked, and Johanna walked inside the courtyard, up through the front door.
She knocked on room 158. Her friend answered, and immediately took Johanna into her arms, laughing, delighted to have an unexpected visitor.
The door shut behind them.
“So, what brings you here today?” she asked, cordially, without a trace of annoyance.
Johanna explained what had happened, that she found a twenty dollar bill and wanted to do something nice for her, to thank her for all that she had done over the past few months. She had wanted to pay for everything. She wanted every part of the evening to be a gift. But she had carelessly lost fifty cents in the snow and she no other money to spare. She knew her cheeks were dyed the color of humiliation.
Her friend’s eyes were wide, her head slowly shaking back and forth.
She reached out and held both of Johanna’s hands in her own.
“My darling, I consider fifty cents an incredibly small price, as long as it is the price I must pay to see you smile again. You must learn to forgive yourself.”
And, over a bit of time and prayer, Johanna did. One final little victory achieved.
~~~~~~~~
Later that night, the girls walked out of the theater arm-in-arm. They were silent, each contemplating the happenings they had just watched, not exactly sure how to identify the strange emotions the play had evoked in their hearts. A little ways down the street, in the path of a street lamp’s light, Johanna’s old friend saw something shimmer. Two quarters.
