by J. Naomi Ay
When my brother came to visit me in the hospital, sitting by my bedside and describing in great detail the renovations he was going to make to Dad's house, if I could have, I would have reached up and smacked him. Alternately, I would have yanked his tongue from his mouth, or removed his eyeballs from their sockets with my fingernails. As I couldn't lift a finger, and was far too drugged to even spit in his direction, I lay there prone, subjected to yet another round of fraternal gloating.
Six months passed until my back was more or less healed and I was released from the hospital, a new, but not improved, man. I was also totally broke, so much in debt that four lifetimes of delivering pizzas, my previous occupation, wouldn't yield enough to ever make me a free man.
Briefly, I considered stepping into the street again and encouraging another vehicle to roll over me, this time finishing the job completely. That was the only way I could foresee escaping the hospital's payment plan, which as I departed, was detailed on an invoice that would follow me for the next forty years.
Instead, I headed to a local pub where I spent the next day and night drowning my sorrows in beer, drinking up what little remained of my money. It was stupid, of course. I should have put it toward the hospital's first installment. Somehow, and at some point, I managed to stagger home to my flat, where fortunately, the landlord had taken pity upon me during my absence.
Gloria didn't evict me, or toss my things in the street during my convalescence. This could have been entirely due to the fact that no one else was willing to rent that dive. It also could have been because she liked me. Poor Gloria was on the wrong side of forty, nearly twenty years my senior and throughout her life, had a habit of selecting the wrong kind of guy. This included me.
I regretted what happened. I became a whore. While I scrambled to pay the hospital bill by selling my stuff and raising money in any way I could, I kept Gloria entertained in exchange for the rent.
Every month, on the first, it went like this. Gloria would knock on my door, usually bright and early, undoubtedly, waking me from a sound and contented sleep that was much nicer than my reality. Groggily, I’d stumble from the sofa, swing the door wide open to admit her and feign surprise at her arrival during this ungodly hour.
“The rent, Lance,” she'd say frostily, holding out a hand, the other knuckled into her side, a foot tapping out an impatient rhythm. “I can't let you go another month without paying.”
“Rent,” I'd mutter sleepily, running a hand across my night's beard. “Oh. Gloria. Yeah, the thing is---”
“What?”
“I'm a little short again this month.” I’d pat my hands against my hips as if checking inside the nonexistent pockets of my marginally clean and slightly torn boxer shorts.
“Mhm,” she'd mutter, her eyes drawn to my hands, where inevitably she'd find a prime example of morning wood. “Oh. Is that for me?”
“It's all I've got right now,” I'd say, which was followed by the old couch being cleared of my ratty blanket and the even older sleeper mattress beneath extended to its full size.
Then, I did what I did best, because at twenty-four, I was a loser at every other round in this game of life. Gloria left happy, and my lack of rent was forestalled for another month.
Eventually, though, Gloria tired of this game, or maybe, she preferred to play it instead with the guy in the apartment across the hall. At any rate, she gave me an ultimatum. At the end of the month, pay up or get out.
“You got anything else?” the pawnbroker asked, as I stared at the measly number written on my ticket.
“Hey, that ring is worth more than that!” I insisted. “It was my mother's. She left it to me to give to my future wife.”
“I'm doing you a favor then,” the guy replied. “You give a girl this piece of crap cubic zirconia and she's liable to throw it back at you and walk out of your wedding.”
“It's not a fake.”
“Listen to me, son. I've seen a lot of rings in my day, and that one's about as real as my tooth.” He proceeded to reach into his mouth and pull out a shiny, white incisor. “Look's nice, eh? Indestructible, too. Better than the real thing, but my wife doesn't wear it on her finger. So, you got anything else for me to look at?”
I would have liked to offer him my fist, but I didn't. Since Gloria dumped me, this guy was about the only friend I had. Putting my hands in my pockets to restrain them, I pretended to consider the paltry offer on my mother's ring. I was going to take it. I had no choice. I was down to my last nickel, or rather, the forty-three dollars and thirty-seven cents that was already promised to the hospital.
“Just this,” I said, finding that stupid Euro coin in my pocket. “Maybe this is a collector's item?”
“Let me see.” The guy dropped his loop over his eye and turned the coin this way and that way. He murmured something, while trying to read it. “I don't know what in the hell this says. It's a piece of crap. Not worth a nickel.” He tossed it back, whereupon it rolled the distance of the counter, before falling flat.
Heads. Some dude in a crown looked off across the horizon at the ancient toasters and television sets with blue price tags hanging from them.
“It's an ancient Euro.”
“No, it's not. What language does that look like to you?”
“I don't know. Greek? Russian? Portuguese?”
The pawnbroker shook his head and glanced at the door. Another customer had come in, or more likely, another victim of the decrepit economy came to hock whatever he had in order to eat. “Are you taking my offer on the ring, or no?”
“I guess so,” I sighed, studying my not-Euro coin again. “You sure this isn't worth anything?”
“Not to me.”
“That's worth a fair amount in the old Empire,” the new customer interrupted. “Although, it'll cost you a heck of a lot more to travel the ten lightyears to get there.”
“Where?”
I turned to look at my neighbor, only to discover he was wearing a SpaceForce uniform and carrying an old iPad from the twenty-first century.
“I found this in a rummage sale on Darius II. Is it worth anything, Pops?” He set it on the counter for the old man, and then, held out his hand to take a look at my coin. “Yep, this is an old Imperial dollar. It’s definitely worth something to collectors around the galaxy. It dates back to the reign of the Great Emperor. That’s who this guy is on the front. You wouldn’t want to sell it to me, would you?”
“I will buy it first,” the pawnbroker interjected.
“No way.” I snatched it back from the spandex-clad spaceman. “You can buy his iPad, Pops. You missed your chance with me.”
Grabbing my mom's cubic zirconia wedding ring off the counter, as well, I left the pawnshop with a new spring in my step. I was determined to take my coin to a place where its value would be appreciated. Worth something could mean several thousand and several thousand would easily pay off the hospital bill. This coin would give me a chance to restart my life debt-free. On the other hand, if I had to take the coin across the galaxy, why would I bother coming back?
Unfortunately, the fare on a spaceplane to the nearest port where the coin could be exchanged, cost more than I would have gained selling the ring and the clothing off my back, as well as the old sofa, and the toaster in my flat. The only way to get myself from here to there was to get on a ship that didn't cost me anything.
“The dude's spandex uniform wasn't all that ugly,” I told myself, walking into the SpaceForce recruiting office down the street. “And, I'd get three squares a day, a hot shower, and clean bed without any aging landladies in it.” That didn’t sound a whole lot different than prison, but at that point, I didn’t care.
An hour later, I walked out, officially a recruit with a contract in hand, and an induction physical scheduled for the following day.
