Hundred

Glen Pourciau

I'd worn myself out waiting on Bankhead. I'd asked him to loan me a hundred dollars and he'd told me he'd think about it, but to me it seemed more like he was thinking why he wasn't going to loan me the hundred. He wouldn't look me in the eye and he apparently didn't appreciate me hitting him up at his favorite bench in the park, where he habitually went to enjoy some quiet and fresh air. The air felt less fresh to him with me standing in front of him, just to one side, between him and the sun, and he may have suspected I'd put myself between him and the sun to show sensitivity to his exposure to the glare and the heat. In fact I did have it in mind to come across as considerate of his exposure to the glare and the heat and hoped it would affect his disposition to make me the loan, but Bankhead, I imagined, was thinking he wasn't falling for that one. He didn't seem to care to discuss my request and seemed to wish I'd move along to wherever I'd have gone if I hadn't crossed his path. I couldn't appear to be hounding him for the money, and judging by the look on his face I was better off not hearing what he was thinking about me. So I thanked him, and as I walked away I tried to believe he'd consider the loan and persuaded myself to be encouraged he hadn't outright refused me. I assured myself that Bankhead must have some consciousness of the suffering of others. How long had I known him and had I ever asked him to loan me a penny before? I'd told him I'd been furloughed and he knew I was unlikely to be recalled in the near future. A worry lingered that I'd detected him suppressing a sigh and beneath the sigh maybe thinking, as I was, how far a hundred dollars would go and that after I'd used it up I might try hitting him up for another hundred or more. He probably imagined there'd be no stopping me if he started handing me money, and if I blabbed and word got out other needy people might line up at his bench. He likely thought it wasn't his business to ask me what I planned to use the hundred for and if I had other money I could put with it to cover some impending expense. How did I expect to pay him back, he must have wondered, and would the story I told him be followed by another story next week and next month? If he'd asked I would have said I didn't expect him to loan me more than a hundred. I didn't have the nerve to pop up at his park bench and ask him for five hundred. It angered me that he could be making up stories and asking himself questions with imaginary answers that would confirm the rightness of the decision he'd already made not to loan me the money. His questions and answers would then be just an exercise in putting me down. I'd tried to appeal to his decency and compassion, and his reaction, I feared, was to argue within his own mind that I was unworthy of being helped. He had the hundred and could have afforded to loan me five hundred, if I'd upped my request to that amount, which out of a sense of proportion I'd ruled out. He may have asked himself how many other people I had in mind to ask for a hundred, or even more than a hundred, if others, like him, failed to come through. The more people I asked for a loan, Bankhead may have figured, the less able I'd be to pay any of them back, unless I intended to borrow from someone else to repay him. The person I borrowed the money from to repay Bankhead could wind up thinking that Bankhead now had his money and become angry at me and Bankhead into the bargain. I lamented the circumlocutions Bankhead could cook up to convince himself he'd be a fool to loan me a hundred, and for all he knew the whole time I waited for him I could be restraining myself from asking those other people if they could spare me a hundred. On three different occasions after asking him for the loan I walked by Bankhead's bench hoping to catch his eye and perhaps get a nod or a head shake or a hand gesture that would give me an indication. On the first occasion he ignored me and turned his head away, covering his nose and mouth with his hand. Was he implying that I emitted an odor? I kept right on going, not wanting to get in a conversation that could turn heated and ruin my chances. On the second and third passes Bankhead was not on his bench, though it was the time of day he usually sat there. Annoyed, I sat on a bench within eyeshot of his bench and waited for him to appear. Nothing. Was he avoiding me? For all I knew he could be off on some fabulous vacation, rolling around on some beach, being served drinks and calamari and all varieties of tacos, my loan request never entering his mind. Where was that prick when I needed him? I had no contact information on him and regretted I'd never bothered to ask for it. I usually ran into him in the park or at a neighborhood bar. I used to sit and have a beer with him before giving up because I couldn't endure his lengthy silences. Still, I'd known Bankhead for over ten years. We saw each other regularly and waved and I admired his apparent success, though no one I knew of could say what he actually did or had done. I never asked him where he came from because he never asked where I came from. I liked it when people didn't ask me where I came from. What difference did it make to them? Would he loan me the hundred if I told him where I came from? Despite not knowing much about Bankhead, I'd had a favorable impression of him. He'd never lied to me that I knew of, but now that I reflected on it when had he ever told me the truth about anything that mattered? Bankhead, I began to see, was a shallow, self-centered person, completely wrapped up in his own little world, oblivious to the inner lives and suffering of those around him and expecting no consequences to arise from his negligence. He didn't count himself as anyone's brother. How could someone doing well not give more than passing consideration to providing a small loan to someone he knew who'd been furloughed? I'd be tempted to tell him he could keep his money, if it were offered, and I could add, even if it wasn't true, that I'd come by a loan from another source and didn't want to run around borrowing from various people on the list he imagined I'd made and end up with an undeserved reputation as a mooch, which I'd never been. Even if he decided to at last grace me with his lousy hundred it would gall me to think how much he'd caused me to suffer before forking it over. I didn't want to be expected to be grateful to him after I'd sweated out the hundred for so long, all the time the financial walls closing in on me. I was haunted by embarrassment at having to ask a handful of others to loan me varying amounts, most of them less than a hundred. The others had said they had no money to spare, as anyone could understand, and I couldn't blame them for supposing they might not get their money back for some time, though I admit thinking that every single one of them could have coughed up at least a twenty or a fifty. How much money was a twenty these days? Yet Bankhead was the one I'd expected the most from, the one I'd most overestimated, and his refusal to reply or look me in the eye infuriated me. I'd always suspected he viewed himself as superior to me. He seemed to think he smelled better than I smelled and that if we opened ourselves up his organs and blood would smell better than my organs and blood. Bankhead was a snob, always sitting alone on his park bench, which of course did not belong to him, and I'd mistakenly ventured that his self-admiration might lead him to demonstrate generosity and reach in his pocket for a hundred. I hoped he didn't think I'd keep wandering past his bench at his favorite hour. I wasn't groveling for his stinking hundred, and if Bankhead ever came to me for a loan I'd know what to tell him. I'd tell him I'd mull it over, leave him hanging and then drop by his bench and sit next to him and let him endure my silence. What would he say then? Would he get up and leave if he concluded I wasn't getting up before he did? I might take a seat next to him anyway. I could wait for him in the park for as long as it took or walk by his bench at different times until he finally showed up and sat. I'd ask him to scoot over and I'd sit there with him. We'd see who would last longer.