THE PENNY

A Tale of the Hatchback Woman by Dan Jire

“Don’t be angry.”

Aaron Sisk shook his head. He knew good and well a statement like that always preceded something unacceptable. He removed his reading glasses and looked up from his ledger.

His niece had worked for him for six months and had easily seen his rage a half dozen times already. She was already shaking where she stood.

“I’m gonna be short on my register today by ten bucks, but I promise you I’ll bring a check in tomorrow to make up the difference.”

“This better be good.” Aaron shook his head and waited for an explanation. He hated any kind of excuse and hated having to make odd notes in accounting even more.

“Well, if you had seen her, I mean this woman was on some hard times,” she started.

But Aaron interrupted her. “Janet, we don’t do handouts. This is a business not a charity.”

“I know, and that’s why I’ll pay it back, don’t worry. I mean she looked like she just fled an abusive husband. Her car was packed full with all her belongings. And she was scraping up change just to pay for gas. So, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to help her when I could afford to. I mean she had to use a Canadian penny just to make it.” Janet held up the penny.

“Canadian, then you’re short ten dollars and one cent.”

“I can just grab a penny from the tray. Next time someone doesn’t want their pennies.”

“No, you can’t. That’s for customers. Notice how it is not big enough to hold a ten-dollar bill, Janet? That’s because we don’t do handouts.”

“We’re a business,” Janet said and lowered her head. “I owe you ten dollars and one cent.”

No matter what her Uncle Aaron said or even thought, Janet was certain she had done the right thing. That woman needed her help.

Janet went home, clutching the Canadian penny. It was worth more than one cent to her now. It had sentimental value. It would remind her she helped someone in need. But the longer she held it the stranger she began to feel.

Was she coming down with something?

She’d felt fine all day until now. Her head was starting to turn, as if her brain wanted to spin. She could feel her eyes straining to stop it. She forced them shut as she tried to maintain her balance by collapsing into a pillow. The penny fell from her hand and landed on the floor.

Janet felt fine.

She opened her eyes and it was as if the pain she felt a moment before was nothing more than a pin prick.

She noticed the penny on the floor and picked it up only to set it on her dresser, but the pain was instant. Her fist clenched down on the penny and she reared back into her bed. She hit so hard she felt she bounced up to the ceiling.

But then she saw her body lying pained on the bed.

And then she realized she was seeing her body.

I’m dead. Brain aneurism . . .

Janet reached for her body and in a blink, she was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling. The penny sat in her open hand and she wondered for a moment and clenched her fist around it again.

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Janet had never been nosy. But now she simply could not help herself. There were too many options. Too many scenes and conversations she could witness.

She told herself it wasn’t stalking. Stalking would require her physical presence and intent to harm. No, Janet just wanted to observe and understand.

Already, she had forgiven her high school P.E. teacher for being mean when she realized it was the medication that she was on for her cancer treatments and furthermore she was going to counseling to deal with her anger. For hours she confessed to her psychologist that she felt awful how she spoke to her students. It was all so sad. Janet balled her way into the next morning. In gym class the next day, she gave her teacher a polite thank you on the way out.

The only person she was scared to try and figure out was her Uncle Aaron. She almost didn’t want to know how dumb he thought she was. But Janet had learned a lot from her P.E. teacher now. She couldn’t help, but imagine rolls of emotions and thoughts colliding every minute in everyone’s heads—just like her own. They were thinking, trying to make the best of things and trying to keep their priorities in check while other people interrupted them day after day, minute after minute. There lives were filled with moments they couldn’t or wouldn’t ever share with others.

It was all thanks to a magical penny.

She felt like Jack and the Beanstalk and she wondered if there were others out there who could do what she could. And in those wonders, her eighteen-year-old heart opened itself back up to fantasies and princes and castles and dragons and ghosts. Even the Easter Bunny was a possibility again. So, it wasn’t very far for her to stretch her imagination to believe her Uncle Aaron was a good man. A lion with a thorn stuck in his paw.

“You’re late,” Aaron Sisk said, tapping his clipboard as he counted the cigarettes behind the counter.

“Uh,” Janet looked at her watch she was a minute early. “It’s not four, Uncle Aaron.”

“Yes, but when I hired you, it was stated that all employees must arrive fifteen minutes before their shift so we are not kept waiting and wondering if the previous shift is going to get to leave on time.”

Janet remembered something like it, but it sounded like nitpicking since Aaron was on duty all day and Janet only came in after school to work until 9 P.M. And she had never missed a shift.

“This is the earliest I can get here from school,” Janet said.

“Well then perhaps you should start rethinking your availability.” Aaron stood up gave a nod like he was confirming his seriousness and left Janet to attend to a customer.

She just didn’t understand him. He had begged Janet’s mother and father for some help. Janet had wanted extra money and it seemed like a perfect fit, but ever since he had made her feel like she was ruining his life.

Just like her gym teacher, there had to be a reason why he was so mean.

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Aaron Sisk popped open the fridge door, tossed a box of fried chicken in, then cut on the sink and washed his hands. He did all of this without ever turning on the lights. It was past midnight and he worked within the darkness with the casual grace of routine. The light from the fridge appeared once more and his hand removed a half empty bottle of wine, he bypassed any glass and started chugging.

He cursed as he kicked something on his way to the couch. Whatever it was, it had not been a part of his routine.

Janet felt like she might have fallen asleep until just then. Unlike her teacher there were no psychologists or sisters on the phone to confide his pain and struggles with, there was only a bottle. Her uncle didn’t even turn on the television. He just sat in the dark.

She decided he was simply an angry drunk and was about to head home when she heard a moan like no other. It had the growing presence of an ambulance barreling down the street, and died just as quick as one would pass. There was a hiss of air like the brakes on a train and then an impenetrable silence followed.

Aaron took a big swig leaving what would barely qualify for a sip. He held the bottle above the coffee table as if debating whether or not he would put it down. As if he was listening.

The moan repeated.

Aaron slammed the bottle down and was up from the couch so fast Janet had a hard time keeping up with him as he rounded the hallway and descended into the basement.

Every step he made, he stomped louder than the last. He was informing whoever or whatever was moaning he was getting closer. But it only made the moaning worse.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Aaron yanked on the cord to the light bulb and the basement illuminated with an ugly orange glow. Janet crept down the stairs and rounded a refrigerator and some shelving before she saw her uncle continuing to yell, “Shut up, shut up!”

The dark shape was lumped on the floor. Its hair matted and dirty. It’s breathing filled with mucous and whimpering.

“I should’ve just left you for dead,” Aaron said.

Janet wanted to run. Fear took a hold of her. She didn’t need to know this. She didn’t want to know this.

Aaron raised his fist and swung his arm, again and again each landing with the thick thud upon the hairy thing’s flesh. “Quit it, damn you!”

What could Janet do?

She couldn’t physically stop her uncle. She could race home, but by the time she called the police or returned herself it would be too late. He would’ve killed the thing.

“This is how you repay me!”

Another loud thud and a howl followed by another loud thud. The thuds and the howls kept pace and were decorated with curses and Aaron’s pleas for the thing to shut up.

Aaron hadn’t snapped completely. Not until he grabbed the first thing his fat fingers found on the shelving. It was a hacksaw. He swung as hard as he could this time.

It was a yelp and the hairy thing twisted away and Janet could see its poor eyes begging her.

Save me.

The dog was covered in dried blood, but now fresh blood began to soak its dark fur.

It’s eyes.

Janet could swear it saw her looming. Doing nothing. She was the thing dogs barked at that no one else could see.

Aaron stepped on the poor animal’s head.

“Now look what you made me do, this what you wanted?” He dug the saw back into the dog’s neck and that was all Janet could handle.

The dog’s eyes haunted Janet. They reflected in her computer monitor, on her cell phone, on her alarm clock, the television, the microwave, and finally they stared back at her through her mirror.

She was more scared of her Uncle Aaron than she had ever been of anyone or anything. What kind of a monster could beat a dog to death? Keep it trapped in their basement?

Who was Janet supposed to call?

Her phone rang. Her Uncle Aaron would be calling because she had not shown up to her shift. Her hands trembled as she ignored each ring, clutching her phone, reading his name over and over wondering why he was so evil.

Her phone chirped. He had left a message.

A moment later it rang again.

This time it was Janet’s mother.

She answered.

“Your uncle is about to fire you, is everything okay?”

“Good, I’m not working there ever again!”

“Janet, honey? What happened?”

Janet didn’t know how to tell her mother she just sobbed.

“Honey?”

Janet could hear her mother talking to someone on the other end of the call. She was telling them she had to go home and check on her daughter.

“Are you at home?”

Janet couldn’t even answer. Who would believe what she had seen and further more how she had seen it?

The penny sat on her nightstand like any other penny, except Canadian. It caught the light the same as the dying dog’s eyes had.

Her mother sat at the edge of her bed cupping Janet’s head and running her fingers through Janet’s hair.

“Is this about the ten dollars you stole?”

Stole? Janet couldn’t believe it. Now he would accuse her of stealing?

“I told him what it was for and that I would bring it back in! You don’t understand he’s not who you think he is.”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“He’s evil.”

“Janet, that is your uncle you are talking about and I don’t know what has gotten into you, but I’m sure we can work it out.”

“No, you can’t. You really can’t. I will never work for him. I never want to talk to him I never want him in this house.”

“This is my brother you’re talking about and he is welcome in my house.”

“If only you knew what he does,” Janet shook her head unable to tell her mother.

Her mother’s concern slid into worry, her eyes widening. “Honey, you have to tell me what has happened.”

“You won’t believe me, no one will.”

Her mother stood abruptly. “Return the money you owe your uncle. Do not take what’s not yours again.”

Janet trembled. She almost protested, but the penny caught her eye as she shied away from her mother’s condemning gaze.

Her mother was right. She would return what was owed.

Janet left to work. Her mother sighing with relief as the door closed behind her. With a ten-dollar bill in her hand she approached her uncle.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Janet said. “It will never happen again.”

She handed him the ten-dollar bill, and then, having carefully prepared the Canadian penny, she slapped it into Uncle Aaron’s palm. The Crazy Glue adhered as he slipped away from his body. She looked up into the air, smiled and winked.

“Don’t worry, Uncle Aaron. I’ll handle all the customers today. I hear there’s a special sale going on.”

Janet preceded to let customers check out with one free item. And sometimes she couldn’t swallow a chuckle as she remembered her uncle—trapped outside his body—unable to stop her.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do with his body, but she was sure the authorities would find it tragic.

THE END.