A Hunnit Dolluhs

May 11, 2008

Deborah rode her bicycle to a job in Park Slope the other day, and while stopped at a traffic light in Bed Sty, got cat called by three street-corner Romeos who'd apparently taken off work for the day, if not for a lifetime.

"Kin I ride witchoo?" said the first guy, as the three of them strolled up beside her. "Yo, where you goin'? Kin I ride behind you?"

"Yeah, yo, where you goin'?" said the second guy.

When they got no response, they changed the subject somewhat. You better be careful, the second guy said. "You in da ghetto now. You ain't got no business. You in da ghetto."

"Yeah, dis is da ghetto," the third guy said, apparently unable to think of anything else to add.

The first guy continued to ask for a ride, making suggestive motions as he did, while the second guy continued to school her about geography. "Better be careful around here. I'm jus' sayin, you in da ghetto now. You ain't got no business. Somethin gonna happen."

Deborah ignored them as best she could, simply staring straight ahead at the heavy traffic, waiting for the light to change.

"Don't worry, I ain't gonna hurt you," said the second guy, either sensing Deborah's discomfort or maybe just assuming it. "I ain't gonna hurt choo." (A phrase that's rarely very reassuring.) " We ain't gonna hurt you, but someone is. You gonna get hurt. Sumpin gonna happen. Jus' sayin' is all."

The light finally changed, and Deborah rode away as the three guys called after her, "Have a nice day."

About a block later, she was nearly run off the road by an aggressive truck driver who didn't want to share the road. As he passed her, he yelled down from his window, "Better watch yourself, you gonna get hit."

Several similar incidents later, she finally arrived at work.

Riding a bicycle in New York City is what one might call exhilarating, and Deborah is fairly used to the trucks that want to crush her or the speeding cars that want to race her, but the encounter with the three guys on the street corner left her more rattled than usual, and at the end of the day she decided to leave her bicycle at work and take a taxi home.

Today was a nice spring day, and Deborah wanted to go for a bike ride. She asked me if I would drive her to where she'd left her bicycle.

"Sure," I said.

Before this, she mentioned that she wanted to cash in the coins from our change jar and use the money for some last-minute wedding details. "There's a Coinstar machine at the Key Foods in Park Slope," she said. "I’d like to stop there on our way to pick up the bicycle." She wasn’t keen to ride through the neighborhood again, though, so we planned to throw her bicycle in the bed of the pickup and bring it home.

The Coinstar machine was out of order. Deborah had done a little online research before we left, though, and she happened to know there was another machine at a pharmacy in Bushwick. She asked if we could try there.

"No problem," I said, "But we can't leave the bicycle in the truck bed. I'll have to wait in the car, okay?"

"Sure, I won't be long."

I let her out, found a parking spot, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Deborah sent me a text message: "I'm STILL online!!! The people in front of me are SO SLOW! They have a huge bag of pennies!!"

About a half hour after sending the text message, she finally came out of the store, shaking her head. "Oh my god," she said as she opened the passenger door and got in the truck. "What a fucking nightmare."

After she'd been waiting online for twenty minutes or so, an elderly woman in a bad wig had sidled up to Deborah and asked if she could cut in line.

"Sorry," Deborah told her, "but I'm running late."

"I'm running late, too," said the old lady. "I'm late for church, and I won't be long. I only have a little bit of change."

Church? Ha, Deborah wanted to say, I've heard that one before, Grannie. Instead, she simply told her, "Sorry, but I've been waiting here a long time as it is. I won't be long, either."

Instead of getting behind Deborah in line, the old lady stood beside her, slowly edging her way forward in a slow-motion game of chicken. Deborah didn't budge.

In the meantime, a man walked up to Deborah and asked if she had change for a dollar. She was holding a grocery bag filled with coins, so chances were pretty good she did. She dug out four quarters and traded them with the man for a dollar bill.

"How did you know you had that in there?" the old woman asked Deborah. For some reason, she was surprised that Deborah was able to make change with a bag full of change.

Deborah shrugged, not knowing what to say.

The people using the machine ahead of Deborah seemed to be slowly sifting through all of their pennies before dumping them in the coin counter, perhaps hoping for a rare and valuable coin. They took at least five times as long as they needed to, but finally they finished, and Deborah got her turn. Ignoring the old woman, Deborah dumped her bag of change into the machine. When it finished counting the coins, it spit out a receipt for one hundred and nineteen dollars, which Deborah took to the checkout counter.

"Nmm hmm," the old woman said, seeing Deborah's total on the machine's LED readout, adding a lateral, ancient-Egyptian-style head move for the extra attitude.

"A hunnid dolluhs!" the cashier declared when Deborah handed over the receipt. "They gotta close down that muh-chine, I ain't got a hunnit dolluhs in my registuh. You gotta come back laytuh."

"You don't have a hundred dollars?" said Deborah. The people ahead of her had just cashed in fifty, and the woman behind her was likely to cash in as much. "This is a huge store," she said. " You don't have a hundred dollars?"

"We jist opened," said the cashier. "Come back laytuh."

The pharmacy was a Duane Reade, a popular chain; it was already noon, and the store was filled with shoppers. Deborah didn't believe that the cashier couldn't give her the one hundred and nineteen dollars she was owed and refused to take no for an answer. A few moments later, she won the stand-off, put the bills in her wallet, and left the store, passing the old lady at the Coinstar machine on the way out.

After Deborah had finished telling me the story, she leaned back in the car seat and looked out the side window at the crowds. "I can't wait for our trip to Utah," she said, sighed, and closed her eyes.

“Me too.”