Currency

For a price, people have the ability to live long beyond the time that they shed their mortal coil.

The only legal tender accepted is influence.

I have been fortunate to live a life that has been filled with people of character who poured out this currency like water on open ground.

They were tinted with the hardships of their lives, not the typical issues of bills and schedules, but the kind of experiences that leave calluses on the heart. The Great War and Depression, blood soaked feet on foreign soil, abuse, death, and scraping a meager living out of barren dirt had tempered them; they were wise souls who wanted joy and found it only in small increments.

For years I handled my memories of them like one would photographs taken towards the sun; I accepted them as significant, but poorly manipulated, and stuffed them into the bottom of a box.

As I age I find myself pulling them from their slumber. I look through the grainy surface, tattered corners, and haze to remember and search for what was captured in time and why. Some are still obscured and difficult to look at, but many are like Saturday morning sunshine that beams through a large window, illuminates the dust in the air, and warms the floor.

When we moved to Martinsville we lived in an old bungalow behind Waltz's Liquor Store on Josephine Street. My dad purchased the home which was built by the father of our neighbor, Mr. Cooper. The house was entirely too small for a family of seven. Danny, Joe, and Lameck slept in the front bedroom. My oldest sister Carrie and I slept in a small room off of the original dinning room. Dad and Mom slept in the original living room. Entertainment was in the original dinning room and meals were held around a metal table in the tiny kitchen that was illuminated by the blazing glow of a single light bulb. The searing light was occasionally extinguished by an errant drop of rain water from the leak above.

The Coopers lived next to us and Mr. Cooper built the stone house that they lived in. Geodes (called Nigger Heads in the local dialect), wind chimes, pieces of foundry glass, and empty ham cans lined the window sills and side walks. A ‘glow in the dark’ werewolf poster hung above a freezer in their galley kitchen hall and dogs playing poker in a frame above their fireplace kept them company. Their home wasn't built with indoor rest room facilities and every morning you could see them, across the fence, making their way to the bath house for their morning duties.

The Coopers were a weathered old couple. Mr. Cooper (Luther) was a giant of a man who wore bib overalls, white T-shirts, worn work boots, and a graying, burr haircut. He had few remaining teeth and his lips that were always full of tobacco seldom parted but to mumble, spit, or roar "Bears Ass!" which was the expression that he used to begin or end conversations. He also shared this phrase with the larger world on a concrete plaque that was mortared into the top of his chimney.

Luther employed himself with his own concrete business making blocks, benches, bird baths, and the occasional grave stone. Many times he rescued me when my foot was trapped in the piles of block I was told not to climb. "Agh, Bears Ass!"

Mr. Cooper gave me my first taste of beer. He kept his small, brown bottles of Pabst in a crate on his front porch next to used ham cans filled with water for his large brindled dog named Brinson. "Mr. Cooper, what are you drinking?" "Beer. You want some?" "Sure!"

On my birthdays Mr. Cooper would pull big silver dollars from the chest pockets of his overalls and give me one for a gift. The weight of those thick coins in my small hands was empowering.

Mrs. Cooper (Lola) was short, stout, and spunky. She wore polyester slacks, sleeveless plaid shirts, curly unkempt hair, and black, horn rimmed glasses that were never in their correct place on the bridge of her too small nose. Her hands were scarred, callused, and always felt warm on the back of my neck or on my hands when she held them. She spoke with a high pitched nasally voice that was always broken with plenty of laughter. Lola mowed the yard and kept many flowers in her shade covered yard.

Next to the liquor store across the street she also raised a large garden every year. "Drunkards" urinating in her garden were a constant problem for her and she chastised them often. After buying beer for their trips home the "Drunkards" would step into the alley next to Waltz's and relieve themselves on her garden. The issues of errant urination ended one summer night with a loud blast and lots of screaming. Lola had loaded a shotgun with rock salt and emptied it into an unfortunate urinator. The sheriff arrived on the scene and simply told Mrs. cooper "You can't be shootin' people Mrs. Cooper."

We eventually moved from the home on Josephine Street and years later I was told that Luther had been moved into a nursing home. When I received the news I took my fiancé to meet Mrs. Cooper and to my great sadness Lola could not tie a memory to my face or my memories and apologized for the matter.

The Coopers and their shade covered stone house are no longer on Josephine street. Waltz's liquor store is named after the new owner, and the bungalow's wood siding that my father restored is covered in vinyl, but, the people, their words, their images, and my experiences with them glimmer and shine in the recesses of my heart. I believe those hardened souls managed in some way to polish me as well. I am thankful that they honored me by entrusting their memory to me.

They, in a great way, influenced me.

I will continue to write their receipts.

They will continue to live on.