Feck you

Symbols for U.S. reserve banks can spell out a few words if properly arranged.

This is how bored the Complete and Total Loser, who has no idea how to begin a conversation with strangers, gets in bars.

Old money

When he was cashiering, the Complete and Total Loser sometimes came across old coins and bills. He used to collect coins, so he has some idea of what to look for. Bills are different. Even old and uncommon ones aren't worth much unless they're in mint condition, and even then coins are a better bet. 
The Loser has about $5 in wheat pennies, which is worth maybe $6, and about $80 in old bills, which is worth maybe $90. 
This one dollar bill is a year older than the Loser. It's a silver certificate, meaning it was readily exchangeable for silver. Technically, all bills were then as quarters and dimes were made of silver. 
When the Loser was a kid, age nine or so, a friend told him that with such a bill he could go to any bank and "demand that they give you silver." The Loser and his friend liked that they could do that, walk into a bank with a special bill and tell a bank teller—an adult—what to do. It wasn't true as by that time the U.S. had gone off the silver standard (a decision under President Johnson many still bemoan) but boys need their fantasies.

Families After Death

"It can open a window," said Ken to the Complete and Total Loser. "For awhile."

The Loser didn't like hearing his younger yet wiser coworker add that last part. He and his eldest brother were getting along so well in the months following his parents' back-to-back deaths (just fifty-two days apart). His brother, always a swaggering man of complete confidence, successful with women and business, rich, had started to seem like a real person to the Loser, an equal. He talked of normal things, like his concerns with his two teenage children's futures, of how he missed his parents. When the two touched base by phone their "how are you's" were sincere.

Then the Loser spoiled it all by bringing up the $200,000.

That's the sum his father and mother left him as a gift to be given ninety days after the death of the last one to die, a time that came last week. 

"How will we handle that?" the Loser said to his brother in an email.

Trouble followed. 

First, let the Loser be clear. It is a lot of money. He knows that. But is it that much to the Loser's two older brothers? The eldest is president of an executive recruitment firm he founded nearly thirty years ago. He owns four houses, including the one he lives in. Not crappy fixer-uppers, real houses; investment properties in three states. A good part of New Jersey (Cape May); a pricey location in Florida which, the Loser is told, has a low percentage of Jews and a high percentage of old money; two in the community he lives in, which is the richest suburb of his city, an area that is named for a shorthand description of East Coast snobbery and wealth. He drives a car that cost more than the Loser nets in three years. For his daughter's sixteenth birthday, he'll give her a large Mercedes Benz, which now takes up more than half of the two-car garage attached to his late parents' house in which the Loser has been living since their deaths to take care of things until he and his brothers sell it.

The other brother, the middle one, is similarly well off. His house, in the same suburb as his brother's and his parents', is worth well over one million dollars. He too drives a late model, high-end luxury car. A Benz. His second house is on an exclusive island unheard of by those who don't live or summer there because everything's so private that a day tourist disembarking from the ferry that links the island to the Connecticut coast would find that the only options for activities would be a grocery store and one restaurant. The only blacks on the island are cooks. There are no Jews. His wife is a drug company heiress. If you've ever had a cold or an upset stomach you've used products her grandparents' company produces, and that's just on the over-the-counter end; the prescription drugs bring in far more. Her net worth is in the high tens of millions of dollars, an amount which will burgeon when her parents die. Meanwhile, the brother, no gold digger, is president of a lobbying consortium and makes a comfortable mid-six figure salary. 

The Loser's net worth is around fifty thousand dollars. He nets twenty-two thousand dollars a year, and that's thanks to a recent promotion. The head of his department is a mercurial sort, known for firing at a whim in a state in which that's allowed. The Loser is nine years away from getting even the minimal in Social Security benefits. His job requires that he is on his feet all day, despite his withered right leg, and his aging body aches at the end of each day. He does not date, always eats in, and his most expensive possession is the Mac Mini his using now, which he bought eighteen months ago.

With the sale of the house, the Loser's brothers, after surrendering the portion of the estate his parents bequeathed him, would still have over $350,000 they didn't before. But when the Loser mentioned the money he had due, a storm followed. The eldest brother talked about the Loser living "rent free" in the house, which the Loser considers a housesitting gig, which usually nets him $1,000 a month when doing it for others. He talked about the Loser's use of his parents' car, a 1998 Toyota Camry with a book value of around $4,000, maybe. And he mentioned his own work in dealing with estate matters gratis, which the Loser previously told him he should pay himself for out the estate.

The middle brother described the Loser's invitation for them to share their net worth with him, as he has with them, as "cheap shot." 

To sum up, things are turning to shit.

The death of his parents indeed opened a window and the brothers saw each other for the first time as close relatives with the same parents rather than rivals vying for the attention of those parents. The Loser is learning what closes the window shared grief opened. Money.

The black speck on top of the building's corner is a very vocal crow.

$35

Thirty-five dollars is the perfect amount for a man to have in his wallet. It's enough to buy a good enough meal and have a beer with it. It'll buy enough gas to get you where you're going or pay for a cab home. A twenty or less and you have to watch yourself and wonder if an ATM is close enough to wherever you are. Over $35 and you may overspend on an impulse buy. A man knows he won't blow money on a shirt or a tie when he has $35, but he also knows he can get something on sale that's nice. 

Thirty-five dollars is what the Complete and Total Loser's father had in his wallet on the day he went to a hospital for his final stay in December and is the amount in that wallet now. 

The Loser's brother saw the wallet and told the Loser to take the money. (The Loser is poor and is looking after his late parents' house until he and his brothers sell it.) 

The Loser demurred.

The wallet, which the Loser bought for his father a couple of weeks after his mother died in October (it was not a good autumn for the Loser and his family) also contains:

• A Visa card
• A tiny square of printed paper with the number to call an insurance agent in the event of a car accident
• An American Express card
• A Capitol One card
• An Extra Care card from CVS pharmacy. You would not believe how much pharmacies were a part of the Loser's parents' lives in their final years
• A crucifix which the Loser found literally seconds before writing the sentence you are now reading. The Loser's father didn't believe in God but liked church for its communal aspects. The crucifix is just over an inch long and worn.
• The card you're supposed to have handy in case a parking official questions your handicapped parking placard
• A driver's license
• Five Forever postage stamps. Motif: The Liberty Bell
• Three blank checks 
• Four key chain cards, the kind you scan at supermarkets to get extra savings
• A business card. It bears the photo the Loser used for his father's death notice in his city's newspaper. In it, his father is smiling broadly. It's a good shot. One of the Loser's brothers disapproved of it, saying that he looked Jewish, but the Loser stuck with it. Photos in which his father wasn't smiling made him look dour, a characteristic no one who knew him would associate with his affable, genial dad. His father was 91 when he died and the likelihood of him selling another house (he was a Realtor) was remote. But he kept his license up and you never know ...
• On three small squares of paper, in with the cash, hand-written lists of phone numbers for doctors and family members. Two decades ago, you could criticize someone who didn't know his sons' phone numbers, especially if he just had three sons. Now, boomers often have two numbers in addition to their work numbers as they're reluctant to part with their landlines.

In his last years the Loser's father, though finally admitting to an at least partial retirement, never failed to go out and shop, even when he and his ailing wife had plenty of food and other supplies. The Loser chided him for such a waste of fuel and time, but he sees the purpose. America is a consumer society. I shop, therefore I am is not entirely a joke. The items in the Loser's father's wallet show intent, plans, preparation. He was out and about, a member of the public, a target of advertisers. He was somebody.

An partially exploded view of the contents of the Loser's father's wallet.

Big Money

How often do you go to an ATM? The Complete and Total Loser goes pretty often, about once a week. The women he knows in his urban environment, go far more often, withdrawing small sums as low as $20, fearful of being robbed. (The Loser takes out $80, usually, up from the regular $60 he took out weekly in the 1990s.)

Recently the Loser was reimbursed for debts he paid that stemmed from events surrounding his parents' deaths last autumn. The normal thing to do would be to deposit the check from his their estate account into his bank account. Instead, the Loser decided to cash the check. 

He took it in twenties. The teller used a machine to count it, then counted it out by hand. The Loser walked out with a wad of cash he likened to what old-time prize fighters or gangsters would have in a roll. He put the envelope in a secret place no one will ever find (kitchen cabinet on the left when you enter from outside; second shelf, behind the box of recipes) and goes to it when he needs cash. Not counting the withdrawal fees, this will save the Loser enough time to make the risk worth it.

The Loser's money waits to be wasted.

Gone South (Poem)

In all of my years, and there’ve been many,
I’ve never heard so many say
The economy’s tanked (Do you have a penny?)
And nothing can help save the day.

Money (Poem)

I’ve worked hard for years,
I’ve earned my keep.
I’ve seldom had to borrow.
I respect my fears,
I sow then reap,
And save for dark tomorrow.
I never made the bigger bucks,
I have no yacht or mooring.
But meeting rich folks for some yucks,
I’ve always found them boring.

 

The Loser and his Parents' Will

They know, the Complete and Total Loser's parents, that their ends are near. The Loser's father has made a point of telling him where important documents are stored. Things crop up in conversations and it's no longer with the jocular air it used to be ("Ten years from now! Ho! Ho! I'll be dead!") and they're resigned to their canes and walkers.

Two weeks ago, in one of the conversations with his father, he mentioned that the will divided up their money among the Loser and his two older brothers equally, but that the understanding was that they'd mete it out to the Loser in portions as his life continued.

That's right. They want the Loser's brothers to remind him for the rest of his life that he is, indeed, a loser who, even though over 50, cannot be trusted to behave as an adult with a largish sum of money. 

The Loser let this get under his skin for a week, then blew up at both parents. He made it clear that they should divide whatever they have equally among the three sons and realize that the Loser will neither ask for nor accept money from either of them. The Loser further noted that he has lived well without a handout since shortly after graduating college when, admittedly, he had some trouble getting a job that paid him enough to pay his rent for a year or so. 

Taking Stock

Things I haven't figured out even though I am half a century old:
Women
How do you talk to them? They say they want to be treated like anyone else but if you talk to them like you do to men they flee. I've never had a long-term relationship. I came close once but it didn't work out. After six weeks things dissolved. I've read that as a rule if you haven't had a committed relationship by the time you're 40, you're probably not cut out for it. Reading this brought me relief in a way. Free from the obligation of trying, I can do what I want to do. And yet ... there are those nights when lying on my twin mattress with a book isn't enough. I see others unite with ease while I am like a dog at a closed door, frustrated, leaping up and scratching the wood with my claws, unable to turn the knob.
Career Success
I make less than a third of what the average man my age earns. I have a master's degree yet I work retail, my feet aching at the end of each day, my pocket knife dulled from cutting open boxes. Most of my coworkers are half my age, there for a short while en route to other positions. I made more, years ago. Then I overreached, crashed.
Money 
Investing, planning, buying real estate. Never did it. Perhaps I'm better off given the current state of things. Two years ago I opened an account at ingdirect.com and I put any extra money I have in it and have money transferred out of my account weekly. Small amounts here and there but it's added up. I could live for over a year on what I've saved. Years ago, while traveling in Indonesia, I met a Russian who escaped from Russia when that was hard to do. He fled to Canada, played professional ice hockey then went into business for himself. He was in his 50s, wore a Rolex, had a French Canadian girlfriend who was interesting, smart, gorgeous and half his age, and a stack of $50 traveler's checks an inch thick. He traveled with a backgammon board and played for money when he could. "Playing backgammon without using the doubling cube," he said, "is like playing chess without the kings." I played chess with him once. I'm unschooled in the game, but not bad for a casual player. Or so I thought. He moved out all his pawns just for fun, let me take few key pieces, grew bored after some minutes and checkmated me in five moves. He and his girlfriend were headed in a few days to Bali by ship. "You want to learn to make money? Come with us. I'll tell you everything you need to know in two days." I didn't and have wondered ever since what he knew that I could have learned.
What I have figured out:
I am a complete and total loser.