Jim

Jim received the bank statement like a loaded gun. He handled it gently, taking care not to fray the edges of the envelope with his shaky fingers. Inside was the story of his life. Broke again. Overdrafted. Kinda funny actually, with outright nationalization probably just around the corner...

Later on that day, after the robbery, the shaky teller talking to the cops couldn't recall the man's height, weight, build, or facial hair, just that he was a white guy, or a really tan black guy, and that he was smoking a cigerette. She forgot to mention that he had on a weird tee-shirt, not that shee could have told the cops what it said anyway. She didn't even see the fucking guitar. I was slung across his back. He probably felt like Antonio Banderas robbing that bank, but she never saw Desperado or looked up after the gun was pulled.

As she took another drag off her last lucky strike, she said to some officer named Sanderson, “I don't know what he looked like, I was to busy doing what I was told.

By then Jim was walking into the cafe on 3rd street, past the Jewish pastry shop. Peter, the owner of the “Crummy Cafe” (Yeah it was really called that) stopped him just as he entered and said, “Hey Jim, nice to see you! -You coming by to pay your tab that is. You got my money, or you got my money?” Before Jim could mouth a word about his money, Peter pointed to the TV and said, I know we're all red come Thursday, the pretty lady on my black and white here informs me of that, but its Tuesday, and I'm as capitalist as anybody else for the next 40 hours or so.” “So where is my dough?

Jim pulled out a wad of bank notes and said, “I've been capitalizing too, ya greedy jar head fish cutter.”

Peter, only slightly incredulous at the roll of green, recovered his words.

“The 101 bitch, and I hate that movie.” he said, taking the notes off the bar before they got too soggy.

“Whatever.”

Jim strolled back out on the street, feeling pretty good now that he was going to pay his very nice and strangely young landlady for his rent. Not that she would be a landlady anymore anyway. And not that anyone else could pay their rent either. She was cute. He didn't think of it long. Probably none of it would matter.

Back in the dinner, the pretty pundit on Pete's black and white was saying something like, “Remember, this market failure all started with the housing crisis a couple of years ago. What do you think, senator?”

She was dead wrong on all three counts.

She was wicked right on the money with her demographic.