You get a penny every time you help someone. You notice nobody else has ever gotten a penny when they helped others, so you asked. But the person you asked didn’t answer, they just responded “You’ll know when you’re 30…” You’re 30 now, and your parents threw you a surprise party. All the people you ever helped were there. Your mother goes up to you, “So. You wanted to know why you got the pennies, right?”
your pocket is heavy. you just served a slice to every other person at this party before you served yourself. it must count for one penny each. it’s best when they manifest in the pockets and not in palms; you hate the sensation of grasping, of taking from others. often they don’t notice. “oh, a penny. here, it’s yours.”
it’s yours. or it was supposed to be. by the time you were seven you had gotten into a peculiar habit. if you gave the penny away, it counted as a good deed. it had to be a neutral thing, to get rid of them.
you’d found a way, after a while. a good way that wasn’t-good-enough. to close the loop. you do it now, without thinking, the way that has become second nature to you.
the only good thing you ever picked up and kept was her, her. your treasure.
your wife is laughing. god, isn’t that the most beautiful sound in the world. her with her short hair and beautiful throat. around you, the party swirls. you’ve got a lot of friends. there’s a lot of people here you don’t know. your breath is caught under your tongue.
x
at nineteen you were getting rid of the pennies when you met her at the carnival. “you dropped this,” she said, holding it up. the lights caught her face and you tried to speak but it came off in pieces.
“thjasnmnkgidsod,” you said.
she laughed, and you thought: oh my god. this girl is the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen, and i am a moron, and i’ve ruined everything.
and then she said, “are you here with anybody?” and when you, dumbstruck and dumb in general, shook your head violently, she laughed again. “want to come explore with me?”
yeah. yeah. fuck pennies. when you followed after her you felt like you were dipped in gold and deep fried.
and then, as a reward, stretched out in her palm at the end of the night: not a penny.
but god, didn’t her number feel like a real stroke of luck.
x
“you wanted to know, right?” your mother tries again. and you want to know and you don’t want to know, but you want to know.
so you follow her, hands shaking, into the bedroom you grew up in. a model airplane. britney spears posters. rainbow flag hidden under the bedframe for when you needed it but couldn’t say the words out loud yet.
your mother sits you down.
this story isn’t about you. it’s about your mother and a deal she made with the devil.
x
the first time you called her, you had your friends around you. “just do it,” one of them said, “you’ve been staring at the number every day for hours.”
“i don’t want to bother her,” you whined.
“yeah,” said another, “she gave you that so you don’t call her, that’s what people do in the real life.”
“oh my god,” you said.
but you called her. and when she picked up and heard your voice, the first thing she said was, “i’ve been thinking about you.”
you were thinking about her too.
x
here is the deal. it is simple. your mother the angel meeting the devil in a fairy ring. the devil said: if you do a good deed expecting a reward, you will start doing the good deed only for the reward, not for the goodness of it. and your mother said – then people would only do bad things, which are much more rewarding. people do good just to do good.
the devil said: people do good to feel good about doing good.
your mother said: they do it because they can, because it is the right thing to do. i can prove it.
you are the proof.
x
dating her crushed you and rebuilt you and the day you decided to propose you stood in front of a mirror practicing, practicing, practicing. you were unsure, wondering if you would just push her away, wondering if you were moving too quick or too slowly. wondering if you were doing the right thing.
and then your phone rang. and she heard your voice and the first thing she said was “i’ve been thinking about you.”
and you knew. and you knew.
x
your mother takes you by the hand. leads you back into the room. everyone at once silences. turns and looks at you.
watching a fairy go from many people into one person gives you vertigo, but you’re unimpressed. you have that many personalities to survive social interactions.
but then it is only you, your wife, and your mother, and a person who is so-many-into-one. sure, yes. you can see why your mother calls him the devil. a wretchedness goes into your spine. you can’t quite look.
it stretches a hand, holding out a penny. you won’t take it. you stare at the thing. your mouth tastes like copper. the fairy smiles. the penny melts to blood.
the rule was simple. you were meant, like a dog, to expect give-and-get-some. and your life, like a dog’s, was almost-someone-else’s. you’d be owned if you failed the stupid test.
but you got rid of the pennies. at seven you learned the not-good-enough and dropped them in seeds on the ground. giving wishes and free money. didn’t do things for it. thought about it, sometimes, about saving up for college on it, and then didn’t. you see them like a road for a second, stretching, stretching. safe place to walk on.
“okay,” you say. you’ve had pennies show up in your pockets for years. this is about what you expected. “so i win, or something?”
your wife is frozen mid-talking. you wave one hand in her face and she doesn’t blink. you love her smile. you slip that hand into her still one. “is she okay?” you wonder. you loved her since you met her. loved her more than a sunset loves a horizon. loved her to cliche. to explosion. who gave no matter what it meant to get.
“is she okay?” the devil twists his head. “you tell me.”
“if she isn’t,” you say, “you’re going to have to answer to me.”
your mother sits down on the edge of a couch. in her hand is a quarter. “the second half of the rule,” she says. “a bad thing is more rewarding.”
“i’m not doing this again,” you say. “not another thirty years of other people’s spare change.”
the devil laughs. and your angel mother laughs.
“you were already doing it,” she says. she holds the quarter up to her eye. looks on through. “you never noticed because, despite the money, bad things were never worth their reward to you.”
okay. “can i have my wife back now?” you’re tired. the cake has fresh fruit filling and you’re hoping for a second serving.
your mother smiles. the fairy smiles. you hope some of your friends outside weren’t this guy. it would kind of suck if you had never made a real friend in your life. “no other questions?” asks the fairy. “you’re not dying to know why?”
“why me?’ asks your mother, “how i met him? how you and i can remain in motion while he stops time? why you can understand him? why me and why you and why pennies?”
you look at your wife. you can sew a million pennies into the ground and nothing you’ve ever done was as good as she is, as her whole being. you could paint yourself in copper and never match her. never be good enough for her.
you think about value. about worth-it-ness. about how when you were nineteen with her and so in love you couldn’t speak for it. about turning twenty-three and realizing if you didn’t marry her you’d die of regret. about your wedding day and how you have no idea how many pennies you’ve earned in the whole of it. you only remember her, and your friends. we can earn money fine, you think. but earning people is the hard part of it.
“no,” you say, “i understand.”
and the devil splits into a million people again, and you are thirty, and you are holding your wife’s hand, and you’re in love, and the joy of it makes it worth it.
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