After a late Friday night we stopped into a 7-11 just before 2 am where an attractive and personable lady wearing pink pajamas with feet on them and a hood with mouse ears bought a 40 oz Old English. I am secure in my skin and my onesie she said. She posed for picture, smiling, and went out into the night to get fucked up.

Today at Trader Joes a man reached into his pocket and withdrew it in an explosion of twenty dollar bills. Scores of them. Some fell in a wad–maybe thirty or forty of them–the rest fluttered through the air like an exaltation of larks. I’d never seen so many twenties, never seen anything like it. I said so. As the man crouched and frantically tried to scoop them up his checker looked over at me and asked what was it. Twenties, I said, soundlessly, to not embarrass the guy. Twenty dollar bills. She read my lips. A hundred of them, I continued, spreading my hands. All over the floor. Her eyes went wide.

Free money, she thought. Free money, I thought. Free money, everybody thought. The man scooped up the last loose twenty and shoved them all back into his pocket. Our eyes followed him out of the store. Free money.

I got home and cracked open a beer. I am secure in my skin and my onesie, I said.