charitable beauty excluded

It wasn’t going to work out, I could tell. The phone had stopped ringing almost before it began and I just didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t going to be able to sell my truck, what was worse, I wasn’t going to be able to drive it home from the tele-auction; I was out of petrol and didn’t have any money to pay my rent let alone my petrol tank.

I needed cash, I needed it like a junkie needs his fix, like the captain needs his crunch, like the Beatles needed Lennon and all I had to get the ball rolling was a hat pin stolen from an old lady and a dime of dope. What could I do?

The dope could be sold, that would be easy, I hadn’t dropped a pence on it, a buddy had left it behind having decided he couldn’t hang around me anymore, he also left behind a knapsack and a fridge full of fresh egg pasta but all that had gone out the window or down my throat weeks ago, all I had to remember him now was a blood stain on the carpet and this dime of dope. The hat pin was silver and I supposed I could hawk it but I was worried that the pin was some kind of antique and the old lady had insured it or something. Didn’t the police shop insurance photos round the pawn shops? I couldn’t take the risk, I didn’t want to live under papers again, the last time was bad and long.

I knew what I could do, melt down the pin and ahhh, forget it, I told myself, at best I’d have a silver puddle on the concrete and at worst I’d have a 3rd degree burn. Not for the first time I asked myself how I’d let myself sink so low. The rent on my flat was due and I had one week to come up with the minimum, long-overdue, payment. I’d already had my last written warning and my landlord was on a pension, he needed that rent money.

So I needed a plan.