I have eleven cents in
Boston, and that's all the
reparation the east coast will ever pay me. It gains interest in the virtual vault of some large grey system of computers, using just as much memory as the accounts of people with hundreds and thousands saved. It costs more than eleven cents to
maintain my share of the computers, more than eleven cents to send me my
monthly statement with US postage affixed to the envelope.
But I will not be the one to yield.
I will not get eleven cents from
the school that crushed my heart for a year. I will not get eleven cents from the skinny blonds in their hundred dollar khakis. I will not get eleven cents from the boy I went to bed with at
Johns Hopkins, or the one at
Amherst, or the one at
Columbia. I will not get eleven cents from the ex-boyfriend who was arrested on Valentine's Day. I will not get eleven cents from the
trust fund babies at the
Tuesday night goth club. I will not get eleven cents from the tired and arrogant singer of
Third Eye Blind. I will not get eleven cents from the people who built the seemingly haunted dorm, or from the fruit store that sold cigarettes and smelled like
rotting plums, or from the sweet lesbian whose homework I did. I will not get eleven cents of the
scholarship I lost.
Bankboston, formerly
Bay Bank, now something else, pays the east coast's penance for
all my bitterness. I won't tell anyone I have eleven cents, and when I die, increasingly expensive bank statements will continue to be delivered, month after month, to the
dead letters department. I will not write a letter and pay the postage, just to tell them to
send me a check for eleven cents.