Any Corner Coffee Shop

What would you do for a stack of hundreds? A sadly modern take on a traditional dilemma.

Any Corner Coffee Shop.


A corner coffee shop like every single one in every single city. This one was in Chicago on the corner of LaSalle and Randolph. You'd remember it as a Starbucks. But it's not. But that doesn't matter.


He was sitting at a high-top for three. An older gentleman who took care with his appearance. Light blue dress shirt under a grey V-neck sweater, parted salt and pepper hair, no beard or mustache, darker gray slacks, and even darker grey shoes.


What I noticed first was that he was staring slightly to the left of the front door, as if he were looking out the window onto the city street. But there was a wall of coffee bags and cups where he was staring.


On the table in front of him was a single sheet of paper and two stacks of currency, each as high as a tall coffee cup. And a red pen.


As I glanced around the shop, I noticed that others were watching him as well. Two women in the corner. Another single man in the center, this one sneaking peeks over his laptop. And three other men, sitting at the counter facing the street, who kept looking around as I was doing, but centering on the older gentleman with the stack of, what I could now ascertain, hundred dollar bills. All three of the men at the counter were wearing hoodies, black or sky blue or very dark green. Sky blue hoodie was also wearing a black hat.


I couldn't help myself. I was attracted to the mystery and, I must admit, the piles of money.


"You might want to put those way," I used as an entry line. "This place is less safe than it might appear." He let me finish, but did not react to my warning.


He waved his hand to one of the two empty seats.


"Let me get my coffee first," I replied. And I did so, glancing back as I waited in line, paid, and collected my coffee from the far end of the counter.


While I waited, one of the three men from the counter, the one with the dark green hoodie, had sat down across from the man and engaged in conversation with him. I saw the older gentleman slide the sheet of paper and the red pen in front of other man, who picked up the pen and stared deeply at the paper. I could not hear their conversation, but the younger man seemed distressed while the older one remained placid. He would look at the younger man as he spoke and listened, but during pauses, turn to stare at the wall of coffee bags and mugs for sale.


The two of them sat still for a while, unmoving, maybe three minutes, until finally, the younger man made what looked to be an X on the paper with the red pen. The older man smiled softly, said, "Thank you," which I could easily lip read, picked up a small portion of the stack of bills, counted out six, and handed those to the younger man, who took them. Dark green hoodie man then dropped the red pen on the table on top of the paper, and quickly departed the table. He walked, somewhat stunned it seemed, to his other two friends or peers, who, at the dark green hoodie's prompting, quickly packed up their laptops and hurried out.


As they left, I heard the hat guy ask, "What just happened?"


Dark green hoodie responded, "I'll tell you after we get out of here."


As they were leaving, I sat down across from the older gentleman and looked at the piece of paper. It was full of handwritten numbers.


"How's this work?" I asked.


He looked into my eyes and I instantly knew what he was. A twinge of heart burn.


"With this red pen," which he handed towards me, "you will ex out one of these entries." The white paper showed columns of seemingly random numbers. 3, 27, 55, 197, 82, 4, 80 were the first few that caught my eye. I scanned quickly and saw many single and double digits but not many triple digits. The triple digits I saw were in the 100s. There were a few, maybe twenty or so, that had already been exed out with the red pen. These were generally the largest or smallest numbers, which seemed odd.


I did not take the pen.


He continued, holding the pen still in the air between us. "Every number is a group of people. When you cross out a number..." When, I repeated in my head. "...I will fire them. You wi-"


"Who are they?" I interrupted. I did not ask who he was, since I was afraid I already knew.


He moved the pen closer to me, his hand following a perfectly straight unshaking path. He didn't react to my intrusion, but continued his earlier sentence. "You will receive a hundred dollar bill for each of the people you determine I fire. But you can only cross out a single number." The pen edged closer to me. I leaned back the same distance. Finally he answered my question. "You won't ever know anything about them."


Then his head turned slightly to the left, his eyes remaining straight. He was looking towards the wall of coffee and mugs.


I tapped a number on the page. He did not react. But when I started to speak, he turned towards me. His eyes were brown and, incongruously warm. "So, if I ex out this 40, you will give me forty of those hundred dollars bills?" Four thousand dollars. For one simple x mark.


He nodded. "Correct." Then he turned his head slightly again.


Four thousand dollars. For one simple x mark. I looked more carefully at the numbers on the page. 150. Fifteen thousand dollars. 3. Three hundred dollars. 17. Seventeen hundred dollars. Almost a full month's rent. 85. A week in Paris. 182. Already crossed off, but that would be eighteen thousand two hundred dollars. More than two month's salary before taxes. It was also 182 jobs and, possibly, careers. 6. Already crossed off. That was the last person. Dark green hoodie guy. And the reason why this devil, since that is how I now thought of him, counted out the six bills and handed them across the table. And why dark green hoodie and the two other hoodie guys hurried out.


Was six hundred dollars the amount dark green hoodie needed for an unexpected bill or a new video game console? Why such a low number? Was that all his conscience could bear?


Six people suddenly out of jobs. Perhaps these were white color or government jobs with an eighty to a hundred thousand dollar annual salary. I imagined a middle-aged man packing up a box and waiting for the elevator to take him to the lobby. His world spinning in his eyes, thinking of his mortgage and his children's tuitions. Perhaps these were low paying retail jobs at fifteen dollars an hour. I imagined a goth teenager at Taco Bell giving her boss an angry middle finger and pushing over the garbage can as she storms out, more relieved than upset. But I check myself. This is more likely a single mother being fired from yet another job that buys, barely, her and her child another week of under subsistence living.


I couldn't do it.


He turned to look at me, "Every single one of these numbers will be crossed off by the end of the day." He tapped the sheet with the red pen. Then he tapped the stack of hundreds, also with the red pen. "And all of these bills will be distributed."


His voice was emotionless, but his eyes, as I mentioned, were not cold black stones, or red coals. They were warm, brown globes. Not soulless, not bottomless. Deep and welcoming.


He turned his head to the left again.


I couldn't do it. Even if dark green hoodie could. Six random people fired.

"What kind of jobs are these?" I was looking down at the paper and when I looked up, his eyes were already locked into mine.


He repeated, "You won't ever know anything about them."


I knew of this story. A million dollars to press a button that kills one random stranger. No idea who wrote the story or if it was actually a bomb being dropped on a town or a Twilight Zone episode. Or ten thousand dollars which was like a million back then. Or if I were conflating a number of stories with the various perennial social media post engagement-farming with a hypothetical choice. Didn't matter. All those were money for a death, a murder. This was just a job.


But it was also only $100. A decent dinner. A nice bottle of wine. Against a human, the goth girl, the family man, the single mother, out of a job until she, he, or she could find another one. Far more lost for each of them than I would gain. Only $100 for someone being forced to go without for a period of time and restart their career.


I looked down at the sheet of numbers again, realizing that, somehow, I was holding the pen. I didn't recall reaching out to take it. The last time I saw it was when the devil was using it to tap the stack of hundreds. Had he handed it to me during my reflection? Or was it magicked into my hand?


I thought to drop it, but didn't.


100. Crossed out with an x. For that x, the pen had never left the paper, so there was a lighter red line between the two harsher intersecting hash marks. Exactly ten thousand dollars.


The entire movie played out in my mind. The exer returned to her apartment in the Magnificent Mile with ten thousand dollars she didn't need. Not even a month's rent. Less than what she paid for her couch. A lot less. Or... the exer returned to her dingy Southside studio, a half jimmied and obviously repaired lock on the front door, with a life-changing amount of money. Enough for nursing school and two years from now she's wearing her nursing whites and an expectant glow as she's being shown the ropes by, let's face it, a bored head nurse whose done this many dozens of times. But that doesn't change the new nurse's excitement at finally getting above the suck.


The ten thousand dollars would mean something in between for me. Closer to the Magnificent Mile lady. And a hundred people who are either kicking down garbage cans as they storm out or a hundred people shattered as they wait for the elevator on their way home to let their spouse and kids know that the next few months are going to be hard and, likely, their next vacation will need to be postponed, or the next tuition payment will go unmet.


I couldn't do it.


I dropped the pen onto the sheet of paper, catching the number 200, uncrossed, and my brain translating it to the hundreds on the table in front of me. $20,000. For one simple x mark.


I stood up and, as he turned to me, I glared, meaning: Do not try to convince me.


"Have a good day," he said emotionlessly, but with his warm brown eyes. "Thank you for considering."

Then he looked again to the left and froze there.


I stared at his slightly askew head for a couple seconds before I walked away and out of the shop. He never met my eyes or even, in any way, acknowledged my presence.


As I past the shop's window, I looked inside and saw another person, one of the two women, sitting in front of him, holding the red pen. My coffee was still on the table. I hadn't even taken a sip.


Should I go back inside and collect it?


This would give me a chance to look the woman in the eyes, connect human-to-human, and maybe just maybe spur enough shame for her to also walk away. Even so, there would be more people sitting across from that older gentleman later and later and later. Even so, all those numbers would be checked, all those bills would be handed out. And all those people would be made to suffer by an unknown hand.


I kept walking. I no longer wanted coffee.


The End.