The floors creaked under the
weight of Terry’s incessant rocking. He shifted from one leg to the other with the
rapidity of a human metronome. He was keeping some inner allegro time scale
that no one could hear or likely comprehend. The floor boards screamed for some
relief as Terry rocked back and forth. He was blank faced as he absently stared
up at the large stained-glass dome ceiling over the small bank lobby. He was in
line, waiting for his favorite teller to cash his paycheck. His eyes lazed
about the small local bank’s various vintage accouterments. The large dark
stained beams holding the roof and dome, the reddish oak of the well-used bank
slip table, all leading down to the golden hardwood floor worn smooth by 110
years of bank customers.
The older man in front of Terry
turned around in line as Terry continued to shift his weight from one foot to
the other. The old man wanted to say something to Terry, to get him to stop his
ceaseless swaying, but he didn’t open his mouth. He looked at Terry for a
moment and then turned his body back around toward front and subtly shook his
head. He cleared his throat and adjusted his
shoulders. The line moved forward as the woman at the front with the well-behaved
children stepped away from Megan’s window. Terry looked down from his admiration
of the ceiling and caught a quick glimpse of Megan before the next man in line
at her window blocked his view of her.
Terry felt his heart in his
chest beat a little harder and started to sweat a little. He knew he was
love-sick for Megan. He was a mess for her; inside anyway. Outside he had
started combing his hair, putting on clean shirts and pants, and even shaving.
He had considered working out a little more but what’s a little more working
out mean when you don’t work out at all. He wasn’t the physical mess he had
been though. He just hoped to God that
she would really see him this time. He’d come to the bank so many times
confident that he could go right up to her teller window and boldly and bravely
ask her out to dinner. Yet every time he got to her and she smiled at him and
said good morning and he caught the silvery flash of her eyes; he just
collapsed and asked for change. To do his laundry. And mumble something about
it being a nice day or not.
The old man in front of Terry
turned around and faced Terry. Terry noticed the old man looking at him.
“Serious, kid, please stop the
rocking. You’re going to wreck the whole building if you keep that up,” said
the old man.
“Was I rocking,” asked Terry, “I’m
sorry. Just habit. Sorry.”
Terry stopped his swaying. He was
lost in his romantic imagination of he and Megan holding hands at Queen Crab
Shack while they listened to the karaoke singers and drank Blue Hawaii’s and talked
about their love for each other and their future together.
The old man nodded at Terry and
turned back around. Terry hated his nervous swaying habit. He’d been doing it
ever since he was a child, bouncing from one foot to the other, constantly
moving. He didn’t know if it was because he had so much energy or if it was
some other sort of imbalance in his brain or why he did it. It was why he
couldn’t stay on the debate team in high school. He couldn’t stand still in
front of the microphone so whenever he spoke it always sounded like he was
driving by. The microphone only picking up his words as he swayed past it so
the small audience only caught every third or fourth word of what he was trying
to say.
Terry cleared his throat and
tried to hold still. He folded his hands in front of him and tried to stand
with his legs together. The floor boards were silent. The noise of the bank,
the stamping, and counting and shuffling of papers could now be heard. Terry thought
that maybe an engineer or someone might or should come into the bank to check
the floor joists. It certainly wasn’t natural for a floor like that to make so
much noise. Terry wiped his forehead. He was sweating.
The old man stepped up to Megan’s
window after the other guy in front of him finally finished whatever business
he was doing. The old man was shorter than Terry so Terry could see above his
head and at Megan. She was wearing the blue top today. She always wore it with
a thin gold chain around her neck with an ocean blue pendant that delicately
hung above the soft skin of her cleavage. It was a little warm in the bank so
she had taken her black blazer off and had it hanging on the back of her chair.
Megan’s silver and gold bracelets jingled as she took the slip from the old man
and then reached into her cash drawer and started counting out the old man’s
money. She didn’t move her lips as she counted. Terry still had to use his
fingers to count most of the time and count out loud. He was impressed she
could count so fast without needing to.
Megan finished counting the old
man’s withdrawal and slid the money to him under the bullet proof glass. He
thanked her and stepped away from the window. Terry stepped forward. He heard a
creak in the floor boards as he moved. It sounded a little different than it
did while he was swaying. It was deeper. Megan also heard it and she looked at
Terry with a quizzical expression. Terry started to shrug and smile. She sort
of smiled back at him and he felt his heart soar. Terry thought that they finally
had their own inside joke. The floor groaned again and Terry looked down. He
hadn’t moved. Megan looked at him and she started to speak. It was hard to hear
her through the glass so Terry leaned forward. A cracking sound erupted and the
floor opened up under Terry and he fell through. Splinters of wood shot up in
the air and all around as the old bank floor was seemingly digested by the void
underneath. Megan watched as Terry disappeared in front of her. His eyes were wide
open in shock as he vanished downward. Megan jumped from her small bank stool
and ran away from the window as the bank floor swallowed the whole front edge
of the teller window.
The other patrons and employees
of the bank ran outside and a fire alarm was sounded. Dust and debris floated
up into the small bank lobby space. The stained-glass dome over head shifted
and cracked and shards of colorful glass dropped into the widening chasm that
was the lobby floor. The old man that had
been in front of Terry in line dove toward the exit as the words he said to
Terry echoed through his mind. “You’re going to wreck the whole building if you
keep that up…,” repeated in his thoughts as he rolled into a ball to avoid more
falling wood from the ceiling.
The old bank leaned on its
foundation and the North corner dipped well below the sidewalk outside. Megan
had made it out and she was clutching her co-worker Amy as they both watched
the dust belch out of the bank through the broken windows. She wondered who
that man was at her teller window when the floor gave way. She thought he
seemed nice.
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