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"You think I'd scam you for forty eight cents?" the man asked, starting to get agitated.
"No, of course not. That wouldn't even buy you a soda or a pack of gum."
"Then why would I-"
"However, let's say you did this once a month for an entire year."
The man got interested. He wrinkled his nose and his lips curled. "I'd have stolen a little over five dollars from the bank."
"Exactly."
"Still not a lot."
"Let's say you're a clever man," I said, leaning in. "With lots of friends. You get four friends to help. no, let's say five friends. Each working twelve times a year in the scam. You would be able to steal twenty-five dollars from my very nice and completely unsuspecting bank."
"A year of work for twenty-five dollars?"
"You'd never be caught," I said, leaning back in my chair.
"Yes, but-"
"Okay, okay. But I'm just giving you a simple example for your sake. Let's take it farther."
The man's eyes were starting to brighten at this point. "All right," he said.
"Let's say you and your five friends each take a thousand dollars out of the bank once a month," I said. "You convert it all to pennies at a separate bank, so we're not the wiser."
"Of course."
"You each skimp one penny off every roll."
"Just one penny?" he asked, greed starting to set in.
"You could go up to two, but you'd probably get caught if you cheated more than that."
The man's hopes were dashed slightly at that. "Oh."
"So, you skimp just one penny off every roll. And you have two thousand rolls each. Instead of giving us one thousand dollars, you're giving us nine hundred and eighty dollars each. And if all five of you do this every month for one year, you would make a net profit of $1200."
"That's not too shabby after all. Just takes a little bit of work," he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"And we'd never track you down because we wouldn't have your account number or even your name."
"I see." He was finally starting to get it.
"So, now you understand why we need your account number in order to take these pennies?"
"Yes, I do, Jerry."
"So, tell me, sir, would you like to open up a premium savings account with variable and competitive tiered interest rates that are compounded daily and credited monthly; that gives you the ability to make deposits, withdrawals, and transfers at our branches, ATMS, by phone, or online; and has no monthly service fee as long as you keep a low minimum balance?"
"No," the man said after a moment. "No, instead, I'd like to go call five friends and find a bank that doesn't need account numbers on their penny rolls."
As the man collected his rolls and stuffed them into his pocket, I said simply, "Okay, thank you for visiting Wachovia Bank, sir. Have a nice day."
He then walked out. I guess he learned how important pennies really are. I wondered the rest of the day if he honestly did have fifty pennies in each roll. Then, naturally, as I do every day, I began to wonder if there were any 1984 pennies in those rolls. Part of me wish I just took his word just so I could find out.
After I meet someone for the first time, and see them again a few times after that, I always get asked two questions: One, how did your father die? The second, always comes because of the answer to the first: what the hell happened to that penny?
People always assumed the police gave it to my mother as a souvenir. Something to remember him by. As if she would put it in a frame and hang it above the mantle next to a picture of him and her on their wedding day. Maybe, they might assume, that in December, the extraordinary penny would be flanked by Christmas cards from Aunts and Uncles.
No, that didn't happen, I'd say.
Some figured the police kept it, as evidence, in case they ever arrested anymore.
That didn't happen either, I'd always say. No one was every caught or blamed.
And some believed it was still in his head, six feet under ground. Ewww. Gross, I'd always think; a simple no would then be my answer. It's in neither of those places. Because I had it. Had being the operative word. It was about three years ago when I lost the penny. Though I guess, I didn't really lose it, so much as give it away without even realizing it. You see, after my father died, I was the one who was inadvertently given possession of the notorious penny. My mother was lying face down on the floor of the police station's bathroom, crying her eyes out, while Jo sat Indian-style silently in the hallway, rocking back in forth on one of those uncomfortable wooden benches. The lieutenant detective in charge of the case gave me the penny to give to my mother. I never did. It wasn't so much that I thought she wouldn't want it.
Maybe she did.
It was that I wanted it.
My father gave my mother a wedding ring and two children. He gave my sister Jo an old rusty-pink tricycle she'd ride alongside him, as well as a hand-made diary he worked on for over two months for her sixth birthday. He never got a chance to leave me something to remember him by. A couple of wrinkly old Polaroids of us playing football and that was about it.
I figured the penny was the best available thing. So I kept it. For years. Up until three years ago.
Every since I started working in the city, I had always kept the penny in my pocket, as a reminder and I guess, as a tribute to my father. One day, I happened to walk by a newsstand where a small boy, not much older than I was when my father died, was trying to buy a comic book. He was short three cents and the clerk refused to sell it to him without those three measly pennies. Without even thinking, without even realizing, I gave him the only three pennies I had in my pocket, including my father's. It wasn't until I got home a few hours later that I discovered that my father's penny was now with the clerk so that the little boy could buy an Uncanny X-Men #136; that's the issue where Jean Grey becomes Dark Phoenix. I could have gone back the next day to the newsstand but I knew that the penny was long gone. It moved on to become part of someone else's eventual fading memory. Whether their memory would be a happy, sad, or completely neutral one, would be completely and utterly up to them.
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