Awful Math

The commotion surrounding the awful math grew to a hollering, and soon Jenny pitched in an extra twenty dollars saying, “I’ll just give more, that’s all.” But that wasn’t all, and once we were in the car, she was off on a steady pace about which one of my moron friends was going to be wheeled out on a gurney from the force struck beneath his brow. I said, “Calm down,” but she turned back stern and spit, “How many twenties would it take for you to make your spidery arms into fists and cuff those assholes?” and I said, “Four,” thinking of a hundred, and she said, “That’s it? Eighty bucks?” and I said, “Oh wait,” then I said, “Five,” and she said, “You’re just as dumb as the rest of them,” and folded her arms tight like stuck drawer. By then we’d driven out so far that we were once again surrounded by cedars, tall and unflappable, and I tried to think about money and how it was made.

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Sophie Rosenblum’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, New Letters, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She is currently finishing her first novel, which was recently a finalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. You can find links to more of her writing at www.sophierosenblum.com.

Photograph: Spruce Pond, by Bob Gates.