A black nickel on the rubber, ringed in white. How long has it been there? When I was a kid we were so poor that I told myself the day would never come when I would pass up a penny on the sidewalk. I did the math and the money per hour wasn’t bad on penny retrieval. The black nickel ended up with Hilario of the Peanut Butter Sandwich, gifted by a guardian angel just as much as the nickel was.
Somebody left this money, the phrase worked its way out of Hilario past all the city’s creosote, its dust and ash, past peanut butter on Wonder bread, and the black nickel was tucked away from the world awhile.