Charlie '08

let me tell you about Vietnam, the ruin of a man's dignity and the downfall of an urban soldier via the wiles of a woman with black eyes and no soul...
 There's a bank in the town i live in. Of the entire bank chain, of which there are several branches in the area, it's the only one that opens its drive thru at 8am as opposed to the usual 9am that most banks adopt for opening hours. this is crucial as i have an hour drive to school every morning to make a class that begins at 9:25. the town my school is situated in does not have my brand of bank and so I cannot do any banking unless i go to this particular branch at 8 am most days. There is an asian woman who works the window there.  Perhaps she is angry because its 8 am and she's there. Perhaps she also is angry that people constantly expect her to handle their finances at 8 am. she seems especially angry that i would like my pay check cashed and then deposited so that the money is immediately available. this is not difficult, or so one would think. this woman has within the last few transactions of my banking there, insisted that she cannot cash and then deposit checks. bank policy, she says. bullshit, says i. am i to cash a check and then drive back thru the drive thru a second time to deposit the money? surely she couldn't say no to that! recently, i was overdrafted due to the fact that i asked this slight woman with what must be something going wrong downstairs to cash and deposit a check. she didn't object and so, i thought victory was mine at last. She had finally buckled and gone ahead and done this, her job. not so. she simply did not cash the check, but deposited it directly into the bank, meaning that the funds weren't directly available and wouldn't be for 24 hours. I have learned this to be the rule after repeatedly making the mistake of assuming that checks cashed will immediately be available for bar tabs and the like following the glory of payday This particular day found me out on a shopping spree congratulating myself for my small victory in the war with the obstinate asian teller woman, only to find out the following day that each purchase had been coupled with a 35.00 overdraft charge. She hadn't cashed the check before depositing. the bitch.... Infuriated, i called the bank and spoke to her directly for some time in an ungentlemanly fashion. there are certain conversations that so fry a man's ability to think straight that there can be no hope for a win due to the rage that cripples his mind throughout the rant of his dialogue. this was such a conversation. she knew who i was immediately as though she'd been savouring the secret knowledge all day that i was probably out promoting my own finacial ruin. As though she'd been expecting the call! amidst my blubbering and guffawing, it soon became clear that this woman of asian descent wasn't budging as she cooly informed me that she had (she hadn't) made clear to me earlier that morning that my check wouldn't clear until midnight of the following eve. It was my word against hers and i was on the wrong side of the proverbial bank window. i was out a considerable sum of money. this is why we stayed in 'nam, friends. this is what we were up against. This is the war we had lost, and i was losing it all over again. I had found charlie in the bush at last and charlie was a she. I determined to immediately strike back. break out the 8 am napalm on this cruel hussy upon my next major check deposit. I waited and plotted my revenge. fast forward two weeks. Tax return check. 8am. there i am, waiting in the drive thru as the open light came on and she, my opponant seated herself behind the window just inches away from my trap. there she is. I smiled as brightly as one can smile at one's mortal enemy. She recognized me immediately and made no return gesture of acknowledgement. the squack box rang out in the early morning quiet. What can I do for you today sir? Oh, you'll see, I thought as I signed the back of my government check. Only this morning was to be different. I had a plan. I considerately sent my check, signed for cash to charlie on the other side of the teller window, this time not mentioning anything to do with a deposit. She, after much protest regarding identification and the like sent me my cash in a bank envelope. I then politely asked for a deposit slip and a pen and in one feel swoop, my enemy was vanquished. she now had no choice but to accept my deposit. I looked her in the eyes and smiled so that she knew that I knew that she knew. And she did. Hiroshima!  She knew she'd been bested. there was nothing she could do at this point. i was holding all the cards. I had out flanked that rotten teller and I knew that somewhere up above, angels were telling God all about me. why hadn't i thought of this before? Reluctantly, my vanquished enemy grudgingly sent the deposit slip over to me with what looked like a snarl and I merrily began filling out the deposit slip, congratulating myself on this, my big win, my long overdue occasion. My becoming a man among men. I was beginning to plan my clever farewell to the burning rubble that was once such a worthy opponent when, suddenly, my blazer (a fine vehicle. $300.00), which had, of course been running throughout the entire transaction, as most do, began to sputter and then stopped running. Immediately the situation became horrifyingly clear. I'd run out of gas. Out of gas in the bank drive thru before the satanic countenance of my recently defeated foe. How had this happened? I happen to own a Blazer with a faulty gas guage but i have an uncanny sense of where i stand regarding the contents of the tank at all times. Not so on this black morning, no. Somehow in my feverish haste to destroy Charlie once and for all. it had slipped my heroes mind that I'd forgotten to fill up the night before! I was ruined. She sent the receipt and I thanked her quietly, knowing it would only be moments now before she would realize with delight what had happened as I stepped out of my Blazer and humiliatingly began to push in the 8am cold that creaking beast of an SUV. I wanted to cry. I was in that moment the embodiment of a ruined America. the stock market crashed, the nukes were on their way from Iran and Emo music played on every radio station while somewhere in a dark room George W. Bush came out of the closet. And so I pushed, head down, just outside the warm environ that housed the teller chair upon which my foe was roosted like a vietnamese hen who'd just layed a golden egg, I got out and huffing and wheezing, pushed. I chanced a look up into her face through that thick bullet proof glass at her smirking mouth and mirthful black eyes. Pleased. Pleased and letting me know she was pleased. At last, after i'd made it the hundred or so yards to the nearest parking spot gasping for air, she watched me pull the gas can out of the back of my traitorous vehicle and begin the lonely shameful walk down the long foggy mile that lay between the bank branch where my nemesis resides and what we both knew to be the nearest gas station.  And so I did. I walked alone and broken into the breaking day. A wounded veteran. A shadow of my former self. A man who sought more and found at the other end of the rainbow, a large woven basket and hiding inside, a vicious asian bank teller with black eyes named Charlie. My name may have gone down among the many brave men's names on that long list of urban soldiers who wouldn't take no for an answer, but I ran out gas at the Wachovia drive thru at 8am and a cut throated assassin named Charlie was there waiting to take out yet another brave soul. I can only hope that someone will read these words and perhaps late at night in the quiet of their room wake with a start and whisper into the darkness, "That man....that man was....a hero."