Bodega | Silver Dollar Dreams

Grandad would hand them out at Christmas for good grades: Eisenhower ones, cracked liberty bell and the moon engraved on the back. We spent some, thinking We’re cool cuz we can drop a huge coin to pay for things. Mostly, we stuffed them in socks or small boxes in the back of our dressers, hearing the rattle of them when we yanked the drawer open and shoved it shut.

One dream has me lugging a sock of coins to a bank for my last mortgage payment. Another version has me hauling the same sack to Black Hawk and hitting up the dollar slots, pulling the lever, seeing my dad’s ghost soaking the rolls of cherries and sevens, basking in the clink, clink, clink of silver splashing into a wide-mouth cup.

Another version has me inside a pawn shop in El Paso. There’s a liquidation sale. Shelves and aisles are bare. At the front counter is grandad’s last liter of Jim Beam after he sobered up to care for grandma full-time because of her Alzheimer’s. He pops up from behind the counter polishing his cavalry sword, peers at me stoically. Hanging above him on the back wall is his Civil War saddle.

These belong to you, I say, lifting the bulging sock. He nods, produces two shot glasses from his khaki pants. The bottle is empty. He pours. You’ve made it, he says.

140 – September 2024

By Brian Dickson

Silver Dollar Dreams