{"id":177,"date":"2013-04-30T10:42:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T16:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/?p=177"},"modified":"2013-04-30T10:42:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-30T16:42:35","slug":"short-story-ten-bucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/?p=177","title":{"rendered":"Short Story: Ten Bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This short story was written as a submission in a writing contest in a literature magazine. \u00a0It wasn’t selected as one of the winners, and so now I am free to use it for my own purposes. \u00a0The story is mostly true with names and some details changed.<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cThey saw you coming,\u201d I said when I saw the size of the shopping back my brother was carrying.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes they did,\u201d he said slowly, still reviewing the receipt. Then, pointing back to his friend he added, \u201cbut I think they\u2019re going to sucker him out of even more cash than they did with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben and my brother had been best friends for years and this September shopping trip had become a kind of ritual.\u00a0 Besides going back to school, the impending end of the harvest would free Ben up to pursue his new love, golf.\u00a0 As my brother and I waited on the park-style bench in the mall hallway outside the store, Ben was trying to decide between a few different hats.<\/p>\n

Is he getting a golf hat because he\u2019s playing golf or because Tiger Woods has made golf clothes cool? I asked my brother.<\/p>\n

He reached into his bag and said, \u201cI think he\u2019s only getting on because I got one.\u201d<\/p>\n

My brother put his new hat on and wasn\u2019t surprised or offended when I laughed. It was the kind of hat where the fabric reaches out from the back of the head to the tip of the brim.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know you look like an old man, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather look like an old man than Gilligan here,\u201d he said, pointing at the store entrance.<\/p>\n

Ben was walking proudly toward us wearing a soft, two-coloured canvas hat. My brother laughed at him, and Ben laughed too.\u00a0 They were always laughing with each other, and I rarely knew why. It could have been because neither of them had ever owned any type of hat other than a baseball cap, or it could simply have been because each of them thought that the other person had chosen a silly looking hat. I laughed too, but not in uncontrollable fits like they were doing.<\/p>\n

Looking at the two of them in their new headgear, I couldn\u2019t help but notice the contrast. It was almost as if they had chosen their hats to draw attention to it. Ben was a chubby guy and the soft hat draped gently over the curvature of his round face. My brother, on the other hand, was a skinny guy with a thin face, and his hat with its rigid brim jutting out from the sides.\u00a0 But the longer I looked at Ben and his new hat, the more I wondered if it would look good on me. I interrupted their chuckle-fest to see if I could try his hat on.\u00a0 When it didn\u2019t fit, I went into the store to see if they had one in my size.<\/p>\n

I was already suspicious that my brother and Ben\u2019s purchases were motivated by something other than their sense of fashion. Once inside the store, I got to see what was probably another deciding factor.\u00a0 The sales associate was as pretty as she was helpful, and thirty-five dollars later, I probably couldn\u2019t claim immunity to her charms either.<\/p>\n

The three of us walked together to my brother\u2019s car and threw our new found treasures in his trunk. As I climbed diligently into the back seat of the car without being asked, I caught a familiar look in Ben\u2019s face. I knew what he was thinking.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t understand how I, as the older brother, could live in a world where my younger brother owned a car and I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 He also didn\u2019t get why someone would want to go to university, so if he couldn\u2019t grapple with the financial implications of my choice, I cut him some slack.<\/p>\n

The next stop after the big city shopping mall was the coffee shop in our town. The regular cast of characters has assembled and while we sat inside with a few people exchanging stories, there was a big group of guys outside talking about engine modifications or stereo equipment upgrades for their cars and comparing what their vehicles could do now.\u00a0 Everyone got a kick out of the way Ben and my brother looked in their new hats. I left mine in the car on purpose. The group could have shot the breeze long into the night, but more than one of us still had to be back at the farm at seven the next morning, so we all went home at a reasonable time.<\/p>\n

We had met Ben at the coffee shop on our way to the mall, so his car was still waiting for him when we got back and my brother and I continued home without him, this time with me in the front seat. We were almost home when my brother remembered something.\u00a0 The way he began, it seemed like it was going to be fairly important.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen,\u201d he said. \u201cDad\u2019s going to ask you how much you paid for your hat, so do everyone a favour and knock it down a few notches.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was fully expecting to show off what I had bought. Long after they stopped paying for our back-to-school purchases, mom and dad still wanted to see what we bought. Growing up as immigrants, I think our parents appreciated the joy of getting new things. There was a community pride element as well, and they wouldn\u2019t want us to embarrass them with our clothing choices either. Mom and dad were pretty good though at letting us spend our money as we wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would dad care what I paid?\u201d I asked as we approached the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent twenty dollars on a Red Wings hat last year,\u201d he said before pushing the front door open, \u201ctrust me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both of my parents were more interested in the toaster oven I bought for my apartment than they were in my hat. Inevitably though, my father did ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much you guys pay for hats like that?\u201d<\/p>\n

My brother was the first to answer, \u201cI think it was a little over ten bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

That certainly was down a few notches. I remembered seeing the price tag on his, and it was at least ten dollars more than mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about you?\u201d my dad asked, looking at me. My brother gave me a simple nod.<\/p>\n

\u201cI paid about the same as him,\u201d I said casually.<\/p>\n

Given my brother\u2019s warning, I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect next.\u00a0 My decisions had stirred my father\u2019s anger more than once, but this wasn\u2019t one of those times. He wasn\u2019t angry, he wasn\u2019t disappointed and he wasn\u2019t even perplexed. He was amused, very amused.<\/p>\n

When he was done laughing, he said, \u201cGoodness sakes, the day I would spend that kind of money for a hat.\u201d He shook his head and flicked his tongue in disbelief.<\/p>\n

My brother and I smiled at each other as our father listed off the various hats in his collection and how little he had paid for each of them.\u00a0 For some he had paid a dollar, or even two, and many had been given to him. Neither of us dared to say it, but my brother and I wouldn\u2019t be caught dead\u00a0 wearing any of those hats in public. A few years later that style of hat would be fashionable, people would call them trucker hats, not farmer hats like we called them. Even with popular culture on their side, we refused to wear them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat blue one I have in the garage on top of the table saw is a little thicker, so I can wear it when it\u2019s a little colder, and I think I paid three dollars for that one,\u201d he conceded.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, if you want a decent hat, you have to pay a little more for it,\u201d I said, trying to build some common ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut ten bucks! Golly!\u201d<\/p>\n

Our father had taught us the value of a day\u2019s work, he had drilled into us the importance of finishing what we started, and he had even made it clear to us over and over again that often when we were fighting, the fact that we were fighting was a greater sin than whatever it was we were fighting about.\u00a0 That night we let him have a few laughs at our expense, but I think we were all wondering what he had taught us about money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This short story was written as a submission in a writing contest in a literature magazine. \u00a0It wasn’t selected as one of the winners, and so now I am free to use it for my own purposes. \u00a0The story is mostly true with names and some details changed. — \u201cThey saw you coming,\u201d I said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdway.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}