A Token of Appreciation

A Token of Appreciation by Timothy Dewey
coyright 1996


Tom Bowman held it in his grimy hands, turning it over. He looked at both sides, feeling the metal, polishing it with his nervous fingers as the rusted Pontiac scooted into traffic leaving him in a cloud of oil smoke.
It was a gift, a token of appreciation from the old man he had just helped on the freeway. The guy looked like a gypsy. He was about eighty years old and sounded like he was right off the boat from Armenia. He had broken down on the fast lane side of the freeway. Tom popped the hood and found the mechanical linkage going to the old carburetor had come off. All he did was squeeze the connector a little tighter with a pair of pliers and popped it back on.
The old guy was so happy, he cried. He told Tom there were very few people who would stop, unless it was their job, and then they would have charged him an arm and a leg. Tom said nothing, but it was his soul purpose for stopping as well. Surely this old guy had a twenty in his wallet that he would throw his way. A garage mechanic would have charged him minimum fee to look at the car, a tow truck driver would have tripled that just getting him there.
But the only thing the old guy pulls out of his pocket is this... this thing. It isn't money, probably not even worth anything, although there is a chance that it might be gold. He told Tom it is a token of appreciation, that it is special. "It only works five times." He said with his thick accent. Tom thought the old guy must be senile. "Read the words to yourself, and things will happen." He said with a smile and a wink just before pulling into to traffic.
"It isn't worth shit." Tom says to himself as he pushes it into his pocket and gets back into his car. He knows of a jewelry store nearby that might tell him if it’s worth anything.

Down on Broadway, he pulls into the public parking and cruises until he finds a meter with time remaining. Tom isn't a penny pincher on purpose. He has been out of work now for five weeks. The construction job he was on went bust. Some accountant had decided he needed a bonus so the thirty workers on the job went without pay for the two weeks leading up to the accountants disappearance, and now the four weeks after that. "Little bastard" Tom thought, "if I only had you in front of me."
On his way to the jewelry store he checks the pay phones for money. He keeps his eyes pealed for any dropped changed in the gutter or on the sidewalk. When he walks into the jewelry store the owner of the little shop stiffens. Tom looks as though he might be here to rob the place rather than to ask questions. When he pulls the token out of his pocket the old jeweler breathes a little easier.
"Hey, is this worth anything?" Tom asks, setting the token on the black velvet mat reserved for showing the fine jewelry in the display case.
The jeweler scrutinizes the piece under a large inspection glass. "It's bronze... very old." He hums as he turns it, rubbing here and there. "Very old," he repeats.
"Then it must be worth something." Tom says, looking out of the corner of his eye at some watches on display on top of the counter. He hasn't resorted to stealing, not yet. But he is close, and so are those watches.
The jeweler clears his throat. "These words, do you know what they mean?" He asks Tom, bringing up a cloth to wipe the counter top. It is a seemingly innocent move that has him taking the watch display and moving it to the back counter out of Tom's reach. The jeweler has been in business to long not to spot a possible loss of inventory. He gestures to the token, "The words along the border."
"Yeah, I saw those. Looks like Greek or something." Tom says, once again turning the token in his hands.
"Armenian. It says "hajes perne meg vargian". The closest English translation would be "seize the minute, or seize the moment."
"Hajes perne meg vargian? Hajes perne meg vardian." Tom repeated to himself. "Hajes perne meg vargian?"
The jeweler turned off the light under the inspection glass. "It's not worth anything to me. Might be some kind of collectors item though."
Tom snatches the coin and put it in his pocket. "Hey, thanks." He says, turning and walking back out on to the street. As he starts down the street a black Corvette `63 split window coupe rumbles down Broadway headed for Hwy 101. He looks at it with longing as it passes. While his attention is diverted, he collides with a man looking in a shop window.
"Whoa, hey... sorry about that." Tom says. He nearly knocked the man over. He turns his attention back to the Corvette. The driver is oblivious to the car backing out of one of the parking spots. With a wincing crash, the Corvette is stopped in the street. The Toyota Tercel that hit him pulls back into the parking spot.
Tom stands and watches the argument for moment or two, fiddling with the token in his pocket. He shakes his head, "Hajes perne meg vargian?" He says aloud, "Why would they put something like that on a coin?" Then...
He is back outside the jewelry store. Beside him, another black Corvette passes by, identical to the first, drawing his attention. As he turns back to the sidewalk, he collides with the man at the store window. "Hey… what the hell?" Tom knocks the man over. "Jesus, I'm sorry. Let me help you."
As he helps the man to his feet he watches the Tercel up the street back in to the Vette. He just stands there with his jaw agape. "What's going on here?" He says to himself, pulling the coin out of his pocket.

Two days later;
Tom Bowman had stopped when he watched the Corvette get hit for the second time. He knew he had something more than just a useless token of appreciation. If it held some kind of power, he would have to test it. He didn't quite see the big picture, the possible usage of this power on a global scale. All he could do was think of himself, and his immediate situation.
He had taken the coin to a local grocery store and watched from the window, thinking in one-minute increments. It seemed as though that was the amount of time that had been repeated the first time outside the jewelry store. When a register was left unattended for a moment while the clerk helped a customer find something down an aisle, Tom repeated the moment with the token. He just stepped in and cleaned out the cash during the second play the moment, then walked down the street.
It still is dangerous, this second chance. Knowing that someone will not look back, and in that same instance hoping that a pair of unseen eyes is not looking at you. It is after the store experiment that he decides to use it the other way.
He times himself outside of a bank in the city. One minute to go in and hand the teller the note, and then take whatever he can and be out the door and out of sight. Then he can just say the words on the coin and the next minute he will just walk away and never enter. But will the money make the jump from one moment to the next, or be back where it started. He will take the chance.
This way was certainly much more exciting. He waits outside the bank for the lines to die down. Tom vibrates with anticipation as he watches a teller station open up. He walks in carrying a knapsack, controlling his urge to run.
He steps up to the teller, a young Oriental woman who greets him. Tom wears no dark glasses, ball cap, or anything else that might have put her on guard. He has written his note on a blank deposit slip he had pulled from the courtesy station. She looks at it, then at him.
Tom had written that this was a robbery and that he had a gun. He wanted large denominations up on the counter or he would kill her and everyone else before shooting himself. The teller didn't hesitate, pulling stacks of bills up on the counter.
With a quick scoop Tom pulls them all into the knapsack, swings it onto his shoulder, turns and walks away. He doesn't see the teller hit the silent alarm, or her gesture toward the plain clothed guard at the door. As Tom approaches, the guard draws a large caliber handgun and levels it at Tom's head.
"FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR."
Tom doesn't anticipate this one, but his nervous habit of palming the token had it in his hand as they went up in the air.
"Hajes perne meg vardian." Tom says. In the instant before time reversed itself the bank guard thought he had himself some foreigner, maybe even a terrorist. Then, that moment of time ceases and Tom is standing in front of the teller.
"Can I help you, sir?" She asks with that bank teller smile that they must have taught in some training class plastered across her face.
Tom stands there for a moment, not sure whether he has done anything illegal yet. "No... I, uh... forgot my passbook. I'll be back."
He turns and walks toward the door. The bank guard is eyeing him as he approached, then opened the door for him. "Thank you." Tom mumbles. He smiles at him, and then the smile grew wider. He can feel the added weight of the cash in the knapsack... it had worked! However that magic worked, it apparently moved him, and whatever was with him, back and forth between the void.

Back in his car Tom counts his take. It totals a little over eight thousand dollars. For some reason he thought he would have a little more. The bank teller’s performance seemed as though she was doing everything as quickly as possible. But she was handing over smaller denominations, one stack at a time. He would have to study this in order to make his next two usages of the coin the most productive.

Sitting alone at his kitchen table in the small apartment, he tosses back the last of a bottle of Johnny Walker... the spoils of his victorious day.
Tom has never been this dishonest in his life. He has always been someone to look out for others, to not take something that didn't belong to him. It will be easy to justify his actions. After all, he is the one that got screwed by that accountant, he is the one that had to go with no paycheck. It is his bills that are due. And a bank, hell they're a bunch of crooks anyway. Look at the savings and loan debacle, he reasons to himself.
He lifts the squared bottled and lets the last of the drops drain onto his tongue. "The hell with it."

The morning finds Tom standing in front of the Bank of America branch on Broadway with a folded newspaper under one arm. The token is in his jacket pocket, his fingers turning it nervously. He would periodically release it when he was worried about his thoughts, his wishes. He wasn't sure if just thinking the words might make the token work, but he didn't want to chance wasting the two shots he had left.
He had done some thinking. His next score would have to be better than the last. The weight of the pistol, the cold, hard, steel. He could feel the unwanted mass pressing into his side like some cancerous growth. The thought had come to him half way through the bottle last night. The teller would respond much better to a real gun, and his wishes when it was presented... pointing, aiming.
Tom walks inside the branch several minutes after it opens. With the gun he is worried about hurting somebody. So he wants to get in there early, when there will be less traffic. Tom Bowman isn't a bank robber or a practiced thief of any kind. He doesn't have the instinct to plan a robbery, that felonious survival instinct that would cover his ass at every possible angle. Purely successful bank robbers, those who aren't picking up soap from the floor of some prison shower are few and far between.
A line has already formed at both merchant teller windows as well as the line that feeds the three open teller windows for the public. Tom shakes his head. Where did these people come from? He looks at his watch. Only fifteen minutes have gone by since the doors were unlocked.
He fills out the note on one of the deposit slips, finding himself looking for cameras, the position of the managers, the exits... only one that he can see.
The lines grow longer rather than shorter, and Tom finds himself standing in one of them. He wants this to be over. Now people are behind him... all around him it would seem. This doesn’t feel right.
"Next please." A gentle voice calls. "Sir?"
Tom looks up with a slight start. Damn, he thinks to himself, nothing like drawing attention to yourself.
He steps up in front of the young lady. How can he point a gun at this pretty girl. He hands her the deposit slip and then pulls the gun and set it in the newspaper. To anybody standing behind him it looked as though he had pulled a
wallet from inside his jacket, setting his newspaper down on the counter at the same time.
To the off duty police officer waiting in the teller line, Tom Bowman looks out of place. His movements, those darting eyes, the effort to look normal when it was quite obvious that things are not. He is trained to notice things that are out of the ordinary. So when the Tom placed the newspaper on the counter and it bulged much more than a folded newspaper would, it draws his attention like a shark to the kill.
The teller looks at the deposit slip, then at Tom. She cut to Tom's patting hand on the folded newspaper, the gun's muzzle peaking out at her, the bore of the barrel looking like an open manhole to the young girl's frightened eyes.
This time Tom requested the money be put in a bank bag. Placing a knapsack on the counter is so obvious. So the teller reaches beside the counter and pulls a large bag up to the cash drawer and starts emptying the stacks into it. She is not as well prepared as the last teller he robbed, much more nervous. Large denominations stuffed the bag as she hastily zips it shut. Good, Tom thought, she was quick. If he used the coin right now, he would still be in line and he could just turn and walk away. Tom reaches up and grabs the bag, his newspaper and gun. Shit, his hands are full. How would he grab the coin? Just as he is shifting the newspaper and gun under the arm holding the cash bag...
"FREEZE", the off duty cop yells. Screams from the clutch of bank customers taper off into to silence as precious seconds tick away. "Hands in the air, NOW!" He held his H&K 40 caliber service pistol at head level. With the slide pulled back and the hair trigger in contact with a steady finger, the barrel lowers until it is aimed at Tom's chest.
Tom eyes opened wide. His hands held high to the order of the policeman's authoritative voice. Reality strikes him like a fist in the face. He would have to move, and now, if he was to get out of here. If he is lucky he would have only just now stepped up to the teller if he were to repeat the moment.
With all of the bank staff and customers watching, he drops the bank bag from one hand and the gun and newspaper from the other. When the gun hits the floor, it goes off. The round blasts upward from the floor. It tears through the teller station and through the young woman's stomach, coming out of the small of her back. In the same instant the well trained finger squeezes and the cop’s weapon fires.
Tom Bowman is tossed backward from the impact. The pain a combination of the force and ultra nerve burn from the bullet passing through his chest. Ribs instantly shatter, the spreading hollow point round taking bone along with it as it forces through his lung and exits out of his back, that wound the size of a silver dollar... all in the blink of an eye.
He is on the floor, his hand in his pocket, the cool touch of the token in his fingers. But his mind is a flurry of damage control, of confusion, of screams and moans, some from the bank patrons, the teller... some his own. He has know idea how much time has passed before he said the words.
The cop thinks it is a prayer as he bends over to listen. The last words of a dying man. He has seen too many gunshot wounds, has been in too many situations not to know that this is a fatal wound.
"Hajes perne meg vardian... " Tom whispers. But time was not on his side. The moment repeats; he is reaching into his pocket, the bag drops, the newspaper and gun hitting the floor, the gunshot that will eventually kill the young teller, and then the flash of gunfire from the officer.
Once again he is flung backwards. Once again he feels the excruciating pain of the round tearing through his body. His mind is on track this time and he knows what is happening. "HAJES PERNE MEG VARDIAN!" He yells, trying in desperation with his last use of the coin to stay on this side of life.

"Sir?" The young lady repeated, "What can I do for you today?" Her sweet bank teller smile grew a little larger.
Tom lets out a pent up breath. A sigh of relief from the situation, from the pain he was in just moments ago. The gunshots didn't carry over. They are both okay. Had the bullet lodged inside of him, the outcome would not have been the same. He holds the bank bag in one hand… and it is full.
"No.” He looks at her, so relieved she wasn't injured. "I left my check book in the car."
He walks out of the bank and into the warm sunshine. "Oh what a day, what a beautiful day!" He smiles as he walks down the street. At the first trashcan he comes to he dumps the gun, newspaper, and note. On the corner, an old man dug in the pockets of a dirty sweater. As Tom passed, the old man holds a hand out, "Any change for a war veteran?"
Tom stops and looks at the old man. He pulls the token out of his pocket and flips it into the outstretched hand. Tom caught his eye and spoke firmly, "You've got five chances, old man. Read the words to yourself and things will happen." As he walks away, the old man looked down at the ancient coin in the his dirty palm, then back at Tom Bowman as he continued down the street.
The power of the token, to repeat the flow of time itself, to offer someone the chance to change, to give... or take from it. For Tom Bowman, he took, giving his chances away to the dark side of his soul, and he almost gave his life for it. For others, who knows?