Bank Lady

It was 8 am, and I was on my way to the Bank Lady’s bus on Tower Road. It was a cold morning and had snowed a little during the night.

I had stoked up the wood stove in our bus and eaten at a couple pieces of bread with sorghum, kissed my wife and left. The water wagon was at the water tower, and they were filling 5-gallon jugs for households. The lights were on in the Round House and smoke was curling up from the stove pipe as I passed. 

It was early to see the bank lady, but I was hoping to get there before other people that needed money. I got there and knocked on the door.

“Come in” she said. The bus was warm. She was nursing her baby, and her husband was stoking the wood stove.

“Good morning, I hope I’m not too early.”

“What do you need?” She was quick to ask.

“I’m working on a couple midwife trucks and could use a hundred dollars to cover the parts I need.”

“I got a long list of requests left from yesterday. I can only give you seventy-five dollars,” she said.

“Yea I understand how that goes.”

The Bank Lady job was difficult. She had to cover the basic budget for the week, and people would come to her throughout the day asking for money for various projects. Baby formula was needed and special food for skinny kids, sugar for the store, gas for doctor runs. The firewood crew needed gas for their chainsaws, and propane was needed for the tank at the head of the roads to film household tanks. There was endless need in a town of a thousand souls. The chief money earners for the community, the 50-person construction crew, was getting burned out.

She handed me the money and went back to nursing her baby. I said thanks and left for the motor pool.

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