ATM

It began at the local variety store.

Overnight, someone or some company installed a portable ATM on the front stoop of Michael’s Convenience Store. Old Man Michael, who only opened the store on weekdays, did not see what happened on the previous weekend. He did not remember placing a call to have it put there, and he knew that there was still a local bank that had their machines “well up and robbing us” (as he said to any of the familiar customers who asked about it). There was no phone or serial number on it (he looked around it twice), but he could see that it was connected to the main power grid – not taking power from his store and raising his bills, he thought – and he left it there, untouched and he was unimpressed. Let them charge whatever they want if people are that dumb. He opened his store and waited to see if he would have to explain what was going on outside.

It took a few days before anyone noticed what was going on. A local trucker, Matt, decided to not use “those damn debit cards all the time, if he didn’t haveta,” and took out some money for cigarettes. After he got his $20 – with no service fee; nice, he thought – the machine gave him his card…and an extra $100. He looked over the slip that popped out. No, not from his account. That was all the machine. A beautiful hundred dollar bill was resting on the tray. Guess I got lucky. He did not bother to go in for the cigarettes that night. He could hit a liquor store later and maybe see if there was a good place to eat on his route.

Matt did not share his good luck, but others soon figured out what the machine could do. A group of kids, right out of school and waiting to see if there were any adults around to buy them cigarettes noticed the machine right away. One of them started to press a couple of buttons while they were trying to hide from Old Man Michael and his curiosity. That was David, the son of a local carpenter who was having trouble with his bills. And, without a card of any kind, the machine gave him a clean and unwrinkled $50. Pretty soon, they all took their turn on it, grabbing $20s and $10s and a few more $50 before the owner came out with his dog, a really nasty old terrier, and threatened to “rip them a new one” if they did not leave. But they were done. The machine hummed in the soft light of the store and street lamps.

A week after the machine was installed, it became the talk of the small town. Kids knew that they could get money out of it without using a card, a secret that worked out well for the local schools until one girl snitched when her mother found her new cell phone and demanded to know how she paid for it. Soon, it was declared off limits to anyone “under the age of 18”. At a town hall meeting held after this law was passed, many wanted to know how they would enforce the law if the machine was plugged in and ran all day. No one wanted to argue about this, and Old Man Michael did not want to lose any business provided by the new machine. They all adjourned and wondered if there was some reason why this was happening in their small town.

It was easy to see what some of the problems would be with a machine that spat out money every time you needed some (or did not really need any of it). After a month of the machine in their town, it was impossible to ignore certain signs. One thing that a few store owners did not like was the fact that the local teens did not want to work part-time for what they paid. It was at the end of the school term for both elementary and secondary schools. Some of the local college kids would also stay on, but they only did so if they could find work. Or money. Parents knew that their kids were taking money from the machine and were upset. At least, most of them were. A few were relieved not to have to let their sons and daughters out there looking for jobs cleaning out homes of certain people (there were a few stories about the Pattersons, especially that uncle who was always around for the holidays, staring at the local girls from the high school). Others were just glad that they would not have to hand over allowances for late nights of missing cars, calls from the local police or neighbours who had very familiar scenes on their front lawns and backyards. Mrs. Murray had a son away at school and when she revealed what happened in the town, he told her that he would be at home that summer and maybe for few other summers, too. The mayor decided to let the machine stay running, but it was growing into a problem. It was a problem that he was hearing more and more about.

At the bank, tellers noticed that they were busier than ever before. It seemed that people did not want to use any of the other local banking machines. A rumour began to spread that the money would not be accepted in the ATMs provided for the community (all three of the machines left for the town). The companies that built the machines contacted the bank manager, Mr. Dennison, who in turned told his staff that they would be on reduced hours until the machines were in use again (a few people threatened to quit; some had already made quite a bit of money from the new machine). Mr. Dennison, in the middle of a bad breakup and looking at his tax return, decided to call the mayor. They had been friends since grade school, sharing the same bus when they went to the high school and even dating each other siblings (Maura was the one breaking Mr. Dennison’s heart; why didn’t Martin tell me what she was really like, he thought). The mayor had a moment to himself before he decided what to do.

*

It was another town meeting, but reserved for certain people who had a vested interest in putting things back to normal. The mayor invited the chief of police (his brother, another Patterson, kept an eye on who entered the office), Mr. Dennison (of course), certain vice-principals and principals (strange to see them at this time of day), certain business owners (including Old Man Michael, who never showed up), and a few others that could be trusted. It was not official. It was not on the record. And it was not held at city hall.

It was a very private meeting.

They waited for the weekend and then set out late on a Friday night to finally fix things. They all decided to walk in the darkness to the store and see if there were any potential witnesses before they began. In the dim street lights, they could see no traffic. Matt complained that they could have done all of this with his truck if they had just listened to him (he wanted to show off the new vehicle he had bought that month). They ignored him, as they ignored the chief of police’s calling for them to do it quickly before he had to arrest them (the other Pattersons in the group laughed out loud).

The lights were out over the store. Had Old Man Michael left without anyone noticing? That did not seem possible, and as they got closer, they had to agree that even if it was impossible, it had happened. There was no car in his yard (he never seemed to use the money for buying a new one or repairing what he had). Even the lights in front of the store were off (where were his security lights, thought Mr. Dennison out loud; he always had them working). If they had been on, they would have noticed what they could not see from a distance.

The ATM was gone.

The mayor ran ahead of the group, sweating with the effort and dropping his wire cutters as he saw the scratches on the wooden boardwalk. Everyone noticed that the cable that hooked up the machine to the city grid was cut through and left as a reminder of what was once there. They walked around the store property, looking through some of the nearby forest where they could see no trace of any struggle with such an awkward machine. The best guess was that Michael had taken the machine and decided to skip out of town with “his own personal moneymaker” (the mayor really did not like Matt, but he admitted he must have been right). They noted the time, went home, and decided to not talk about what they had done that night.

The summer ended, kids went back to school, and Old Man Michael’s store stayed closed. It was later taken over by a well-known discount chain store. If they had been paying attention, they would have known that this was the real problem that they should have been concerned about, not a machine handing out money. But they shopped there all the same, wondering what happened to the machine that they now missed. And also Old Man Michael, who had taken his share of money, decided to leave, and was almost forgotten by the town. It was just fortunate that the ATM was forgotten by the company, despite being listed as “a brave experiment in money distribution” by certain executives testing the water in various small towns in the country. They would have found the whole process quite fascinating.