A Greefinger's Lucky Day

Trigger Warning: Substance Abuse and Physical Abuse

The asphalt crunched beneath Alex’s boots as he moved towards the sign. He rolled his eyes up to read the peeling letters: Welcome to Glenwatch, population: 47, 210. Eyes stapled to the number, Alex pulled a misshapen clump of a multitool from his pocket, and, flicking the knife open, carefully peeled each number off until only the zero remained.  From Alex’s mouth escaped a single breath of laughter. 

Alex leisurely grubbed through every house. He hadn’t seen any other greenfingers in Atlanta, and that beautiful Georgia peach radiating overhead discouraged most people. Only the bravest or greediest greenfingers would risk the heat stroke for some credibility notes. 

Alex fit the bill, which in his case, probably wasn’t a glowing reflection of character or integrity. He’d turn in any of his neighbors or family to the reclamation agents for holding onto even a single one-dollar bill. Many a time, he’d sit there and watch them get dragged away while he salivated about all the “creds” the new state would award him for “aiding in the confiscation of United States issued bills and memorabilia.” Most citizens endeavored to earn credibility notes through community or factory work. In doing so, they were deemed trustworthy and valuable by the state. The State awarded them credibility notes as a physical representation of that trust. 

Greenfingering was considered a cred-worthy task. Most citizens probably wished they’d just search through abandoned buildings and not people’s homes. There were plenty of dollar bills lying around in such places. But greenfingers like Alex took a more destructive approach.

As he searched the ghost suburb, Alex began to expedite the process. The more barren a house looked, the more likely its inhabitants had undergone forced relocation. Relocated families weren’t keen on leaving dollars or other such goodies behind. Naturally, they would take the time to collect everything they needed before moving to factory housing.

The far more profitable homes had belonged to evictees or US soldiers. Inhabitants of both of these types of homes didn’t know they were leaving until it was too late, and both were either dead or poking their heads through some lovely steel bars. In other words, they didn’t have the chance to get the cash hidden under their mattresses. Alex did though.

After about two hours of searching, Alex found a home that looked promising enough. The door wouldn't open, but a few whacks and bends from a crowbar led it to reconsider. Alex began with the kitchen, throwing open every cabinet and pulling out every drawer. He frisked through silverware and tossed glasses and bowls around like a drunkard in a bar fight. He spun through the lazy Susan like the cabinet was an extreme sports carousel, sending forty years of dust feathering through the air. But alas, the only thing of note in the kitchen was a fine bourbon. Alex figured the owners wouldn’t protest if he took it. The government wouldn’t sell or produce alcohol anymore. Since the coup, the state was the only option when it came to pretty much everything.

The stairs to the second level were sprinkled with glass and fragranced with rot–an appetizer to the main course that was the second-floor hallway. A closet on the second floor was haphazardly ripped open, typical of the reclamation agency approach. The floor was a petri dish of anything and everything from packaged meats and fruits to old-school computers and shortwave radios, likely produced before the coup. If the smattering of dried blood on the wall was any indication, this quaint hush-hush market didn’t make the state agents happy. If it wasn’t an authorized cred-based transaction, in the eyes of the law, you might as well have blown up a state building.

In any case, the transactions were neither authorized, nor, to Alex’s delight, cred-based. A flattened dusting of bills the agents had neglected to claim patterned the floor. After some searching, he discovered a shoebox in the back containing the store's profits,  a total of three thousand dollars. If he turned this in, Alex would have enough to rent a room for the night, but the most the agents at the reclamation office would give him was a pat on the back.

There was nothing else of interest, not even a twenty in a picture frame. The day had already begun to cool. Alex couldn’t believe his luck; he expected at least one other greenfinger rooting around, Alex sucked a few gulps of water from his bottle and continued on. As he walked, Alex thought about the relocated citizens of this lovely humid haven, probably toiling away in the jobs their government had set for them, building cars, butchering livestock, or building electronics. In a few hours, they would be returning to their families, sleeping for a scant few hours, and returning to their machines the next morning. Greenfingering was slow on some days, but even on those days, it was more action than a production line.

After about two hours of cold-case houses, anyone would be fuming. Except, that is, for Alex. The green finger had searched entire dry neighborhoods, spent days battering doors and crunching the numbers on safes, only to find a few dollars. A few hours meant nothing to him. 

This next house looked to be an army man's house, and, Alex hoped, a real cred cow. The flag outside the front door looked to be the stars and stripes, or they had been at one point. After the coup, state agents had likely turned this from red, white, and blue to black, grey, and ash. The front door was sealed tight, but Alex knew a lot of different ways behind locked doors. Here, he used the expert “brick through the window” technique. Steps were taken inside to tear the owners of this house from the history books. Empty picture frames were smashed in the lounge, files in the basement were shredded, and any direct link from the previous residents to the army was disposed of or vaulted away.

Alex tore drywall and shoved through drawers with the vigor of a rottweiler on a rabbit hunt. The greenfinger extraordinaire’s search turned up flat–no mattress money, no safe, no buried backyard box.  As Alex paced in the den, something crunched beneath his foot. He picked it up. It was a family photo, miraculously untouched. A young man, woman, and two little girls stared gleefully at him. This was typical with such photos. If only they had known what was in store. To the right of the family, however, it seemed someone did. A raisin of a man glowered at him from behind an IV bag. It seemed the raisin never smiled, even when directed. His suit did the talking. A gold-speckled black jacket, over a freshly ironed dress shirt, atop gold striped matching pants. On the sleeve, three stripes. Knowing these types, Alex figured he lived, slept, and was probably buried in that suit and his old gun. 

Looking up at the mantle, Alex discovered he was wrong on one count. There was the rifle, a bolt-action in all its glory. Considering its state of upkeep, maybe it should’ve been in a back closet or a landfill. Growths of rust littered the barrel like a pox, and the safety must’ve snapped off long ago. Decades of neglect do that to such antiques. Alex picked it up and spun it around, looking for some sort of compartment. A shuffle emanated from the barrel. Peeking inside, he saw a paper rolled tight. The rifle was its haven from the troubles of the outside world, safe and secure in this relic of an earlier time. Alex’s eager knife made the paper’s new awakening a violent one. After a few attempts, the paper yielded, sliding out of the barrel, albeit with a new scar.

It was a neat stack of US treasury bonds. Still holding the rifle in his right hand, he counted. Four bonds, each $5,000 dollars. They would’ve grown with each passing day. But now, they had a set greenfinger return price. With these bonds, Alex would be set for at least a month. A few more hauls like this, and maybe the state would give him something: a medal, a fancy car, or maybe even a cushy home. Most greenfingers would kill to get this, and here it was, in the palm of his hand. Alex crumpled the bonds into his sweaty fist and shoved them into his bag. He threw the gun to the side. The gun met the spruce floor with a clunk and a click.

The gunshot was painfully loud. A bang followed by the shattering glass of the picture resonated as Alex thudded to the ground. He laid there for a few paces as silence enfolded the room. He felt a sharp pain in his wrist. He looked, a glass shard had found a new home there, spurting blood out. Alex sighed, and using his other hand, tore the glass out with a grunt. As he stood up, Alex wrapped his hand. Hopefully, the nerve damage wasn’t too bad. 

The sun had begun to set, which meant a whole different spectrum of greenfingers was on the prowl. Greenfingering at night often ended with a knife in the spleen or lead in the sternum. As he returned to his pickup, Alex dreamed of setting this on the requisition office counter, getting parceled out the creds that he so deserved as the bonds went into the incinerator. It had been a long time coming for him. Alex tossed his bag in the back, twisted the key, and floored it.

In the end, only Alex and the reclamation office would really know what happened. That was a crucial part of the requisition mission. It had the intended effect. Only forty years and already the rail line was the new state had begun to rumble away what remained of the United States. As a thirty-five-year-old, Alex only knew what he knew about the old US because of his status as a greenfinger, his express state purpose being to destroy that knowledge once and for all. In future generations, greenfingers will die out. A scant few will remain, frothing at the mouth for a reward that carries itself further and further away. But not today. All this considered, for this greenfinger, today was a good day.