DIAMOND HANDS

The old man wants to 'buy the dip' again. I admire his commitment to delusion, if nothing else. He still loves to bring out the charts, even though that last 'all time high' looks more like the edge of a cliff with each passing year. 

"Real soon, Tula. I can taste the super bull run." 

"Uh-huh." 

"You know I've been holding my bitcoin bags since before you were born?" 

"Since before my mother was born." 

"What was she a teen mom or something?" 

"She had me at twenty." 

"Yikes." 

"Yup." 

"Whew! I don't even know what I'll do when bitcoin hits a hundred million bob. I'll get off this freaking chair and floss." 

"Sure. Whatever that means." 

It's easy for me to just go along with it. Firstly, I have little to no interest in the world of cryptocurrency. My grandfather swore the whole thing was a cluster of pyramid schemes, and he was smart enough that I've taken his word for it, though my personal dislike for him kept me from ever engaging him further on this – or any other – topic. 

Secondly, I'm not one to be caught up in the tangles of other people's passions. This girl knows how to mind her business. 

Third and most importantly, this is my workplace. I leave the servant's quarters and let myself into the main house to wake Mr Okello at exactly 6.00am every day. There, I wrangle him into grooming, eating real meals, and taking his medicine. I wheel him around his cluttered playpen of a mansion – past high-tech toys and sculptures modeled after NFT art he owns – a genial audience for grumbling complaints and occasional reminiscing. I lose video games to him and sweep his room for vape pens before I put him to bed at exactly 8.00pm. And then I walk out of his world and back into my comfortable private life, where the things I care about are. The things I care about being my collection of resin jewelry and whatever the BingBong algorithm places on my feed. 

Lennie, Mr. Okello's long-suffering accountant, isn't as good as I am at keeping his rice and beans from mixing. He worries about the old man. Gets worked up when he thinks Mr. Okello is making a mistake. I thought it was a matter of financial prudence in the beginning; a sufficiently disastrous gamble or hacking incident could kill his job (and mine). But I see now that he just...worries about the old man. 

I steal banana crisps off the plate Mr Okello has left unattended while he and Lennie rage at each other over bitcoin. The old man isn't fazed by Lennie's colorful language. What's a four-letter word to an internet forum veteran? He never bothers to self-censor and, after years of working for him, neither do we. He is, however, incensed by Lennie's use of a certain two-letter word. 

"No!” Lennie shouts, "No more!" 

"It's digital gold!" 

"Stop saying that! If I have an actual gold bar in my possession and the whole world suddenly decides that gold is worth nothing, I still have something useful in my possession. Even when nobody else wants to buy it off me, I can melt it down and wear it as jewelry. I can use it as a paper weight -" 

"Ha! A paper weight!" 

"Shut up! With enough force, I can use it to crack your empty skull open! When nobody wants to buy your bitcoin off you, then you have nothing. Those numbers in your wallet are truly meaningless. Its value is entirely extrinsic." 

"And the value of the shillings I pay you isn't?" 

I don't need a sphygmomanometer to know Mr Okello's blood pressure is shooting up to dangerous levels, which is why I step in. If the old man drops dead I'll have to reactivate my LinkedIn account. 

"Alright now, that's enough," I say, keeping my voice breezy as I draw Lennie into a corner of the room. I'm mildly gratified by his reaction to my hand on his arm; the way his locked-and-loaded rebuttal fizzles out into a distracted, "Oh, hey...Nice necklace". 

"Talk some sense into that idiot, Tula, before I beat it into him!" 

"Alright, alright,” I coo at the grizzled grump, before facing Lennie with arms akimbo.

"Are you aware that this is a workplace?" 

"He can't keep flushing money down the cryptocurrency toilet. It's ridiculous!" 

I can't imagine things are very bad, but the heat of his tone has me wavering for a second. 

"How are the numbers looking?" I lower my voice to a whisper, "Are we in trouble?" 

"What? No. It's pretty hard to burn a hole through the kind of money he has." 

"Great! So he might as well flush some down the crypto toilet, no? And, who knows, that bull run might just come around real soon. He sells the coins high and maybe you and I get a fatter end-year bonus. What's the problem?" 

He chuckles at this, "I forgot you haven't been here too long. He sells the coins high...ha! He's been holding on to that shit for decades, Tula. The bull runs come and go and he just buys more. You know it's not good for him on some level." 

"Lennie, this is a workplace. That man is our employer, not our dad." 

Suddenly, he's gazing into my eyes as if searching for something. He startles me and his lips spread into a slow smile when I hold his gaze. 

"Yeah, you act unbothered, but I know you worry too." 

It takes me a beat too long to break eye contact because I like Lennie's smile. I like the earnest shine of his brown eyes, the glint of his clear braces, and especially his dimples. It's an open smile, confident in a boundary-crossing sensitivity of which I am incapable. I turn away from him and towards Mr Okello, hoping to pop the moment with a sharp disconnection, but then Lennie – apparently emboldened – steps closer to me and drapes an arm across my shoulders. Now we're both watching the old fart like proud parents in a nursery. He has his back to us, phone held up in both shaky palms, calmly dictating replies on his pet forum. The font size is large enough that I can make out his username (ancalagon69) and most of his messages (...you're NGMI with those paper hands...yeah the flippening is coming like Jesus is coming...that's not what your mom said last night...). 

"Do you really think he's ever had sex?" 

Lennie ignores this, "He's spent half a century stockpiling something more useless than a discontinued coin," he says, "how much more time can we ethically allow him to waste considering he doesn't have much left?" 

I can sense that Lennie has thought through this issue quite seriously. He's carved out some strong opinions. Opinions that could take a while to be put across, and that might give insight into more deeply held convictions. 

So I poke one of his dimples with my little finger. 

"What are you doing?" The laugh he lets out is involuntary. More a product of surprise than real mirth, but it'll do for a way out. 

"I'll take your Ethics class next semester, professor. Right now, I'm just trying to keep my boss from debating to the literal death." 

He laughs again. 

"Listen," I continue, "You're right in that he probably doesn't have lots of time left. That's exactly why we should indulge him. Let him hoard his pretend money and play the big man online. He's not going to join a gym and bulk up at this point. Let him have this." 

It takes a little extra coaxing, but Lennie lets it go. Mr. Okello flushes some more money down the toilet, and I steer us back into routine. He rambles about bitcoin all afternoon and right through our aggressively healthful supper. 

"The bull run is coming, Tula!" He shouts, right after I've seen the last pill down his throat. 

"Sure, old man. Let's get you to bed." 

* 

Simple furniture. Neutral palette. My quarters are a sensory respite after being in Mr Okello's house all day. After all, the accommodation is contingent on my employment here. Tonight, it's my space. Tomorrow I could wake up to a notice insisting I pack up and leave for any number of reasons. No sense in imprinting on the place. 

My jewelry box wouldn't fetch much at an auction, but its contents are my most cherished possessions. I built the box myself. Worked on it day after day for two months straight after Liv's funeral. It is, perhaps, overly secure for a box filled with gauche, lumpy jewelry. I enjoy that aspect of it, though. Needless intricacy lends the acts of working it open and locking it down a ritual air. I lean into it. 

On many nights, I pick up a piece and allow myself to be petrified by the grief, which doesn’t seem to be dulling with the passing time. Sometimes I laugh at the comedy of my tragedy. Liv didn't just know me, she understood me on a cellular level. It took her so long to get through to me but once she did...Clarity after a lifetime of obscurity. Acceptance after a lifetime of rejection. Too perfect. Too perfect. And so ripped away with such brutal speed. Misery to ecstasy to misery in a perfect arch. That's what I got for letting the right one in. For letting the right one touch and change me. How does one even begin to accept...

* 

About six weeks out from Lennie and Mr Okello's fight, bitcoin gets hot. The entire development is an unlikely stroke of luck but try telling that to the old man. We are dismissive at first, guessing that the jittery rise in bitcoin's value is a false alarm. Lennie's guess is that some elderly bitcoin whale, tired of waiting, is playing number games. Moving things around to get things moving. But we relent when our own social media feeds are flooded with bitcoin content.  

While the object of fascination itself is random, the fascination generation formula is the same old. The attentions of a minor celebrity with an inexplicably rabid following triggers a niche trend. The intra-community hype overflows and spills into the mainstream gutters. The kids do it first. By the time people with fully developed prefrontal cortexes and fulfilling offline lives are trying their hands at it the frenzy is peaking on a global scale. The wave passes in a fortnight, leaving bodies in its wake. And then we're on to the next one. 

We're still gaining altitude right now, though. Everyone and their mother is bullish on bitcoin. If you don't do your best to accumulate at least one hundred thousand satoshis, then your bloodline is doomed to poverty and ignominy in the New World. Mr Okello's favorite bitcoin forum is flooded with new members and their newbie requests for clarification. The veterans expected this. They seek refuge in a backup forum with much tighter restrictions on membership. 

"Bitcoin is getting pretty expensive again," I say to the old man over breakfast. 

"Yup! Just like I said it would!" 

"Mm-hmm. Looks like you really could sell your stash for a profit. Do you have an exit plan?" 

"Huh?" 

"When will you sell? What's your magic number?" 

"Oh, well..." 

He mutters unintelligibly for a few seconds before he waves his arm in irritation as if swatting at a fly. 

"I ask because I know it's getting pretty close to a hundred million shillings. Is that still your number?" 

I let him alone when the effort required to decipher his grumbling goes beyond what I'm willing to expend. But I find myself watching him more closely after this conversation. I watch the numbers rise and read his forum posts over his shoulder as he dictates them. The heap of gold on which he lies grows ever taller and I find myself backing farther away and squinting harder in an effort to see him.

"What did I tell you?" Lennie laughs. 

"It's like watching a stop motion plane crash. All the top signals are there. The house of cards is one major celebrity endorsement away from collapse! Why won't he sell?" 

"Are you upset you won't be getting a fat end-year bonus?" 

"Yes, of course." 

There's little levity in my words. In all honesty, I am increasingly disturbed by the old man's reluctance to sell. Up close and in the light, the grotesqueness of his attachment makes me itch. My jewelry becomes an irritant against my skin and I slowly stop wearing any. I consider sending the box to my mother for keeping. I catch myself wondering what wounds this attachment functions as a salve for. Searching within myself for them. I'm not having fun at this circus. Lennie might have some helpful insight, but he's no longer interested in discussing Mr Okello with me. He has an agenda of his own. 

"You know...there's more to the end of the year than a bump in your paycheck." 

"Is there?" 

"Yeah. There's all sorts of fun you can get up to that time of year..." 

"All sorts of fun..." 

"All sorts of mischief." 

"Hmmm." 

Lennie's stares fixedly at something behind me as he speaks, only meeting my gaze occasionally before his eyes dart away again. I can't help grinning. This is a welcome distraction. 

"I know your break starts on the 23rd. Would you like to hang out for a couple days in December? I promise I'm even more fun beyond the gates of this compound." 

Mr Okello's voice rips out from the intercom, crackling with ire. 

"Tula! Where did you put that freaking pen? I told you I need it to manage bull run anxiety! You'd better not have thrown it away or I'll toss you into the garbage too!" 

I sigh and excuse myself, inviting Lennie to call me tonight so we can finish this conversation. He does a smooth job of reserving his surprise. I never answer night calls let alone set them up. But, you know, lately I've been thinking that it'd be nice to do something different at night.

* 

"Here's your stupid pen," I huff, tossing it on the old man's desk. 

He gives me no response. Barely seems to register my presence. I can see he's on that damn forum. My stomach turns and I'm about to walk back out the door when I notice his labored breathing. 

"Hey. Are you feeling okay?" 

I move closer to him to check for any signs of illness or distress. Tremulous hands raise his phone to his face and he dictates a post. The words roll down his screen in that comically large font. 

DIAMOND HANDS! DIAMOND HANDS! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO STICK TOGETHER! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIAMOND HANDS! 

An uncomfortable few seconds pass before a reply appears on his screen. 

I'M TIRED OF THIS SHIT! I'M OLD AND TIRED @ANCALAGON69. I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO CASH OUT! DAMN! 

And then another. 

ME TOO, HONESTLY. 

The seconds tick by with excruciating slowness before a third reply appears. You'd think the old man had turned to stone, but for his panting.

WEAK LINKS!!! MY HANDS ARE DIAMOND!!! 

Watching the old man spring back to life at that third reply feels like an especially gross intrusion. His relief, the unchecked enthusiasm of his response to that third reply (too many emojis, too many exclamation points) … these are glimpses at a nakedness that my training as a nurse did not prepare me for. I stand rooted in his shadow as the remaining handful of diamond-hand lifers swear fealty to one another. As they rub salve onto the bruises left by the quitters' blows. 

The full picture clicks into place in my mind with a sound like the lock of my box. That night, I adorn myself in gauche, lumpy jewelry with the restraint of a child playing in her mother's vanity drawers. I immerse myself in every memory I can reach with greater abandon than before, until I am suspended in rose-tinted resin. 

Lennie calls at 9.00pm. I don't answer.