The pandemic pawn hour

A young man wearing a green hoodie stood at a counter and as he blew into his crumpled fist he laughed, quietly at first but picked up a scat that accompanied his confused, sing song conversation. It was early morning and he was unemployed.

The clickety clack sounds of receipts spewed out of a noisy printer and the eight customers that had entered in the first hour, still standing, still staring into a background only they saw, shuffled under the shadow of winter.

"Talk to me," the clerk said to the green hoodie, speaking into his hollow face. The young man laughed, off time, off kilter as if he'd tried to escape from a prison. If he were employed perhaps he wouldn't laugh, maybe he wouldn't be standing next to the ghost of coming hardship.

Unemployment, pandemic, these are hard times.

A hand pushed at the hoodie and passed a phone.

"Six," the pawn broker said. "OK," the young man said.

As he shuffled away the voice from the hood laughed. He said he'd be back. The others in the store changed their positions, one moving back, one moving forward, the last now first, and the first last.

The audacity to hope vanished in their pain. Hope carries a scythe in the pandemic. Notes from the economy suggest savings are going, going, gone.

A white haired couple stood at the counter. His hair was long and his beard straggled over his collar. Her mouth scrunched as if she'd eaten a sour ball.

The bearded man pulled cash from a clip then placed his money down.

"You got a receipt? The pawn broker asked. The receipt passed over the counter.

The broker went to the back of the store, returning with a wide screen TV which he set on the counter.

This is where the phrase, "It is what it is" was born. As the pain of a bloodletting in the pandemic economy has traveled, the deepest cuts are confronted: "It is what it is …"

Two young men cradled a long Guitar Hero box with the weight of its contents a clear burden. After they struggled to place it upon the counter the pawn broker asked what they had. They said it was a “Surround Sound.“ They wanted three hundred but the broker shook that off like the thought was an old rug shaken in a backyard.

A tall, oval faced man held a flash drive. He passed it across the counter.

"What do you want?"

"I'd like to get 10."

"No, I can't do 10. Five."

"Not five. Can you do six. All I want is a pack of smokes."

"OK, six."

Working people, down on their luck; young and old and wrinkled and lost. A virus has traveled a road not taken.

A tired man looked like he was wearing goggles, goggles that old men wear as they whisper along lonely sidewalks. His face was shrunken. He held a hundred dollars in his right hand.

"I'll leave that with you," the tired looking man said. He put his money on the counter.

"Alright, let's look at your account," the pawn clerk said as he scrolled down the computer screen like he were inspecting scar tissue, looking at a list of loans and pawns the man had made.

"What I want to do is leave the automatic nailer," the man said.

While the pawn clerk mumbled, the haggard man said, "I drink … a little …" The space between the two men became a confessional for sin.

It was then the pawn dealer ambled to the backroom. He returned with a blue tool box and a rug kick, the tool needed to crimp and tighten carpet.

"OK, you still owe me one hundred. Take the tools and go. Make some money."

Hurriedly, the man lifted the box, the means to his next meal, placed the kick under his arm and carried the blue box in his right hand. As he shuffled away from the counter the phone rang. The people in waiting stared at the floor, waiting for the clerk, looking into the abyss.

Tim Trenkle lives in Hopkinton.