| After speed walking from 18th street and 6th avenue, (while carrying a 40 x 36 flat box weighted down with six large prints from Adorama Camera), to the bank at Astor Place, my fingers had cramped up and I was glowing red with a cold sweat all over my face.
Adorama was out of tubes and decided to give me a flat box. Who fucking thought this was a good idea? The whole thing was the equivalent to me trying to carry a sheet of paneling, (with no real way to grab hold of it) fifteen blocks, while carrying in my other hand; a large tote bag full of heavy crap. Strapped across my chest was my purse and topping off the whole mess was my Diana+ camera round my neck; as if I could shoot a photo. If Christ himself had walked by me, by the time I would have had access to my camera, he would have been well on his way to performing a miracle on 14th street or something.
So when I walked into the bank I felt so blessed that not a soul was in line and even though I still had to wait, within a minute I had my cluttered crap in front of a teller.
Now, one of the many little retarded things that make up my day usually happens at this banks branch. Ever since they built that stupid blob of a building at Astor Place and stuck a bank in the bottom of it, this event has been happening to me.
It plays out like this:
I walk in to the bank to make a deposit. There is usually a line of around seven deep, and I am always the last in a line that never gets any longer. Only two tellers are working. One teller is always involved with complicated transaction that will go on the entire time I am there, leaving in reality only one teller to deal with 'The Line'.
Fifteen to twenty minutes later, it is my turn and it is almost always the same woman, who I have had face to face contact with on a weekly basis for approximately two years now. And once a week, without fail this is our conversation.
The second I get to the window she places her left hand on her hip, purses her lips together and asks me in a rather harsh way; "Do you have an account here?"
I've been in line long enough to know that with all the other people before me she never once asked this question of them.
I usually smile my crazy mean smile, lock eyes with her and slip my paperwork under the bulletproof window. She scrutinizes my checks and deposit slip with the intensity of a Customs Officer and depending on how bitchy she is feeling that day, she may or may not ask me for ID. To review, I've seen this woman probably over one-hundred times. I have bright red hair. I am making a deposit, with a deposit slip that has both my name and Martha's name printed in the upper left-hand corner; I'm not asking for ANY money back and sometimes she asks me for my drivers license.
This scenario plays out every time and in the same way. Yes, I could go to another branch and I have but this one is just down the street from work, and by now, I consider it a funny game with no real winners.
Now, I already have issues around banks. My dad was a vice-president and senior trust officer of a major bank in Cincinnati, Ohio and growing up a liberal with a republican banker dad and a bipolar, home-every-damn-day mom, sucked. Oh sure, when I was a kid, I got to run around the bank on Saturdays and from my memory, my dad's office was on the fifteenth floor and had a stunning view of Covington, Kentucky. He gave me stamps, folders and scotch tape to play with and life was magical. But then again I was five.
Decades later, things are a little different. The stuff that I find magical today mostly has to do with catching a train on time and not freaking out on a daily basis.
So imagine my disappointment last week when I walked up to the teller window I noticed that there is a different teller working. No crazy control-freak bitch but instead a young man in training. Next to him is a manager. I handed him my deposit slip and our Super Bowl winnings. There was a long pause as they stared at a computer screen and then back at me. I ignored them; my tongue was busy playing with yet another hole in a tooth where a filling had fallen out of my mouth; the third since the beginning of the year. I waited patiently for the new guy to move through the transaction.
The manager looked at me and asked, "Martha?"
"No, Holly." I sighed; assuming there had to be a problem with depositing cash.
"Ms. Northrop? Do you usually maintain these balances?" Mr. Manager asked me.
"What? Why? What's wrong?" I said a little too loudly.
"No, no nothing is wrong Ms. Northrop, everything is just fine. Tell me, do you usually maintain these balances?" Mr. Manager had a warm fuzzy smile that was kind of creepy.
Still not really sure why he's was being nice to me, or why the both of them were smiling at me, or better yet I wasn't even sure what the hell he was talking about. I assumed that he must have been asking me if we balanced the checkbook ('cause that made sense and he would give a shit) so I said yes.
He then went into a soft sell about how there is a special account for people who have higher than average balances in their accounts. It has a higher interest rate and blah, blah, blah. I stopped listening when he said the amount. My mind was racing. How the HELL did this money get into our account and where did it come from?
I paused for a minute; looking at both of their smiling faces. I didn't want to appear confused, as they might have looked closer and somehow it all could end badly for me. I waved my hand and said, "Martha handles all of that." feeling nauseous and more like my mother then ever before in my life.
When I came back around to listening to them, Mr. Manager was suggesting that Ms. Harvey look online at a special high interest checking account that they have for people 'like us'. It occurred to me that what had gone on here was that Martha had moved all of our savings into checking so we can pay for the siding, (when they finally fucking finish it). But to these bank tools, it looked like we were two rich lesbians with shitloads of money just frittering away in some silly pedestrian account and they are all too happy about meeting me. While not an enormous amount of money by New York City standards, they were still ready to shuffle me off to a cozy room somewhere, feeding me imported coffee and gourmet biscotti. I bet I could even have had one of them carry all my shit.
I thanked them, got my receipt and made a large banging sound as I tried to get through the door with all my crap.
As I lugged my ass down the block to work, I was reminded (as I often am when stuff like that occurs), about a thing that happened to Martha and I about fifteen years ago when we first moved to DC. We had about $2,000 in cash (all of our money, well technically Martha's money) and we wanted to put into two separate checking accounts. We had only been together a little over a year and had not even considered at joint account. We went to several banks hoping to have someone help us but we didn't qualify. I couldn't get a checking account because I didn't have a job and had been unemployed for over a year. Martha who had a job, couldn't get one because her ex-husband had beyond shitty credit and because his bad credit happened when they were still married, it appeared on her credit check. We ended up at a downtown DC bank, (within walking distance from our 'in the ghetto' apartment) working with a mid-level manager who was trying to get an override from her superior so we could deposit our cash into a joint checking account. Combined we just might be able to get an account. Maybe. She was going to do the best she could. Blink, blink.
Martha and I sat at this woman's desk while she went in the back to 'talk to her boss', kind of like the slimy thing car salesmen do when you buy a car. After about ten minutes, a woman (whose clothing cost more than what we were trying to deposit) came over and sat down behind the desk. She said that she would give us an account but that they were going to have to put a hold on the account for ten business days. We were depositing cash and they were going to put a hold on cash.
Without any wiggle room on this issue, we said fine and in total repulsion, we took $200.00 of the cash so we could at least buy food, liquor and cigarettes and handed her the rest. We then had to sign a bunch of paperwork allowing the bank to do an even further background check on us. She took our money and paperwork and walked away.
While we were waiting for either woman to return, we overheard a conversation that was happening right behind us at another mid-level manager's desk.
"Your $87,000 check has cleared." A different mid-level manger said to a jewel-draped woman.
Martha and I looked at each other. I had to turn around to at least see what $87,000 looked like; Martha refusing to look, crossed her legs and made that ticking sound you make when you are totally disgusted with everything around you.
Ah yes, memories. For the past fifteen years, "Your $87,000 check has cleared." has been the go to sentence when decadent shit gets thrown in our faces. Again, its just a game with no real winners.
When I told Martha about how for a minute one day last week I went from the 'What do you fucking want?' attitude to 'How many ways can we kiss your ass?' pleasantries, she said, "You know, it must be so fucking great to be rich. It must be a whole different world."
Indeed. Your $87,000 check has cleared. |  | | Bouwerie Lane Theater |  | | Yellow Plastic |  | | Ice Storm |  | | Untitled |  | | C-Lab Lobby |  | | Back Yard, Right Corner |  | | Back Yard, Right Corner | |
