I go to the bank to deposit my tips from the last two days.  I’m in a hurry because I have to deliver the rent check afterward, then go to work.  I walk into the bank clutching a handful of worn, fuzzy bills.  As I count them a final time a particularly weathered five tears in half.  I grouse to myself and note how many people are waiting in line.  I notice multiple tellers, however, which is of some comfort.  I pull a deposit slip from a kiosk and fill it out.

I make my way into line; I’m five deep.  One of the tellers is designated for commercial transactions, so anyone with a business account gets in a special line and she gives them priority.  That still leaves four tellers.  I size up the other bank goers: an old, part-Native American guy with a cane; a white thirtysomething guy about my age and social distinction; a pair of black guys who seem to be friends, they look like landscapers; another black guy, this one a city worker in a traffic vest; an old black lady in a church dress; an older, plump white man who sweats in the air conditioning.  As the line continues back, the farther back the people are, the less significantly they feature in my memory.  I am, of course, concerned with who and what is ahead of me, because I am a selfish prick like everybody else.

Other people file in and join the line, lengthening it quickly.  This pleases me, because suddenly I go from end to middle in the span of minutes.  But then another upset: one of the tellers takes a break.  Plus the old man w/ cane is up next, and old people take a long time to do anything, especially where money is involved.

Then she walks in, straight from the mouth of Robin Harris.  Short and portly, but with one of those exaggerated voluptuous figures.  I know lots of guys probably want to fuck her because she has a round, fat ass.  She walks with that I’m-a-woman-with-a-job-so-fuck-you strut, which is only exasperated by her obvious attitude (no doubt originating from her I’m-fat-and-you’d-still-fuck-me overconfidence).  She’s wearing nurse scrubs with cute little cartoons on it, colored like a nursery in soft pastels, and she has one of those sassy, short haircuts that five years ago would have had some shade of purple streaked through it.  My eye is on her immediately, because instead of taking her rightful place at the back of the line, she walks along the length of people behind the ribbon, curling her lip and sucking her teeth.  One hand is pushed back on her limp wrist against her pudgy hip, shifting back and forth with every lazy, foot-dragging step.  Her purse dangles from her fingertips.  In her other hand she has whatever papers she needs for the bank.

I gaze all this from my peripheral vision, all while minding the queue, to allow as little distance to gather between the person ahead and myself.  I also notice that one teller out of the remaining four isn’t taking any customers.  She’s just counting.  This slows things up considerably.  The Black Nurse has made her way around the line, as if she were going to the commercial teller, but instead walks up to the landscapers, greeting them quietly.  They talk and nod and talk.  The man w/ cane is still doing his business when the thirtysomething finishes, so the black landscapers are up next.  Luckily they go as a pair to the next available teller.  Then, instead of the city worker, who should be next, the Black Nurse walks right up to a teller before being called, and starts cashing a check.  The city worker says nothing.  The teller says nothing.  I say nothing.

The teller who had been counting stops and calls the city worker.  The commercial teller, having an empty line, calls me.  The wait hasn’t been nearly as excruciating as I had anticipated, so I am satisfied with the service.  But as the teller processes my transaction, I can’t help but look over at the Black Nurse next to me, noting at closer inspection her tragic and stereotypical manner.  It makes me think about all the times I was glad I wasn’t black, because I would hate people like her for reflecting poorly on me.  It reminds me that I shouldn’t have thoughts like that, because I’m white, and it’s probably racist.  I consider how my beef with the “gay community” as it were is essentially the same, but that’s still no validation of racism, because the two just don’t equate.  In a surge these thoughts flood my mind, sudden and simultaneous.

But what strikes me most as I watch this trifling, obnoxious human being carry on is the cowardice of everyone else in line.  Were the blacks letting her go because she was black, and if so, why?  Were the whites letting her go because they were as wracked with white guilt as I seem to be, or were they just terrified she’d whip out her gat and bust a cap in they ass if they said something?  I think about how every one of them are assholes for not at all protesting behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in an elementary school, let alone society at large.  What’s worse, I’m just as big a pussy as any of them, and I totally know it.  I’m pissed, lucid, and something still prevents me from saying something, anything.  No, I’m the biggest pussy, because I'm aware of it.

This makes me even madder.  She finishes her transaction before mine, and I watch her walk out.  You’re as big a pussy as anybody, you won’t say nothing to her.  You won’t say anything.  You’re just gonna stand here like everybody else, motherfucker...  If I see her in the parking lot, I’m going to…  Yeah, right, ‘in the parking lot’, just another out for your bitch ass, just another excuse.  You ain’t doin’ shit!  She laughs and talks loudly at her teller as she slides away, imposing the conversation on all the people she’s flatly disregarded, as if she were covertly bragging over her victory.

I grab my receipt from the teller, thank her, and make sprightly for the door.  My ride waits outside, and I have the rent check to deliver.  But there’s also the slim margin that the Black Nurse is still in the parking lot, and if she’s still there, I can still say something.  I can still glean some small scrap of personal satisfaction here.  I can have some redemption.

I hit the door, and there she is, walking up to the passenger side of a car, just one space down from my ride.  She is looking down at something, a phone or keys.  I feel a small frog struggling in my throat, and the acidic tickle of adrenaline just under my stomach.  You’re not going to do nothing, you pussy.

“Excuse me,” she scarcely looks up at me as I address her in passing, “how did you get to go to the front of the line like that?”  She looks down to the ground as if my question is a nuisance, shifts and mumbles, “Oh I know them guys they patients of mine.”  The frog struggles in my throat.  The tips of my fingers tingle.  “Oh,” I return, “so I guess that entitles you to go ahead of the other twelve people that were already waiting…?”  I say this in a very friendly tone, not too obviously facetious, but just pointed enough that she raises her head, her large mouth poised to respond.  I don’t give her the opportunity.  My legs tremble as I walk past her, “That’s all right, I know.  You’re time’s more valuable than everyone else’s,” again with an even, non-threatening keel that belies the adrenal rush I’m experiencing.  Now her expression is equal parts shock and anger.  Her lips pull back off her wide teeth, like two fat grubs curling around a stick of yellowed wood.  In her eyes are the sparks of an irate tantrum.  I stop at my car, and I open the door.

“You have a good day, Ms. Queen of Everything!” I shout as I get in the car.  A torrent of bullshit spills from her maw and I slam the door.  Michele shoots me an emphatic expression of WTF?  I recount the basic story to her loudly so the Black Nurse can hear it too, drowning out her unjustifiable tirade.  As we drive away I watch her wave a hand indignantly in the air, her head sliding back and forth on her neck, her mouth flying with expletives I’d never hear.

This is my community service for the day.