alley money

by Alexei Raymond

Alexander, a seven‑year‑old on a seemingly endless summer vacation, sat with his eyes glued to a grey CRT monitor. His fingers manipulated arrow keys as his mouse directed a crosshair by which to doom warbling demons. Red, pixelated violence beamed from the screen as a MIDI soundtrack crackled out of a pair of speakers, much to his delight. The new man his mother brought into their house—an apparent alternative to his father’s presence; new masculinity—was intimidating and strange, although the video games the man brought with him in a neat album with CDs instead of photographs were a form of magic that thawed any icy apprehension. That Tuesday morning, Alexander and his mother were alone in the cramped basement unit. The mother’s new friend was not there, and Alexander did not wonder where he’d gone. Above their basement apartment towered a cottage that reminded him of castles. The full extent of the white cottage could not be seen due to the lush firs that bordered its perimeter. The sight of it had granted him a kind of pride-by-association when he’d told school friends where he lived. He’d point to the impressive building as they walked up to it and, with pride, say “There!” The fact that they had to take the sloped ramp down to the basement door instead of through the lavish, wrought iron gate did not change the aura of the place. 

“Sasha, Ivan is outside. He has something for me. Go get it, please.” Alexander hit the grey ESC key and turned toward his mother. At home, she always let down her long, flowing, brown hair from the business-like updo she usually wore. Her green eyes, kind from behind her glasses, had a softness to them. Her face was free of the stern makeup she wore on workdays. Why, he wondered, was she home with him at all? He did not mind and simply enjoyed her presence. The lack of makeup on her face and her loose hair made him feel an immense sense of peace and comfort. He had no understanding of what separated him and his mother from his father—Ivan—and forced them to live alone, or why it allowed a new man to come into their lives. The words for it would come later. He felt that what had happened had been part of life’s unstoppable, larger flow which could not be asked questions. He also did not notice how his mother’s inclination to refer to his father as ‘Ivan’ had slowly eroded away the words Father, Dad, and Papa from his own lips. His mother’s refusal to see Ivan also began to seem like a natural part of a newly restructured world. Alexander ran outside.

The morning sun made Ivan’s yellow pickup truck burst with saturated color. The sight of it excited him. He skipped up the ramp and came up to his father’s window. Ivan wore his wavy, light brown hair in a ponytail. Alexander had never seen any other fathers wear their hair that long, which made Ivan uniquely his own. Ivan’s rugged clothes made it apparent that he merely stopped by to deliver whatever Alexander’s mother had wanted him to take, before driving off to carry, to build, to polish. He greeted Alexander with play in his voice.

“Hi, Raaabbit!” The indelible nickname came drawn out, exuding love and mischief.

“Hi!”

Alexander couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the man who’d become Ivan. His yellow arrival had grown to augur adventure and carefree amusement, which usually only occurred on Fridays.

“Listen, Rabbit, I have to go to work soon. I just stopped by to get you this. Give it to your mom, ok?” Ivan handed him a blank, brown envelope—one meant to hold photographs. Alexander held it and waited for further instructions.

“Ok, so I’ll go. Maybe we’ll go on some trip this weekend, huh? I’ll choose some park for us.”

“Yeah! Ok!”

Alexander then slowly walked back to the basement unit while periodically turning to look in the yellow car’s direction. Ivan waited there with a smile and waved each time Alexander looked back. At the bottom of the slope to the basement door, the car could no longer be seen. He listened as it drove off, then looked down at the envelope in his hands and tried to discern what it held within. He squeezed it with his fingers. Not satisfied with what touch conveyed, he decided to carefully open it. He’d only ever seen such envelopes hold the photographs his father had developed. Instead of family photographs, Alexander looked at a stack of bills. 

He’d never touched money of that kind. He’d seen it being handled by his mother, or by Ivan on their adventures, but he’d only ever touched various coins. He burrowed his hand inside, crinkling the envelope as he pulled the stack into the daylight. The weight of the stack was alien, and its value seemed incalculable and somehow compelling. Alexander felt gripped by an overwhelming sense of curiosity, though a specter of fear made his stomach ache. Without trying to count, he took what seemed to him a humble thickness of bills out of the overall stack. How could anyone tell that the stack had grown slightly thinner? He pushed the separated bills into a pocket in his beige cargo shorts and put the main stack back into the brown envelope. Once the envelope looked the same as it did in Ivan’s hand, Alexander opened the door and walked up to his mother.

“Here, mama.”
“Oh, thank you.” She took the envelope from his hands and put it down on a table near a folder of her work documents, then occupied herself at the kitchen counter. She did not open it in front of him, much to his relief. Alexander lingered in the living room as he felt the weight in his pocket and forgot about his computer. He decided he had to go outside.

 “Mama, I’m gonna go see if Vova and Kostya want to play outside.”

“Ok, just don’t go far and be careful! Come back for lunch soon!”

He wasted no time. He put on his sandals and walked up the street until he reached another large cottage. He pushed open the gate, then, instead of running up the wide steps to the imposing main entrance, took a side path that ran along the right side of the garden. It took him to a separate, small unit which was attached to the larger building. Vova and Kostya lived there, a pair of brothers he’d spend time with after school, and almost every day of the summer vacation. Vova had been a year younger than Alexander, while Kostya was a year older, which made Kostya a natural leader among the boys. Alexander knocked and was greeted by Vova’s blond head, peeking from the crack of the door.

“Hey, wanna go out?” As the door opened wider, Alexander could see Kostya approaching.

“Come in!” Kostya’s commanding voice always made Alexander defer to him, and so he timidly walked into their apartment after taking his sandals off. The floor felt perfectly cool. The three boys walked over to the computer that stood in the living room. Alexander marveled at how expansive their apartment seemed compared to his own basement home. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the insides of the cottages they all lived by. It was time to coax the brothers outside.

“I thought we could go walk around. Maybe visit our camp.”
“Nah, it’s so hot out. Let’s just play some video games.” Kostya spoke for both brothers, as Vova made no attempt to express a preference. Had it been any other day—a day without the weight burning in his pocket—Alexander would have gladly sat down beside them to watch Kostya play some video game. Their reluctance to go out compelled him to force the issue by revealing his new, strange wealth.

“But look at what my mom gave me,” Alexander stuck his hand down his pocket, felt the smooth surface of the bills, then took them out. They sat adult and inappropriate in his small hand. The two brothers looked at the stack with a mixture of excitement and envy. Before Alexander realized, the stack of bills was in Kostya’s larger hand. 

“Oh shit, why’d she give you so much?” He flipped through the bills like they were playing cards—200s, 100s, 50s. Vova inched closer to look into his brother’s hands.

“Just… For my birthday.” Alexander tried to suppress the discomfort he felt with the money out of his hands.

“It’s your birthday?”

“Um, can I have it back?”

“Yeah,” Kostya handed back the money with a thin veneer of disinterest.

“So, where do you wanna go?”

“I don’t know. Want to go buy snacks, then go to our camp?”

Kostya hummed with thought, making Alexander shift with restlessness.

“Sure, let’s go. Come on, Vova.”

The boys put on their sandals and walked out into the street. The sun had been baking the asphalt of the road all morning, making the bricks of the pavement feel scorching hot. The sky broadcast its flawless summer blue in every which direction, and made the possibilities seem endless. With the hot weather in full force, Alexander began to feel thirsty and excited to get any choice of drinks his heart desired. The boys began to walk down the center of the road, sometimes moving back to the pavement when a car materialized out of a corner or made itself heard from behind them. Kostya led the boys towards a nearby convenience store Alexander had never been to. After crossing a large, buzzing road, they entered the store through some hanging plastic flaps that felt cool against the skin. The store’s atmosphere was an order of magnitude cooler than the outside due to the ceaseless work of a large AC unit. The brothers went down the snack aisle, while Alexander found the drinks section. Kostya picked things out with ease, and his arms grew full of bags of chips and chocolate bars, some of which he handed to Vova to carry for him. For Alexander, the freedom of choice was wholly foreign and disorienting. As he struggled to pick out a drink, Kostya came up and suggested three large bottles: coke, grape juice and chocolate milk. The shop was empty aside from the boys, and the clerk sat bored behind the counter as they walked up to it with their spoils. An assortment of saturated, loud colors was shoved onto the smooth counter, followed by three towering bottles, as well as a last-minute collection of candies from the counter’s displays. Alexander was suddenly unsure of whether he had enough money to pay for such a large selection. He fidgeted with his hand in his pocket, rubbing the bills, as the clerk began to sort through the childish selection. The clerk’s eyes went up from the snacks, eyeing the boys suspiciously. She called out a price. Alexander froze up, not knowing how to proceed, realizing that he’d never been in such a position before. Kostya intervened and told Alexander to give the clerk one of the bills. Alexander’s hand came out of his pocket holding two 100s, having already forgotten the number the clerk named and making no attempt to hand over a fitting amount. She took the bills in her wrinkled hand, and in an overflow of suspicion, decided to ask:

“Where did you boys get so much money?”

The question shocked Alexander into silence. Again, Kostya stepped in.

“It’s our birthday.”

The clerk gave Kostya barely a glance and kept her gaze on the boy with the moneyed pocket who had the look of guilt and fear in his ghostly, white face. She pursued the matter no further.

“Ok. You gave me too much,” she handed Alexander one of the bills back, then gave him a few smaller ones broken off from the larger bill she kept.

The boys walked away from the store with two large bags of loot. Alexander felt the relief of sunlight, though he felt burdened by the remaining amount of money in his pocket. He realized he’d hoped the store would take care of the entirety of the money he had. The severity of the matter eluded him, but some understanding trickled into his mind due to the exchange at the store. Alexander momentarily thought of giving the bills back to his mother, but the idea seemed tantamount to admission of a crime, so his thoughts raced elsewhere under the scorching, summer sun.

The boys made it back to their neighborhood, then veered off the pavement over to a nearby field. It had been marked by loose sand, dry, prickly weeds, and some patches of gnarled, twisted trees that kept their hardy foliage despite a weather that exorcised all else in the field until all that was left were bare branches. They approached one such tangle of trees, ducked into a small passage, and emerged into what had been their makeshift camp. There was a wooden board in the center and a mismatched number of broken chairs in that nexus between the trees. The sand was covered by some abandoned rug. The boys had labored to carve out comfort from the tangle of branch and leaf, and to rest there had been their secret pleasure. Their arrival there with a trove of unrestricted goods made the scene feel luxurious beyond their dreams. Adolescent feast. They began to arrange the bags, bars and packs on the board, then once the bottles were out as well, they realized in frustration that they’d forgotten to get cups. It was a small dent, one they quickly patched over by simply pouring the sweet liquids into their open mouths from a slight distance, not touching the bottles with their lips. Some of the liquids ended up soaking into the rug, the sand below, the dry wood, their clothes. The hideout crinkled and cracked with the sounds of packages being manipulated and torn open. The boys snacked with relish and felt pleased with the large selection still left. Some of the snacks were hidden in a small cabinet they’d dragged into the tangle of trees. Their stock. Eventually each one felt like they could handle no more sweets, nor chips, nor waterfalled sips. In the ensuing lull, Kostya brought up the rest of the money:

“So… What else will you buy?”

“I don’t know. Maybe save it or get some toys,” Alexander’s head began to slowly lower until he looked down at their feet and the dusty rug there. The money had become an unwanted burden with which there wasn’t that much to do with anyways. He resented the bills still sitting in his pocket, overstaying their welcome.

“Do you want some? I don’t need that much.”

Vova immediately turned to see if his big brother would take some of the money. Kostya hesitated, and with some discomfort marking his face, refused.

“No, we don’t need it. We have our own at home. And we have to go now.”

The refusal surprised and saddened Alexander, leaving him alone with the acrid burden in the early afternoon. Kostya inspected the camp one last time before turning to leave. The unfinished bottles were pushed into some sand, and the empty bags of chips were shoved into crevices in a wall of bushes. 

The boys emerged from the camp empty handed and slowly walked across the sandy field back to the neighborhood road. Some sand and the occasional pebble invaded their sandals. Once on the pavement by the road, the three stomped their feet and rattled them to loosen anything stuck between foot and sandal. 

“We’re going home,” Kostya declared, and turned in the direction of the cottage they lived by. Vova followed him, then turned to secretly wave Alexander goodbye. Alexander’s home beckoned to him where it stood further down the street. It would be natural to make the short walk home, to take the ramp down to the door and enjoy the quiet afternoon by the computer. Despite the proximity, Alexander felt it would be impossible to walk into the house while still carrying the bills. In mounting despair, he walked back into the sand of the field. He walked aimlessly as his mind groped for some solution to an inordinate problem. He took out the frustratingly numerous bills—so many, why so many—and felt choked. Sudden tears strung in his eyes as his chin quivered with animosity and helplessness. The boiling point was reached and the boy’s hands remembered that the offensive, abusive bills were mere paper. And as could be done with mere paper, Alexander began to rip and tear, bill by bill. The shreds were caught by a heat wind that came from nowhere as they began to skip and float through the sand and its minute dunes, away from the boy. He watched them recede and be lost in the sand of the field, until his breath came back to him and his eyes dried. He sniffled as he collected himself and began the walk back home, free of the overwhelming paper entities. 

He came home and put away his sandy sandals. His mother sat on the couch in the living room.

“Where have you been, Sasha?” His mother’s voice was unusually heavy.

“Just with Kostya and Vova.”

“Sasha, I called Ivan. Did you take some of the money from the envelope?”

Alexander felt obliterated by the question. Each of his senses was cast into disarray as he struggled to maintain his grip on reality.

“Sasha, did you take some of the money in the envelope?”

“A bit. Just a bit.”

The calm his mother barely held onto crumbled at the boy’s minimized admission. Instead of her calm, home eyes, Alexander could see the eyes of despairing frenzy.

“Where is it?”

“I—”

“Where?!” His mother’s voice turned to iron as she struggled to maintain anger and authority over the tearful helplessness she felt herself giving into.

“It’s outside. I hid it outside.”

In a whirl, he felt his wrist gripped roughly by his mother’s urgent hand with its sharp nails. Before he could orient himself, they were out on the street together. The sight of his mother outside of the house in her robe was bizarre and a testament to the magnitude of the crime.

“Where is it? Show me!” Her ragged shout shocked him into movement.

“H-here, it’s here!” And he led his mother into the sandy field, to the spot of his confrontation with the bills, or one that looked like it. It was hard to tell. His mother looked around wildly as her face gave in to tears and panic.

“I buried it here! I think it’s here.” And the boy went down to his knees and began to shift piles and piles away as his own tears cratered the loose sand below. His mother watched him in disbelief, and when he failed to produce any bills from the sand before him, she too couched down to look along with him. When Alexander noticed his mother wildly looking through the sand, he slowly stood up and remained frozen by the incongruent display. His ears rang.

His mother stood up and he could see in her beautiful hands a single torn fragment of a bill. Her panicked rage seemed to pass as a sound more harrowing filled Alexander’s ears. It was as though her body urged her to sob, but her breathlessness could not afford it. So she stood in limbo between sobs and chopped breaths, staring at the torn piece in her hand. She mustered the strength to utter the question that brought out the inevitable, scared truth from the boy.

“You tore them up?”

A cascade followed.

“I was scared. I didn’t know; I just I tore them up. I’m sorry, Mama; I didn’t know. I wanted to hide. I can find them. I can fix them; maybe some are still here I I—”

The lovely mother stood catatonic in the field as her robe billowed in the heat wind, while the breathless child confessed. In the distance, shreds of paper continued to roll further and further away, hidden in the endless sand. 

It was a summer day.

Photo of Alexei Raymond

BIO: Alexei Raymond is a writer whose work explores post-Soviet diasporic lives, moments of threshold, and fractured identities. Originally from the Middle East, he is currently based in Belgrade. His stories appear in The Bloomin’ Onion, Lowlife Lit Press, and The Crawfish. Connect with him at x.com/enemyofcruelty.