A Twenty-Dollar Bill Dropped Into the Dust Beside a Tennessee Highway

I counted every stack a second time to be sure each one held exactly ten bills.

The paper smelled of dark iron and old dust.

I tucked the cash into a canvas tool bag under the bench and locked the iron lid again.

I fitted the oak floorboard back into its groove and pushed the plastic tubs back over the seam until the wood was completely covered.

I stood under the lone bulb with the canvas bag in my hand, listening to the house above me stay dark and still.

Then I sat on the wooden stool and started counting stacks of dusty hundred-dollar bills under that single bulb.