The Bench Coin Gold and Swords
It has been written that when Picasso painted Les Demoiselles D’ Avignon he had the Four of Swords affixed to his studio door. I read tarot for amusement and follow some astrology. The card at my door would be a sculptor at his work bench surrounded by eight gold coins. Depending on interpretation It could mean advancement or bad speculation. Bench could mean jury or verdict. Apparently the early Italian merchants conducted business on benches in the open air. Sometimes I worry about not selling enough art; will I be reading tarot cards on a park bench some day??
At the end of every month when rent is near due you see on the curbs of New York discarded lamps, couches and mattresses. My mother had a faded Victorian couch in the garage where she secretly stashed extra cash and her gold jewelry. She worked a full time job and went away one weekend for a break. My older sister Sierra (Cierra la Puerta as I called her) came in from college to look after me. Ever industrious she had a yard sale to make some extra money. There went the gold with the couch. My mother wailed. What good is your college education? You should just drop out now and pray you marry rich!!!
My first bank in New York was on the corner of Spring and Lafayette in Little Italy. It had a beautiful soaring interior with dimly lit arched walls of soft mellow marble with hues of gold and rose. It has since been replaced by a big pharmacy chain with bright fluorescent lights. They push high volume prescriptions and flu shots. My new bank is spotless. Clean and well maintained windows with green carpet on the walls and fake marble on the floors. Real green ivy is planted throughout. There was a machine where children could trade in their pennies. Lollipops for the kids, dog treats for the pets and free ball point pens available to everyone. A uniformed police officer with a badge was stationed at the door with a real gun. The bank felt clean, safe and transparent. They were playing jazz. Which could be good but, it was smooth jazz. That was the first omen. “So whose playlist are we listening to?” I asked the teller, “Nobody from around here, it’s from corporate, we have to listen to that all day.”
Corporate made some attempts at being sustainable. I was impressed when the Union Square branch partnered with a local landscape company and installed vertical gardening in the entry. The smell of fresh earth and barnyard filled the vestibule. But I was a little unsettled by taking my money from an automated teller that was disguised as a tree. The message was, ‘ Yes your money does grow on trees and it's falling from the sky and blowing in the wind! Then there were a series of unfortunate media campaigns. One was a four year old girl with crazy eyes pushing an empty grocery basket. Why was she alone? Where was mom and dad? Was the message that banking was so easy even a child could do it? Then there was a video. A clean cut man approaches another man and tussles him from behind pushing him into a pool, they tumble forward smiling and splashing. The tag line was “No surprises from behind. We are in This Together. Your Money is Safe with Us!”
Slowly things began to change. The windows got sooty and the ivy wasn’t watered. It turned brown and was never replaced. There was no air conditioning in the summer, and it was cold in the winter. The stand-at-attention guard was replaced with a zombie that stared at his cell phone. The family-friendly coin machine was taken out. Apparently a class action lawsuit determined that the bank was making a profit from the children. Then the homeless began camping out and people with no accounts were demanding bills in exchange for their coins, waving socks filled with nickels, dimes and quarters; they were grabbing pens and lollipops and eating the dog treats and hurling insults as they stormed out. The bigger omen, what really alarmed me: they started playing country and western music. The message was loud and clear. Somebody did someone wrong and there were tears and heartbreak. I was getting skeered.
On a recent Saturday morning I received a call from the bank. A voice told me that this particular branch was closing and I needed to remove or transfer my safe—immediately. Was this a prank?
I was aware from the space weather report that Venus was about to move retrograde, which astrologically could translate into foundation shake-ups and great sorrow. I thought my money and gold were okay in the bank. I looked at my tiny apartment, mentally arranging what I could do without… I rushed to my branch and met with the manager, who was dressed sporty and corporate. Green velvet sweats and a hoodie. It was thirty minutes to closing. “We gotta pull this off quick,” he warned me—
“Sit tight, I have Fidelity on HOLD.”
I had no idea what that meant but I had a twisted image of Fidelity hoisting a piñata above Venus as she swiped left to right, and sliced up and down with her wings. She was blindfolded, with a bunch of grapes clenched between her teeth. The manager jiggled the keys in front of my face to bring me back to reality and then tossed them to a teller. “C’mon girl we got this.”
I had fifteen minutes to empty the safe, my gold and cash would be secure. I had all of Saturday afternoon to find a couch.
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Ana is an artist based out of New York. For more of her work, see https://anadeportela.squarespace.com/