(A short story taken in part from a daydream)

"Okay," Mr. Pitman said to Bryan Nelson, but nineteen-years old, "you bring me fifty-cents a week and I'll trust that you will, but if you go and die on me, I'll keep the batch of land, and the shanty house on it, with its broken down-once white-picked-fence. And I'll not charge you a cent of interest like banks do, and insurance companies do, and all you got to do is stop by my place on Fridays, preferably, before noon, and pay me the half a dollar."

"Is that so," said Bryan, a slow witted boy whose father run off a day before he was born, and ever since lived with his grandfather, mother and brother, rather living in one of the poorest apartments in the city.

Old Man Pitman looked at the boy, his expression fixed, "Don't ever miss a payment, unless you want to forfeit your payments in full, on the spot." (The land was $500-dollars and the year was 1947.)

The old man, never minded what time of day Bryan came to pay him, he was a good customer, he paid the fifty-cents on time, and the old man never had to worry about it.

Mr. Pitman showed Bryan one forenoon day, with pencil and paper, on paper, how if he lived another fifteen-years (plus a few months)-more years and months, when he was thirty-eight years old, he'd have that five-hundred dollars paid in full, and the little patch of land, with its shanty, and raw fence-that run right into the Mississippi River, would be his, lock-stock-and-barrow.

"I would," said the boy "at three years have paid close to $80-dollars towards the property, is that not so Mr. Pitman?" the boy asked. And Mr. Pitman shook his head 'Yes!' and the boy added, "Then I'd own about fifty-square feet of that patch of land, and perhaps a portion of that fence as well, is that not so sir?"

"Well," said Mr. Pitman, "Why, yes. Put it that way, then. You are working for footage of land and in time even the shanty-I suppose!"

"It isn't the work I mind," said the boy...then he put his first half a dollar down on Mister Pitman's desk-and they shook hands.

•

Bryan worked odd jobs, whenever he could find a job. A motivated, high spirited boy, with nobody but a mother, an old grandfather and brother who married young, and moved out to California, from Minnesota. He slacked off on many things during the following years, but never on his weekly payment to Mr. Pitman. That is what got Old Man Pitman's son, Harry, confused, after the death of his father. And of all things, it was on the last payment due -for Bryan Nelson, now thirty-eight years old. He told Harry he put the last payment into his father's mailbox slot, that was cut into, and through the door, which would have landed on the floor and he had even heard it drop. The door leads into a long hallway.

Harry knew it was a hard winter, maybe the money got shifted under the rug, or something-but it wasn't there when Harry pulled back the rug to check. Also, Harry knew Bryan had done well on his payments, but a deal was a deal, and he couldn't find the half a dollar anywhere.

"I never got it. I can only suppose Bryan never brought it, knowing my father had died suddenly, maybe he forgot. But I never got it." Harry told his mother.

"I suppose," remarked his mother, "Bryan being the way he is, high spirited, a bit slow, decided he would buy something else, and that we'd overlook the verbal contract!"

Mrs. Pitman of course knew Bryan was harmless, but nonetheless, took this serious, and Bryan had to forfeit his money and land.

Bryan took Harry Pitman to court. And the Judge said, "Why can't you show me a payment card, anything that will show me that you made a last payment?"

Bryan said, "Just let me search the hallway, it's a half dollar with my birth date on it, 1928."

Then the judge said that was neither here nor there...but to settle the dispute, he asked Mr. Pitman, "Would you allow Bryan in your home, to look for it?"

"Where would he look?" asked Mr. Harry Pitman, looking at the judge.

"Just set me down in the hallway, I'll find it," said Bryan.

"All right," the young Pitman man said he didn't want anyone to think he framed Bryan; he had a good name, to protect.

His voice faded away as he looked at Bryan, as Bryan sat in a chair pleased, in the courtroom, in some kind of astonishment.

"Sure," said Harry to Bryan, "I should of that of that myself, come with me now and we'll look together."

•

They went on into the long hallway. "All right," said Harry, he looked tired. He took off his long overcoat, with a fur collar. His shoes were full of icy-mud. "There isn't much here but a long rug and a hallway, but it shouldn't take you much time to discover that." He commented.

While he stood there Bryan pulled back the rug, looked into every nook and crevice in the wooden floor, it all looked so heavy and solid.

"Wish I had a cigarette," said Harry, standing watching Bryan, and Bryan looked up and over his shoulder, "Sorry, I don't smoke," he replied.

"Yes," said Harry, "I know," then hesitated, "wanting a cigarette and not having it, is worse than hunger." Bryan didn't answer he was looking and checking at every inch of the hallway floor.

"Where does this door lead to?" Asked Bryan.

"I can't tell you, I don't know, I suppose it's a closest of some kind. I don't know," repeated Harry.

"Don't get me wrong," said Bryan, "but could I look in there?"

"All right," the young man said, although it was troublesome, he had to find the key on the key ring that had nearly twenty keys to it.

Now and then a rising reverberation, likened to the sound of a ship's foghorn, echoes through one's body-when sounded, when it knows that something is coming to its end, to a climatic point, when the door opened up, there the silver half dollar was, on the date side up of the coin facing all to see the "1928" on it. Then Bryan took the last half dollar off the floor, gave it to Harry Pitman, said, "Please put it on your father's desk for me, it's my last payment." And Harry just smiled.

Notes: written 10-16-2009, while sick in my apartment in the Mantaro Valley of Peru, in the Andes, in the city of Huancayo, half asleep in my sofa chair, the premise of the daydream, was put into a story, and drama form thereafter, dedicated to Gail Weber, of Tosca Magazine, for her drive in promoting culture and literature. Story No. 493. In selecting the name for this story, it is always a task, first I named it "The Old Jew," and then I named it, "The Pitman Account," and then "Half a Dollar! (1928)"; and then finally: "The Last Half a Dollar!" (1928)••