Ted Dempsey (Part 3): Bank

Ted Dempsey put on his tweed overcoat, and forced his feet into his old boots. He removed €100 in notes and small change from a jar in his kitchen, quickly moneybagged it, and left his house. He eyed the clouds: grey. The roadway, picking up the sunlight from the occasional break in the clouds, shone in the damp of the night’s rain. I’ll get the bus, thought Ted Dempsey.

He sat in his usual seat. Five rows back, and on the left. His head loosely nodded back and forth to the rhythm of the buses stopping and starting. He was beginning to drift off when a blue mass rocked the chair beside him. He looked up. A tall person in a blue anorak had sat too close beside him. Ted Dempsey hated this. There were plenty of empty seats around him, why did this ignoramus impose on my journey? he thought. He tried to see the head of this criminal to distuingish their gender, but they were disguised by a hood, pulled tight with drawstrings around the oval of their face. A crooked blotchy nose protruded beyond the rim of the hood. He looked toward the hands. Long nails. A woman? But that nose: slightly masculine. There was a bag at the feet of the criminal. It was a little girls bag, with neon fairies all over it. Grotesque, thought Ted Dempsey. The criminal departed the bus three stops later. Ted Dempsey craned his neck to hissingly decipher their gender, but there face was masked by a STOP sign as the bus pulled away.

Ted Dempsey marched into the bank and right up to the counter. There were posters advertising their new Reward Account scheme. So much for letting me in on a secret, thought Ted Dempsey. 

Excuse me sir, you’ll have to go to the end of the queue.

Ted Dempsey looked horrified. He turned around: there were at least 50 people in this small local bank, excitedly whispering to each other. Joking, telling tales, laughing. There was a tangible excitement in the room. Ted Dempsey wandered to the back of the queue, imagining that he’d be there for quite some time. He was disgusted with himself for falling for this scheme. But he wanted that hedgehog. If that imbecile Blimp had one, he’d have one too. he analysed the people waiting in the bank. They all seemed to be there for the Reward Scheme. Most carried many bags of small coins, fluff-covered change uprouted from their furniture and under their refrigerators, probably. Others had their wallets open, recounting their cash to ensure there would be no embarassment at the counter. Ted Dempsey became anxious about his own stash. To be turned away without the hedgehog - oh, what a disgrace! To think of those gossips at the Post Office, telling their tales about how Ted Dempsey can’t even reach his first Money Milestone. Ted Dempsey coughed hoarsely, and spat phlegm into his own hand. He wiped it into his jacket pocket.

Did you hear what the second Money Milestone is?

Ted Dempsey looked up. There were two middle-aged women a few people ahead of him discussing the reward scheme. He shuffled forward a step or two to hear what they’re saying.

Well, they don’t tell you until you reach the first milestone, but people talk.  I heard some whispers down at the Post Office this morning that you have to give in another €200.

Do you know what the reward is?

Definitely not. Nobody will talk about it yet, I don’t think anybody has that sort of money around here today. I think after the weekend I’ll have heard though.

Ted Dempsey’s attention drifted back to his own cash. Did he have enough? He counted, and he swore. To his horror, he was three euro short. Maybe he dropped some on the way out of the house? He became panicked. He was edging closer to the till. He turned around: another 50 people had joined the queue behind him, right out of the bank. If he left the queue, there might be gossip. They’d be wondering why he left after spending so long waiting in the queue. After all, they have little better to be talking about down at that blasted Post Office. No doubt he’d have that idiot Blimp insensitively filling him in on what would be said about him. 

He fidgeted around his coat to make sure. He felt a few coins around the hemline. The fucking hole in the pocket, muttered Ted Dempsey. He fished around, trying to extract the coins. No luck for Ted. His face grew red. He was only three people from the front. Two people now. He looked about him agitatedly. He spotted Blimp out on the street, talking to a post man. Ted immediately tried to capture his attention, but he was just out of Blimp’s eyeline.

Blimp. Blimp!

Ted Dempsey waved his arms about. Everybody in the bank turned to look at the commotion. Only one person in the queue ahead of Ted Dempsey now. Blimp didn’t turn around.

Next please.

Ted Dempsey walked up to the counter, furious and tense from the impending embarassment.

How can I help you, sir? The teller smiled at Ted with a warm face.

Got a knife?

Excuse me?

He whispered:

I said: have you got a fucking knife? You know, a sharp thing? Or a scissors? I need to tear open my coat right now. 

Ted Dempsey grimaced at her, crosseyed. The teller became anxious with his request. She handed him a children’s scissors made of red plastic.

The teller whispered back: 

I cannot give you anything that you could potentially use as a weopon against us.

Ted Dempsey muttered, and picked up his coat tails and began tearing at his jacket as if he was an animal. The blade was just about sharp enough to catch a small rip in his overcoat and tear it open slightly. He pulled and pulled as stitches popped here and there. Everybody’s mouths glistened with excited saliva,  lip-corners dragged up their ears, enjoying the spectacle. Ted Dempsey grunted and huffed and puffed. He pulled so hard at his coat, the stitching along the back ripped wide open. With the sudden release of force, he had tripped himself up, pulling one hundred Reward Scheme leaflets on top of him off the countertop. The moment of silence that followed amplified a sound of coins rolling on tiles, a sound then suddenly destroyed by canned laughter. Ted Dempsey scrambled at the free coins, and threw them up with his money bag on the counter top. He pulled himself up. 

I’d like to make a deposit into my Reward account, said Ted Dempsey.

Yes sir. The teller stifled a laugh.

Ted Dempsey left the bank feeling half a man. He cursed Blimp for not hearing him shout for help. But he did had his first reward: the porcelain hedgehog, which he held tightly in his pocket. The gossip would eventually subside, he told himself, but he’d always have his first reward from the bank. And when he got the next reward before anybody else, he would be the one they would turn to for the information. He lit up a Camel cigarette and walked home.

Ted Dempsey: Part 2 - Blimp Visits

Ted woke up as he did most mornings: in his green armchair, lamp fighting with morning sunlight to illuminate his right shoulder, and a whiskey stain on his leg, fallen glass on the floor at his feet, fag ash caught on the crotch of his trousers. The letter was still there in the hallway. Fuck off bank, said Ted Dempsey. 

The sharp ring of the doorbell cut a hole in his birthmark, making Ted Dempsey wince and whine. He got up and looked through the frosted glass inset on his front door, just about being able to make out a fat person in a shiny silver bubble jacket, with a rabbit fur moscovite hat squeezed over the flabby head on top. It was a local imbecile known as Blimp, so called because he looks like a zepellin turned upright in that ridiculous jacket. Curiously, he was one of the few people Ted Dempsey could spend an extended period of time around without feeling the need to cease respiring, although of course his affection for the idiot would not be expressed outwardly.

Ted Dempsey! Ted Dempsey! Jed Mempsey! Fed Fempsey! Ded Tempsey! Dead Tempsey?! Ted Dempsey!!!

Come on in Blimp, enough of that blasted nonsense. 

Blimp was like a puppy licking a boys face on Christmas morning every time Ted Dempsey answered the door to him. He enjoyed Ted Dempsey’s company, perhaps because Ted never deviated from a plain routine, perpetuating a sense of normality in Blimp’s simple life. As usual, the two wandered into the kitchen, and Blimp unloaded the daily news bulletin from the gossips at the post office as Ted Dempsey slopped his porridge into his mouth with a bent fork. Blimp repeated some inane story about the arrival at the post office of a mysterious spherical package that repeatedly emitted the sound of a woman saying "No." Ted Dempsey half listened. He was more interested in combing some globules of porridge out of his nasal hair with his fork.

And the bank sent out some new amazing saving scheme that gives you presents! Isn’t that wonderful! Everybody is talking about it, they say they only picked out their favorite customers! I went straight to the bank this morning to start saving. Did you hear about it Ted Dempsey?

Ted Dempsey gesticulated vaguely toward the letter on the hall floor. 

Ah so you got one too! I knew you would. They only pick out their favourites you know, that’s what it says in the letter! Anyway, as I was saying, I went straight up to the bank this morning, and I have already reached my first Money Milestone and got my reward!

Ted Dempsey raised a brow, slightly. Oh? said Ted Dempsey, What is it?

Curious now! I still have it with me. Do you want to see it? 

Ted Dempsey nodded, and Blimp fiddled with a pocket inside his silver bubble jacket. After a moment, he produced the item: a white porcelain hedgehog. Ted stared at the reward. Little detail. The spines on the hedgehog's back formed one lumpy unity, only the vaguest suggestion of the animal's natural defense mechanism remained in the bumpy topology. But it was certainly an interesting ornament: virginal, white, and pure. Slightly gaudy and banal perhaps, but it had a strange allure to Ted Dempsey. He decided to hide his curiosity and feigned indifference, much to Blimp’s disappointment. He scowled.

Do you not like it?

It’s just a nonsense piece of nothing. It’s worthless.

Blimp looked dejected. Ted Dempsey lit up another cigarette. Blimp decided it was time to continue with his errands, and let himself out of the house. Ted Dempsey watched him turn the corner at the end of the street from his upstairs window. When he was safely out of eyeshot, he quickly rushed downstairs to pick up the letter from the hall floor.

Ted Dempsey: Part 1 - Letter From the Bank

Ted Dempsey was a fidgety and feckless grimace of a man, bristles of white hair popping out of his ears and nasal passage like buried toothbrushes. He was 65 years old, lived alone - and had done so since he first left his family home at age 15 to work “on the ships.” A bald patch, haloed by a tattered mop of white hair, revealed a queer birthmark (in the shape of a keyhole) on his scalp, drawing a strange vertical symmetry with his nose. He stood sullenly in his kitchen, toeing some loose floorboards as he stared at the remnants of the breakfast-pan: sausages, egg and bread fried in a now-congealing block of butter.

His ear bristles caught a sudden papery sound from his hallway. He moved like a cartoon character, feet spinning agitatedly without actively propelling his body forward. He quickly located the sound source: some envelopes that had just floated through his letterbox. He scrabbled at them like a mouse with some gourmet blue:

LOYAL IRISH BANK Invites You to Our New Saver Reward Scheme

Ted Dempsey muttered a few undistuingishables, but read on, reflexively pushing his spectacles back another inch or two into his hollow black shark eyes. Ted hadn’t much money left to save. He had the remnants of some currency he had put away to make his old age a little bit more bearable - the bulk of which was spent on smoking Camel Cigarettes, something he acquired as a hobby to alleviate the boredom of retirement. He eyeballed the letter with a vague sense of curiosity.

    Dear Mr Dempsey,

    As a loyal lifetime customer of Loyal Irish Bank, we would like to present to you a chance to engage in a very special savings arrangement with us. We are deliberately selecting our most valued customers to pioneer a new scheme to encourage financial responsibility and clever saving practice with our customers.

    With the Saver Reward Scheme, Loyal Irish Bank will assist you in placing money in your Reward Account, and offer you very special and prestigious gifts as you reach your “Money Milestones”.

    We are pleased to inform you that your next Money Milestone is: €100
 
    We have automatically opened your Personal Reward Account so you can start saving right away. If you do not wish to avail of this incredible offer, please contact your local branch of Loyal Irish Bank.

    More information can be found in the accompanying brochure.
 
    Sincerely,
    Jad Harris.
    Overseer of Schemes at L.I.B.

Ted Dempsey coughed, peppering the letter with soggy crumbs and pork stains from his egg and sausage sandwich fifteen minutes previous, then dropped the letter on the hallway floor. He could get it later if his curiosity was re-piqued. But they could piss off if they think he’d read that fucking brochure too. 

That evening, Ted sat in his darkened living room on a green leather armchair, with a single lamp buzzing and flickering above his right shoulder. A Camel Cigarette dangled from his lips, ash crumbling onto his lap. To any external passersby, he cut a terrifying figure, with his intense gaze through the window to the street outside, and one hand gripping a glass of cheap whiskey as if he expected to be suddenly and forcibly imparted from it. 

The door to the hall shuffled open in the draft, and his eye caught that blasted letter from the bank earlier. He swore at it, the emblem of the Fat Banks, money stuffed down their trousers to exaggerate their manhood, banknotes cushioning their testicles. Fuck off you boloxes, shouted Ted Dempsey. Outside, a frightened passerby overheard and quickened their pace, unsure of whether they spied a human or a spectre in that overgrown house.