Redemption Center

By James Dufresne

A bright yellow condom lies unrolled and watery
at the bottom of the clear plastic bag of empties
propped up in the shopping cart in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
The hand with a purple latex glove purposely avoids it.

The aluminum cans, plastic soda containers and glass beer bottles
of collegiate provenance were dropped in the first-floor communal bin
and forgotten --- not worth the weighty, shameful process of cashiering
at the U’s co-op. They were transported 20 miles to be redeemed.

It is late winter and the cans that were discarded with residual liquids are heavy
with frozen soda or beer. The machinery crushes or crashes all that is sent down
its conveyor, so long as serial numbers are recognizable amid its spinning frenzy.
The nickels accrue on the small screens, 229 x .05 = $11.45.

Walking out the door toward the main building, with head rolled back on shoulders
in hockey-goalie swift motion left to right, one two three soft cracks unleash
the tension built from a day doing nothing that will not have to be done again tomorrow.

Like the cans, we await whatever the machinery of this world will bring us to next,
dependent on so much happenstance outside of our singular grasp in how we got here
In this place, waiting to be pummeled, melted down and made anew.
The Boston-NYC vapor trails against the dull blue sky disappear quickly from the parched air.

The clerk who aims and shoots the barcodes checks the driver’s license suspiciously, says
You look like you're about 19, then relents in defeat and notes in parting that it’s a good day
when redemption brings in enough so you only have to pay a dollar fourteen for a thirty pack of Pabst.