Forty Years of Banking Across Main Street

What the town did

Cass County Savings lost twelve accounts in the weeks that followed, counting Leonard’s. I know the number because Patsy Maddox told me, and she looked like someone who did not know where to put her hands. The deposits that crossed Main Street came to about $71,000, which in a bank that size is a bruise that takes a while to fade. They moved quietly, one passbook at a time. I do not think any of it was meant as punishment. I think it was people remembering they had a choice.

Barry called the other eleven. He told me later that seven of the denials had been correct, and he was glad of it. Four had not. One was a young couple on Elm Street who had been told they could not buy their first house and closed on it eight days later. Barry went to each house in person. He did not send a letter.

Craig worked the teller line. I will not pretend it was easy. The first Monday, nobody would come to his window. Nobody said anything cruel. They simply stood in the other line.

On the third day Brittany, at the next window, said without looking up, “Want to trade? I’ll take the drive-through.” He told Amy it was the kindest thing anyone had said to him all week.

The Thanksgiving supper

The Fire Auxiliary holds its supper on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, in the firehouse, at folding tables. Ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans with bacon, and a great many pies. It was six weeks after the loan, and by then most of Bellmont had either forgiven the whole business or put it in a drawer.

Mother wore her church coat and accepted a slice of chess pie from nearly every table she passed.

Craig had volunteered to work the coffee urn. The women of the Auxiliary had said yes and meant it. Nobody told him to go away, and nobody pretended nothing had happened. They handed him an apron and a pot. He went up and down the tables for two hours, and when somebody turned a cup over he filled it, and when somebody turned it away he nodded and moved on.

By eight the crowd had thinned, and a dozen of us were left stacking chairs and wrapping up ham: Nita, Lois, Patsy, Amy, Roscoe, Barry’s wife, a few Auxiliary women, Mother at the end of the last long table with her coat still on.

Craig set down the pot and wiped his hands on his apron. He walked the length of the room to my mother.

“Dot,” he said. “I’d like to say it where people can hear it, because I did it where people could see. I used my job to punish you for telling me no. It was cruel and it was small. I’m sorry. I don’t expect anything. I just wanted you to hear it out loud.”

My mother looked up at him for a long moment.

Then she reached for the coffee pot, which he had set on the table, and poured him a cup. She slid it across the paper tablecloth.

“Sit down, Craig,” she said. “Your coffee’s getting cold.”

He sat. Nita went back to stacking chairs, a little louder than before. That was the whole of it.