My friend did not have enough money for a broom. He only had a dollar fifty. A broom was four dollars. He needed the broom because he wanted to sweep the dead bugs off his floor. Bugs had a silly habit of dying in the middle of my friend’s room and staying there until somebody did something about it. My friend did not want to pick up the dead bugs even if they were wrapped in a tissue. That was still too close to the dead bugs for his liking. A broom was a good tool for dead bugs. With a broom he could get rid of the bugs while staying sufficiently distant from them. He could pretend that he and the dead bugs resided on separate planes of existence. It was unfortunate for him that he could not afford a broom.

I had a broom. It was an old broom. It was frayed and worn out and had forgotten how to sweep properly in its old age. I could have used a new broom. But there were many ways to better spend one’s money, like buying a hamburger.

“I don’t know what to do. Can you pick up my dead bugs for me?”

“No.”

I did not want to pick up the dead bugs. I was afraid that when I picked them up, all their legs would fall off and I would have to search the floor for their tiny amputated appendages. It was an awful thought.

I had an idea. I took out my broom and a rusted manual saw. I sawed the broom in half vertically.

“I’ll give you this half of the broom for a dollar twenty-five”

“Alright.”

I was a generous man. I had cut the broom slightly unevenly. One half had more bristles. I gave him the larger half. I let him keep twenty-five cents. I was too selfless for my own good.

A dollar twenty-five was how much a forty-ounce plastic bottle of twelve percent malt liquor cost at the corner store. This was the same amount of alcohol as eight expensive nice beers. After cutting my broom in half I had gotten a new broom, and eight bottles of expensive beer for free. I was feeling good. I walked down to the corner store, hoping that they wouldn’t charge me tax.

My friend swept the dead bugs out of his apartment and into the hallway, leaving them in a corner where it was easy to pretend that they had never existed.

– Samuel Zagula