Bank Holiday by Erin Sekulich

It is a Wednesday holiday this year.

Frankie hates when a stat falls on a week day other than Friday or Monday. She loves a good long weekend. Even if it falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday you can justify taking a vacation day and making it a super weekend, but a Wednesday is awkward. In the end, Frankie decides to just go to work on the days sandwiching the holiday. No one really ever works on the day before a stat anyways. 

The holiday falling on a Monday is the best because often they forget about the banks being closed on the Sunday and Monday, leaving them totally unable to move any money before the deadline. Waiting until the eleventh hour only for it all to blow up in their face when they realize on Sunday morning that the banks are closed and they are out of time.

Frankie loves Bank Holiday.

“So what are you going to do tomorrow with your day off?” Chloe asks as she pours coffee from the shared office pot.

Frankie cups the warm mug between her palms, leaning against the kitchen counter. She stifles a yawn as she replies, “My mom is having a hot dog roast. I’ll just probably do that. And hopefully sleep in.”

Chloe moans, taking a seat opposite of her. “Sleeping in would be great.”

Both of their phones ping and they glance at the notification pop up: Jason Kimley and Co donates $350 million to the Westminster Food Bank.

Chloe scoffs. “Good for them,” she says, rolling her eyes and taking a sip. She winces.

Frankie laughs, handing her some creamer from the fridge. “Charles made the coffee this morning.”

Charles is known to make the coffee thick as soup, so you always needed something to cut it with.

“How about you? What are you doing with your Bank Holiday?” Frankie asks.

Chloe shrugs. “What I always do. Have a mini watch party with my girlfriend. We like to gather all the junk food we can, create a little fort of pillows and blankets and not move from the TV all day. Last year we slept in past the results and Anjela was pretty choked.”

Another ping goes off and Charles beats Chloe to it, reading it aloud as he walks over to their unofficial meeting, “Lesout stocks go up 12%.”

Chloe whistles. “Dang, people are really pissed with them, huh? Buying into the company like that the day before.”

“A great way to use that consumer power,” Frankie says.

“Cheers to capitalism!” Charles laughs.

“Cheers!” They all say, the coffee soup spilling onto the low pile carpet.

 *

Frankie pulls into the grocery store parking lot packed with people panic buying for their last minute plans. Some have carts overflowing with food for great family feasts, while others trickle out with an armfull of goods for those last minute making needs. Frankie, forgetting that the key ingredient to any potato salad are potatoes, regrets her choices instantly.

An empty section between the red onions and sweet potatoes is waiting for her by the time she reaches the produce section with a few extra bruises from angry shopping cart drivers.

No potatoes. Shit.

Frankie takes refuge in the corner of the bakery section as she rethinks her dish. Chewing at her fingernails she makes herself as small as possible while her mind goes completely blank as to what else she could bring to the hot dog roast. All other recipes, in this store of endless possibilities, are gone now that potato salad is no longer an option.

Cheese and crackers? A charcuterie board? Frankie groans in resignation that this idea will bring her all over the store, but can’t think of anything else. Through the chaos of crying children, slow walkers and people taking up the whole aisle with their carts, she manages to fill her basket with an assortment of items from all corners of the wartorn market.

Then there they are, sitting abandoned on the end cap of the chip aisle. A bag of mini potatoes.

She looks between her basket and the potatoes, contemplating the horror that awaits her if she were to go around and return all these items to the shelves; because people who leave a basket full of groceries, especially dairy, on a shelf, are surely destined for a special circle of hell. Frankie grabs the potatoes and beelines for the checkout. Cheese and crackers tonight for dinner.

“Big plans for tomorrow?” the checkout boy asks.

Frankie shrugs. “Just hanging with family. How about you?”

“Gunna catch the live stream screening at town hall. They are doing a big food fair and fireworks after. Paper or reusable?”

“Paper, please. Oh fun! I haven’t done that for a long time.”

“Yah, it is always a good time. $23.89 after the universal food coverage.”

Frankie hands over twenty-five in cash, dropping the change into the ‘take change leave change’ bin at the counter.

“Eat the rich!” the boy says with a smile, handing over her bag of groceries.

“Eat the rich!” she repeats in the familiar holiday greeting.

 *

Frankie wakes up at 9:00 in the morning the next day, smiling. It is Bank Holiday and she has already accomplished her goal of sleeping in. She switches on a live stream of the coverage.

As the only worldwide holiday after New Years, there is coverage happening on all channels. The Lesout company won in the end. Everyone buying stocks did the trick and they didn’t sell them fast enough or distribute money quick enough.

Well, they could have.

They could have just dumped everything into the citizen pot or various charities, but they didn’t. They never do. Even when their lives are on the line, the billionaires never want to give up more than they have to. So Evan Hampers, the owner of Lesout, has won this year. He has the most money in the world come 12:00am Wednesday morning. 

And so, in the tradition of the holiday, Evan Hampers is going to die.

 *

“Do we have any ideas as to what the citizen pot is at?” Uncle Sam asks, squirting a bit of mustard onto his hot dog. It farts, splattering yellow all over the table. 

Their black lab excitedly licks up the treat from the table legs as Frankie helps him wipe up the rest with napkins.

“Last I saw, it was at $6,000 after the allocations to the universal income and schooling, but who knows - it always changes depending on the deaths and births come the execution.”

“I would just be happy with five honestly,” Frankie’s cousin, Kyla says, spooning her some hash brown casserole onto her plate. “That would put us right over our budget for a new kitchen.”

“Oh! Do you have pictures of what you are thinking?” Frankie asks.

Kayla pulls out her phone and shows the group her inspirational Pinterest board. A stark white kitchen of her dreams, with marble counter tops and sage walls.

“We’re hoping to start right after the payout, but you know how quickly the demand for renos goes up right after Bank Holiday.”

Frankie nods. “Better pencil someone in soon.”

They all sit around the patio table discussing what they will do with the payout.

“I’m thinking of investing my pot into the Cenena Project,” Frankie’s mom says. “Each year they give a bike to the employees who have worked there for at least five years, so there is this whole collection of bikes showing the loyalty of the employees in the parking lot. It is really breaking down the use of cars for transportation too in the area.”

“That would be great karma for everything Lesout has been doing,” Uncle Sam says. “Oh shit. Great potato salad.”

“Thanks!” Frankie beams. Potato salad is her specialty. The key is a bit of brown sugar. “I just can’t believe they thought they could get away with it. Like, dumping waste into the water supply and poisoning a whole town, then killing off the whistle blowers. Did they really think the world would let them get away with that come Bank Holiday?”

Her mom shrugs. “They used to all the time when I was a kid. No one cared, or if they did, there was so little we could do about it.”

“To be fair, they still do,” Kayla says.

Frankie’s grandma passes her a drink, squishing into the love seat beside Frankie. “Not like they used to. We used to always be told our money had ‘buying power’. Never would I have thought that we would get to a time when that was actually true.” 

“Evan Hampers is a monster,” Frankie says. “It took us four years to finally catch him out.”

“True,” her grandma says, biting into her hot dog. “But get him, we did.”

“Does anyone want to watch the execution?” Uncle Sam asks, pulling his phone out. “It should be starting soon.”

Grandma shakes her head. “Just put it on speaker. I don’t want everyone glued to their phones and distracted. This is family time.”

Uncle Sam turns up the volume on his phone, placing it face down on the table. The phone comes to life, announcing the five second count down. The noises of a busy courtroom fill the speakers and a hush comes over the crowd as the judge is introduced, permitting people to sit. It is the same every year, and Frankie can visualize exactly what is happening without seeing it.

The judge speaks to the audience and the accused: "Evan Hampers, you were given a year, as in every year, to disseminate your wealth to the betterment of society. You were given a chance to not only keep more wealth than anyone can use in a lifetime, but also to avoid the place you are now. You chose not too. Instead you chose to hold and to profit off the suffering of our world and others.

You have been found guilty, on this Bank Holiday, for the crime of choosing to hold excessive wealth and being the richest person in the world. As such, you will be put to death immediately. Your company, as voted by the employees, will fold. Your wealth will be distributed to the remaining employees and the civilian pot.

Do you have any final words?”

“I was set up! People bought into the company faster than I could get rid of the money. It wasn’t my fault-”

“No, sir,” the judge says, interrupting. “You chose to be greedy beyond that which is moral. Beyond that which is sane. Beyond that which we, as a society, deems to be worthy of existence. And for that choice you have chosen also to die.”

“This is barbaric! Archaic!”

“This is justice. Happy Bank Holiday. Eat the rich.”

“Eat the rich,” everyone in the room mumbles, along with Frankie’s family, who clinks their glasses together. 

And with the last dying words of Evan Hamper being excuses of conspiracy, he is executed.

Phones ping around the patio table and everyone checks them, seeing the equal amount of $6,965.87 deposited into their bank accounts.

Frankie slips the phone back into her pocket and leans over to her cousin. “Are you thinking of gold or brushed brass for the cabinets?”

Erin Sekulich (she/her) is a long standing dreamer, evolving her playard fantasies into the written word as the years have progressed. She gravitates towards telling the stories of the forgotten past and secrets hiding in plain sight. Previous publications include Jump to Recipe and Deep Shit.