Since announcing the formation of Modern Buddhism in July, 2008, a small number of people have come forward to lend their support. These folk, all former SGI members, hail from all parts of America and Europe. The common thread that links them are the issues mentioned in a letter at the end of this blog. There are many reasons people leave the organization. One reason people leave the SGI that is not often discussed, is experiencing more loss than gain, which is completely at odds with the promise of making all your dreams come true. Anoother reason is verbal abuse and manipulation. All too often, people leave without understanding the prime point that chanting Namu-myoho-renge-kyo and maintaining faith in the Lotus Sutra is what’s vital.
Some leave because of the constant pushing to do this or that. My own, sweet fukushi daughter, had to put distinctive ring on her phone because leaders would call ten or twenty times a day, everyday, to communicate things, when one simple message on her voicemail would have worked. There is an endless variety of reasons why people leave. But breaking away, free and clear, is all too often an ugly affair.
I also receive letters from SGI leaders that find themselves at the crossroad. If they question the doctrines, they are assailed by even more senior leaders, threatened with removal from their position, and psychologically isolated. And I am still getting letters from members and leaders who are given what I can only conclude is insipid medical advice! For example, I recently received a heartfelt letter from a member who has diabetes. She has been a diabetic since childhood and because of meeting times and being pushed and cajoled to attend this or that activity, she was finding it virtually impossible to fulfill her leadership responsibilities and eat the correct foods at the precise time needed. Her leader’s guidance was that being a district leader and caring for members in my district is the "best medicine" to WIN over my diabetes & eating (+ sugar) issues.
At what point does such dangerous advice become a liability for the SGI? My advice was to re-read Nichiren’s letter from his major writings, “On Prolonging Life,” in which Nichiren admonished a stubborn, elderly woman to take her illness seriously. Anyone who is familiar with diabetes knows that it’s both a quick and slow killer. That member cannot do kosen-rufu activities if she falls into a diabetic coma or drops dead. If the member who received that advice continued to push herself, eating fast foods to get to meetings on time, neglecting her body for the sake of kosen-rufu - no matter what! - causing permanent damage to her health, would that irresponsible leader goose step to president Toda's call to arms in his quasi-militarisitc "Ode to Youth," and patriotically march over the body of this psychologically “taiten” member?! It does not take a medical doctor to know that diabetes is not miraculously subdued by more activities. I would like to believe that most SGI leaders are not so ignorant as to dispense irresponsible medical advice to sincere members who are exerting themselves to change their karma, but all too often, terrible advice is given, and the results prove tragic. It’s only a matter of time before there is a lawsuit. Keep in mind that leaders provide far more than irresponsible medical advice. Guidance should be about matters of faith, not how to fix your love life, your finances, or your health. I know from decades of experience that inane advice is frequently given on marriage/divorce, family planning, relationships, finances, legal matters, and the entire gammet of human experience. If I had a dollar for every case where I was personally aware of a member being given unqualified, yet detailed guidance that only a licensed therapist should have given, I could underwrite my next vacation to Tampa.
It’s hard to know the actual numbers, but the disassociation between the SGI and NST must have been substantial. As the years went by and the war of words escalated, turning happy little district meetings into a bully pulpit, members got fed up with the negativity and stopped coming around. Lord help those SGI members who decided to side with NST! I know this latent hatred firsthand, because I was completely bamboozled by my fixation on the Will of my master. If PI said so, it was so. I pray that the 37 letters of remonstration of some 31,000 words of raging invective that I clobbered NST with will be seen by The Buddha as the sincere remonstration of a wholly hoodwinked, ignorant man. Perhaps ignorance is not an excuse or a factor that would minimize the gravity of my actions, but I truly didn’t realize at the time that both the SGI and NST were erroneous doctrines. I was convinced that I was acting on behalf of Shakyamuni, Nichiren, The Lotus Sutra,and my master.
Because of the vicious behavior shown to members who opt out of the SGI (for whatever reason) to align with another sect (any sect), these ordinarily sincere people risk the loss of friendships, harassment, ridicule, and the spreading of hurtful rumors. You will be smeared and slandered for your own good. NST merely writes one off with prejudice and disgust. For this reason, most new supporters of Modern Buddhism request anonymity.
The following is a recent letter from a reader who dared to think for himself:
Charles:
Since the 1990 breakup between NST and SGI, I have had
first hand experience with both parties. The animosity and hatred
generated by each side toward the other has been distasteful at best and
downright hateful and malicious at worst. Their behavior was reprehensible, no
matter how you looked at it. Because of the bad treatment incurred by the SGI and NST, I have practiced Nichiren Buddhism independently for many years now.
It is clearly explained in the writings of Nichiren that he
regarded Shakyamuni as the true Buddha. There is no substantiated,
documented evidence of the authenticity of the Dai Gohonzon. There is no
evidence in his formal writings or personal letters to his closest followers making claims to the Dai-Gohonzon. On the contrary, the first evidence of the existence of a so-called “Dai Gohonzon” did not emerge until 200 years after the death of Nichiren. I also find it highly suspicious that Nikko, after spending only one year at Taiseki-ji, would abandon the supposed “Dai Gohonzon” for the last 36 years of his life, never to return.
For myself and others, it’s time to take a closer look at the finer details of Nichiren Buddhism. No one group owns Nichiren Buddhism. It seems obvious and essential that Americans need to put their own identity onto Nichiren Buddhism.
Your idea and the actual formation of Modern Buddhism is something we need. I would like to join your endeavor.
Sincerely,
James D
For myself and people like James and the diabetic woman, I offer refuge from the cult of personality and mistaken doctrine that they had sincerely staked their lives on. I hope to further strengthen bonds of cooperation and friendship with Kempon Hokke and Nichiren Shu, two sects that I greatly admire. I would have no problem encouraging others who seek a more formal Buddhist school to join either of them. And I will. At this time, I can no longer recommend people looking for a more formal sangha to the SGI or NST.
I have no regret or real complaint about my 30 plus year association with the SGI or its leaders. There's still a soft spot in my heart for PI too. But I have learned of too many scandals and contradictions to ignore. Too much as changed. It's like learning your wife has been sleeping with your father. The reasons for my departure has more to do with doctrine and escalating idol worship than basic form, function, or goal. The mentality of the "My country, right or wrong" no longer works for me - I've seen, heard, learned, and directly experienced way too much to remain on that sinking ship. I have not, nor will I ever urge someone to leave the SGI or any other sangha. Modern Buddhism is an oasis for the refugee. Welcome, and enter, but leave your soka spirit at the door.
Between Emptiness and Totality
The purpose of this final installment is to compel people to think for themselves. Even if eminent priests, brilliant scholars, ardent disciples, and ultra-studious single-minded senior leaders more numerous than all the atoms in a major world system believe and teach that the Lotus Sutra means this or that, you are in error accepting what they say. You must find the truth yourself. Revelation rarely comes from following the pack. Discovery comes from the willingness to confront the dangers of conformity and the perils of dissension. Walk your own path. Nothing is so because someone says it's so. The trap posed by cults is predicated on the high probability that people are more inclined to believe than to courageously ponder, probe, and discover for themselves.
I offer no cosmic edicts, no conclusions, and no arguments. I do not seek to sow the seeds of doubt, nor do I want to refute anyone. I only want you to think for yourself. I only offer my observation, even if there is no real observer. Cultivation of fearlessness is the character of the Perceiver of Worldly Sounds. To be fearless is not folly - it is a trait of the awakened. Trepidation of offending those that I love, respect, and admire is the price I must pay for speaking freely. But speak freely, I must! At times it is essential to cut against the grain. One cannot attain Buddhahood by abiding in convention of the traditional order, nor can the Lotus Sutra be the seminal text for the salvation of mankind if that great ship continues to be anchored down by heavy weight of sectarian misinterpretation. One must find out the truth of existence for themselves. By no means should anyone take my word for it. You must find out for yourself through your direct connection to the dharma of the Lotus Sutra and The Buddha. From that personal connection, minus all illustrious mentors save for the Thus Come One Himself, you must fearlessly awaken to the truth of your own life, even if it means abandoning your sect, your position, your friendships, your family, and even your reputation. If you are not willing to do this, you will not attain annutara samyak-sambodhi. You must do as the Buddha did and be willing to give it all up. In the end, when logic fails you, and fear shakes your mind in six different ways, you will find that is through faith alone that the treasures appear and dharma rain revives your spirit. But you can't get to that point unless you question everything and are willing to sacrafice it all for annutara samyak-bodhi.
As a personal example, all the attachments of my life have proved unsatisfactory. Nothing is permanent and everything is eventually unstable. The first of the Four Nobel Truths that all life is inevitable suffering has proved itself to me. My family, parents, both wife and child, my loves, my school, my ambitions as an athlete, as a solider, my career, my dreams, and my health, have inevitably all proved unsatisfactory and ephemeral - at times sweet, but without lasting value. Next came my spiritual and religious quest – a realm I hoped would be of timeless value and attainment. Religion proved an even greater illusion then my secular hopes as my teachers proved more deluded than the novice. But who would know this upfront? Each of my cherished and iconic archetypes dissolved into disillusionment - from the very pronouncement of the primary mantra, to the ethics and Fuji size ego of the once revered master. Each element of my religious experience proved imperfect, flawed, and in the end, unsatisfactory. Only the dharma of the Lotus Sutra, Namu-myoho-renge-kyo and the Gohonzon has remained satisfactory - perfect, in fact. In that dharma, with the spirit of discovery, I abide.
Not long ago, I began to have that same old sense of doubt while reading the pundits of the Lotus Sutra repeating time honored claims. There have been endless assertions that the eternal Buddha Shakyamuni is the original Buddha, who is the singular source for the manifestations of all other Buddhas throughout the past, present, and future, in the ten directions of the universe, and so forth. These nagging, uncomfortable doubts were akin to the SGI proclamations of Nichiren as the true Buddha, the authenticity of the Dai-Gohonzon, and the list of other claims from now disputed Gosho to the Ongi Kuden. I am neither a scholar nor stranger to the Lotus Sutra. The following are just a few observations that occurred to me.
1. The narration of the Lotus Sutra is a key indicator of authorship. There is virtually no variation in the voice of the narrator, The Buddha, and the other speaking characters of the Lotus Sutra.
2. In the Lotus Sutra, the parables are integral to revealing the message of the Buddha. Certainly, these parables, whose theme and message are easily transmitted from generation tot generation, are based in the authentic words and ideas of the Buddha.
3. The verbosity of description of the Buddha’s life span, time, adornments, or other cosmological themes are deliberate acts of literary license by codifiers and translators to impart the immensity of the message.
Scouring and pondering each line of the Lotus Sutra, I can find no documentary evidence that Shakyamuni is the source for all the Buddha manifestations in the universe. On the contrary, right before the eye there exists abundant documentary evidence that the countless Buddha manifestations exist as a potential stratum of consciousness that is inherent in life, to be attained.
The assertion that Shakyamuni is the singular source for all the Buddha manifestations in the universe seems an honorific assumption that appears to be in conflict with the actual conveyance of the words and ideas of sutra itself. Nowhere in the Lotus Sutra, that I have found, does Shakyamuni or anyone else claim that He is the source of all the Buddha manifestations. Yes, there are references to Buddhas of the ten directions being his emanations, but in no sense does it indicate that they are all his manifestations. Further, there seems to be breaks in continuity, liner time, and reason regarding being both disciple and master simultaneously as if the Buddha had subdivided into a trillion different versions of Himself. The following three quotes are an example of the anomalous nature of the subject at hand. There are numerous other quotes that can be used to prove one position or another. It seems to me that Buddha is an aspect of the universe as fundamental as gravity. What transmigrates is a mystery. In fact, it is all paradox and mystery.
“Thus, since I attained Buddhahood, an extremely long period of time has passed…good men, originally I practiced the bodhisattva way…” LS Watson, Life Span, pg. 226
“A Buddha has personally attended a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million, a countless number of Buddhas and has fully carried out an immeasurable number of religious practices…” LS Watson, Expedient Means, pg. 23
“You monks, I will now tell you this. These disciples of the Buddha, these sixteen shramaneras, have now all attained annutara samyak-sambodhi. In the lands in the ten directions they are at present preaching the Law…” LS Watson, Phantom City, pg.134
The process of my inquiry began with hope that what I learned and wrote about would illicit discussion rather than invective and judgment. Pondering, I begin with opposites: Life and death, love and hate, hot and cold, weak and strong, and so forth.
None of these opposites allows us to penetrate the veil of the true entity of all phenomena, yet we cannot deny our mind’s propensity to perceive life through duality. Opposites are where we begin - then we must transcend them.
Buddha is more than life. The true entity of all phenomena has been explained in the form of negatives: nameless, formless, obscure, extinct, all pervasive, defying logic, difficult to believe and difficult to understand. It is a Law that can only be understood and shared by Buddhas. For that reason, all my words are conjecture without conclusion.
All this pondering caused me wonder: Why does anything exist at all? How did it come into being? To state that the universe, reality and existence merely is, constitutes an explanation without merit, of no more import to the mind of man than stating that “it was created.” That explanation begs the question of what created the creator?
I close this essay with appreciation for the Lotus Sutra and its transcendental powers to awaken the deluded and save the masses, eventually leading all to Buddhahood. To question and ponder the Lotus Sutra is a stated virtue. To accept the arbitrary or sectarian interpretations of others, no matter how learned or esteemed is a fatal error. My only certainty thus far is this: Find out the truth for yourself, no matter what the cost. It is only through your direct connection with the Buddha, His dharma, and the Lotus Sutra itself that the truth will be known.
In the writings of Nichiren, there are numerous admonitions to believe in the Lotus Sutra. Every stanza is heralded as golden and without reproach. In the Lotus Sutra, it is stated that not only is “It” difficult to believe, and difficult to understand, one can only enter the “it” through faith. Why then, does the Lotus Sutra cause me to question and doubt? And, what is “faith”?
Let me state for the record, that I am inclined to believe. I am drawn by the magnetism of its mystery and majesty, more than any other text or teaching. It is well known that those who are of incorrigible disbelief are barred from its ultimate reward. Of what value could it be for a lowly disciple like me to question the words of The Buddha, His votary, and the long line of eminent scholars that have made the study and practice of the Lotus Sutra their life’s work?
For months, I have struggled over this essay, knowing that even my closest allies might viciously turn on me, if I began to question the Lotus Sutra. Wracked with self-doubt over my own intellectual and spiritual abilities to comprehend, let alone to deconstruct the sutra, I spent many troubled moments in contemplation. How dare me to question the Lotus Sutra. What arrogance I must have to not only question, but to actually draw conclusions that might go against the grain of orthodoxy.
In a primal fear of having a slanderous mind or offending the Thus Come One, I constructed a prayer or affirmation of sorts, to read before I prayed, contemplated, or complied notes:
“Oh Lord Buddha, of lifespan beyond measure and master of the multiverse, whom nature hath not formed.
Oh Lord Buddha, there are matters of your legend that I do not understand. For millennia, greater minds have pondered your words and taught of your incalculable lifespan. The sutras abound with tales of your many achievements. None seem able to comprehend your wisdom or the true nature of your existence.
I stand before you today as one who seeks to know. I pray to understand the truth and have the courage to ask the hard questions. I pray for forgiveness if the answers I find are at odds with the words and teachings attributed to you. I am not particularly bright or wise. In a sense, you instructed your followers “to doubt everything.” Do not let my search for the truth obscure my love for the dharma and the inspiration your life has given me.”
Today, I will pose a series of questions that have caused me to wonder what The Buddha actually said or intended, versus what was added later, embellished, or mistranslated.
1. How could Shakyamuni win something like Buddhahood when He was already the eternal Buddha? If his Buddhahood was already a foregone conclusion, why was His life and death struggle needed?
2. How can a Buddha subdivide Himself in a seemingly infinite number of manifestations – Buddhas from the past, present and future, throughout the ten directions?
3. How or why can He be both teacher and his own student, simultaneously? And if so, how could this occur in trillions of places at once?
4. As described in the Phantom City chapter of the Lotus Sutra, were His father, Daitsu Buddha and His fifteen Buddha brothers all a manifestation of Shakyamuni? This clue seems to indicate the authors got lost in their fiction narrative.
5. Was Taho Buddha a manifestation of Shakyamuni? What is metaphor? What is ontology? What is literal? How does one pick and choose? I need to channel the spirit of Joseph Campbell!
6 What is Buddha? Is Buddha an omni-potent being, an all-pervasive force, supreme consciousness, or is it, as Josei Toda claimed, “life” in all of its beautiful, bizarre, and countless variations? I know that all life is interconnected. What I don't know is why there is such a division in consciousness and awareness, where a Buddhia needs to be a Buddha and His own student at the same time. And, if we really are all inter connected, why is there is such a huge gap in development between The Buddha, bodhisattvas, and ordinary people?
7. Is Buddha a sentient manifestation of some latent Buddha consciousness inherent in the universe? I would like to know why The Buddha seeems to have appeared from a billion aeons in the future - a being so advanced, that even today, no one can compare to Him; and why did he show up in this madhouse called earth, one evolutionary step from first walking upright? This bizarre scenario of a Great One emerging in a world of barbarians, reminds me of the setting of Star Trek, where earth is newly entered in the Federation, yet the galactic headquarters is here on earth. We're just a pebble in our own galaxy! And what of the Buddhist pre-history of our planet (borrowed from Brahmanism) that asserts that advanced Buddhist cultures lived here for a couple hundred million years with each age having their own Buddha! This kind of flies in the face of modern anthroplogy. Again, what is myth, what is metaphor, and what is literal?
8. Is The Buddha, Shakyamuni, the eternal and original Buddha that is the singular source and manifestation of all other Buddhas and the Buddha nature in all being and/or life throughout the entire multiverse? Did Shakyamuni ever actually say this? If so, how can we be sure that it wasn't added on because he may have inferred it? My mistrust of editors and revisionists becomes more acute and pronounced, the more I study religion, especially Buddhism.
9. How do we reconcile Shakyamuni’s bodhisattva practice for incalculable aeons, under myriad Buddhas, who by way of inference, were His own manifestations? What we have is a bodhisattva being trained by himself!
MORE QUESTIONS ON ASPECTS OF BUDDHA
What of the different types of Buddhas: true, original, eternal, provisional, transient, and mythological? I've read all the literature and it seems like convoluted priestly fiction to me.
Is "Buddha" or "The Buddha" different than an individual’s Buddhahood or Buddha nature? Are they all connected in some transcendental Buddha matrix, just waiting to evolve?
Buddha is sometimes described through negations. Why is The Buddha so difficult to understand? Does one need to understand riddles to understand Buddha
One of the areas of Buddhism that is ripe for deconstruction, is the idea of Shakyamuni as the eternal Buddha, or the original Buddha. There seems to have been a great deal of thought given to the ideas of provisional Buddhas, metaphorical Buddhas, and, of course, The True Buddha by his successors. We have sects that worship Buddhas that never actually lived in this world as their object of devotion - thus Nembutsu. It's like worshiping characters out ot Star Wars - fictionalized beings created to tell a story. I find it fascinating how many of us are so certain that Nichiren is the true Buddha or that Shakyamuni is the source for all the manifestations of all the Buddhas mentioned in the Lotus and other sutras. If we are to make any sense of who is the original or eternal Buddha, the place to start is by defining what is Buddha. Josei Toda, second president of the Soka Gakkai, is alleged to have had the jailhouse epiphany that “Buddha is life.” I agree with this to a point, but there is a better explanation.
I will end part one with these questions and begin part two with the evidence that contradicts what we have been taught.
Today, I make an unusual offering in tribute to my mother. My first offering is a mini-bio, minus the fluff, while stepping over the smashed skeletons in her extra large walk-in closet. Offering two, is the prologue from my 1999 manuscript, Pocketful of Curses, that I wrote as therapy soon after her death. No need to give away who inspired the viewpoint character – this was not a composite.
I do this because the tenth year of her death is fast approaching. Late in the afternoon on January 22nd, 1999, my mom, Doreen (Francis Pouliot) Atkins, died of a recurrence of squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue and throat. Her initial recovery was nothing short of amazing. She survived radical surgery and radiation therapy that left her unable to speak and bent to one side, due to the removal of numerous lymph nodes in her neck. The prognosis for advanced throat cancer is extremely poor, with only a very small percentage of patients surviving more than five years. My mom made it ten years. I provided around-the-clock home hospice care for her for three months. Although she survived ten years, her last few months damn near killed me!
My mom looked like Elizabeth Taylor, could drink John Wayne under the table, she smoked like Jackie Gleason, and she had a personality like Betty Davis on acid. Although she never graduated from high school, she was an articulate alpha-female who was both charming and tough. Rather than pursuing higher education, she preferred to work. Like so many girls in the early 40s, she became a a sixteen year old war bride. As time went on and she worked the ropes of life, she managed to become quite successful and financially secure. She was business smart, street smart, and was what they now call a M.I.L.F. She could handle a gun with ease, and, I am told, she could literally kick some ass. An old piece of family lore has it that when living on the west side of Chicago, when I was an infant, I was in stroller when some woman who had lost her baby, tried to make off with me. Allegedly, my mom ran her down and beat the living crap out of her. Ahh, what a gal.
My mom was raised Catholic, but detested organized religion and especially priests and nuns. I don't know if she was fondled or punished once to often, but she really disliked them, with the same attitude of a stray dog crossing the path of an alley cat. On the more soulful side, she was always interested in metaphysics, encouraging me to learn the Tarot while in my mid-teens. She fully supported my Buddhist practice, receiving the Gohonzon in 1974. She even chanted for a short while.
We all have our own demons, and my mom’s was the Atkins family curse of alcoholism. Alcohol destroyed our nuclear family unit, and I was damn lucky to survive (it's been 14 years of sobriety for me). Alcoholism was at the root of the deaths of my dad, my older brother, and then my mom, all in a three-year period. What my mom did for me was to make me psychologically, if not spiritually strong. How can we ever truly repay our debt of gratitude to our moms for bringing us into the world, whipping our butt when needed, tucking us in, reading us stories, feeding us, taking care of us when we were sick, and loving us? We can’t repay that, really. Sure, not every parent-child relationship is hugg-hugg, kiss-kiss, or like some sappy-ass musical. Sometimes, people get wacked out, wicked or uncaring parents of the most wretched kind. To remain sane, those of us that might have gotten the short end of the parental stick, need to find the love somewhere, even if it’s buried under those gin soaked, decomposing skeletons.
So, today, I say thanks, Mom! Thanks for my life. Thanks your sacrafices. Thanks for the lessons you taught me. Thanks for the thousands of things I may have taken for granted. And thanks for the love, even if it was the back of your hand, a mace upside my psyche, and a gimlet plum through my heart. Oh yes, thanks for being such a unique, colorful character – you made my prologue easy.
POCKETFUL OF CURSES
Prologue
1933 - Back Alleys of Chicago
The scruffy little girl combed the alley looking for empty bottles. Gretchen Hester had been at it for three hours and the sun was setting. In her right hand was a long skinny iron rod for poking into garbage cans and for protection. The Great Depression had left her large family with nothing but a roof over their head and one square meal a day. All the kids of her Southwest Chicago neighborhood had the same idea of finding and returning empties. She looked hard. She scoured the streets, she rocked barrels of garbage, she kicked the piles of brown coal ash, she checked the areas around the boiler rooms of all the neighborhood three and six flats, and she looked in all the gangways.
Crossing over busy California Avenue, she continued her search to the back alley behind the local market. If there weren't any bottles, maybe she would find some old, but still good fruit. She spied a rusty barrel piled high with trash. The smell made a breeze from the Chicago Stockyards smell like fresh popcorn. The barrel was almost as tall as she was. She reached over the top and began to gently poke her rod in the garbage below for a bottle. She heard that magic clink and began digging for her treasure. A rat as large as a tomcat crawled to the top of the barrel screeched and bared its sharp-yellowed teeth. Startled, but undaunted, she collected herself then stepped back and growled, "errrrrrrrr….scram!" The rat didn't back down and was poised to strike. Like a White Sox cleanup hitter, Gretchen swung her iron rod and caved the rat's head. She bonked it a few more times for good measure, and ran it through with the rod, flinging it against a brick wall. She prodded around with the rod again, then fished out her prize.
"That's was my bottle…rat!” Her heart was beating like blown out tire, but she was feeling lucky now.
Gretchen continued her search, unfazed, more determined than ever. She usually found four or five empties. Looking in the direction of good old St. Ann's church', she muttered a prayer to the Blessed Virgin for some luck, after all, her mother had told her many times that she was God’s special child. Turning her head to the left, she spit on the ground as if to punctuate her wish. A moment later, a pear shaped man lumbered down the sidewalk by her alley, gulping the last of his soda. Seeing an opportunity, she yelled.
"Hey mister, can I have that bottle when you're done? Please?" Gretchen could do a lot with a penny or two. “Someday I'll be rich,” she thought. The man looked at the tough, dirty kid with a smile, gulped the rest of his soda, and then handed over the empty.
"Sure kid, live it up. Anybody who needs an empty dat bad can have it," the man said.
Gretchen took her two bottles and then ran to the store to cash them in. She held the four pennies with a grip so tight that it turned her knuckles white. She would hide the money with the rest her savings of almost two hundred pennies, nine nickels, and seven dimes. She dared not tell anyone how much money she had rat-holed away, not even her parents. She had scratched and clawed for that money and would not share it with anyone. She would hide the money in the basement, inside the back left leg of her Dad's old wooden workbench, deep within the secret hole she dug out with a pocketknife the year before. When her brothers and sisters went to bed, she would sneak downstairs and make her deposit. It had been another profitable day. She would kill every damn rat in Chicago if she had to.
*******