All the Quarters

The receipt is from Vending Bank C, Main ICU Corridor, St. Augustine Medical Center. Thursday, March 14, 2024, 2:31 AM. Seven items, all paid in quarters — a small tower of silver coins fed one at a time into a machine that doesn't ask questions and doesn't make you wait for news.

This is a song about a man who ran out of things to do. His wife had a stroke at the kitchen table, mid-sentence, sometime around dinner. He drove to the hospital, he parked, he sat, he stood, he walked. By two in the morning the waiting room had become its own kind of country — fluorescent and airless, populated by other people's silences. The vending machine was the only thing in the corridor that still accepted input and returned a clear result. So he fed it everything he had.

The Cheerwine she would have stolen from him. The gummy bears she kept for the grandkids on the third shelf. The honey bun just for having something to hold. Each item pressed and dropped and caught is a small act of control inside a night that has none. The song doesn't know how it ends. Neither did he.

[Verse 1] Fluorescent hum above the waiting chairs Paper cup of coffee gone cold and thin The clock on the wall says two twenty-nine The surgeon said he'd come back but he hasn't been So I walk the corridor with my hands in my pockets Full of quarters I been carrying since the parking deck And I feed the machine 'cause it takes what I give it And it gives me something back

[Chorus] All the quarters in my pocket, all the small decisions Nutter Butter, Cheerwine, Fritos in the tray I can't hold her hand, I can't hold the ceiling up I can't pray anymore in any useful way So I press the buttons and I hear the coil turning And I catch the thing before it hits the floor All the quarters, all the quarters All the quarters 'til there ain't no more

[Verse 2] She would've stolen half that Cheerwine, laughed about it Said I never buy the good stuff for myself Gummy bears were for the grandkids, in the cabinet Third shelf up, she keeps them on the third shelf Honey bun was just a thing to hold Something with some weight inside your hand Peanut M&Ms for the long drive home Home to whatever home becomes

[Bridge] The nurse walked past at three and didn't slow down I watched her badge, her shoes, the way she turned A good sign is a nurse who doesn't stop walking I think I learned that somewhere, I think I learned The lights stay on all night in the ICU No window, no sky, no way to tell the hour Except by what's left in the machine And the cold in my hand and these bags I cannot open

[Verse 3] Six forty-five the sky outside went gray I saw it through the window at the hall's far end She was mid-sentence at the kitchen table She was going to say something I don't know

All the quarters, all the quarters All the quarters, all the quarters Six dollars and seventy-five cents in quarters.