Checkbook Bob
Checkbook Bob
A Story of Debt, Dignity, and the Endurance of Paper
By: Mason Absher
There’s a guy in my life—
a legend, really—
named Bob.
But not just any Bob.
CheckBook Bob.
Bob pays with checks.
Exclusively.
Religiously.
He’s never used Venmo.
He once referred to PayPal as “cybercrime.”
And Zelle?
He said, “That sounds like a Marvel villain.”
He pays the old-fashioned way—
with a checkbook.
Worn, leathery, and always within reach.
Except…
Bob’s check hand?
Apparently, it’s injured.
He calls it “a lifelong condition.”
A “financial affliction.”
He says,
“I can only write checks on even-numbered Tuesdays, during a full moon, if the wrist is loose and the Lord is willing.”
Now, to be clear—
I’ve seen Bob fix his roof.
Haul lumber.
Throw a baseball 40 feet underhand at a church picnic.
But ask him to write a check on the spot?
Suddenly his wrist goes limp.
His fingers seize.
He becomes a tragic figure from a Tennessee Williams play.
He once whispered to me at a hardware store,
“The tendons, they just won’t track unless I warm up first.”
Then he flapped his hand like a baby bird and walked away humming the theme to Matlock.
It’s not that Bob won’t pay.
He will.
Eventually.
He just has… a rhythm.
A system.
A… let’s call it what it is:
A bureaucracy of one.
He carries his checkbook in a zippered pouch
wrapped in what I believe is a Maple Leafs windbreaker from 1994.
The pen?
Always a promotional one from a real estate agent who’s long since retired.
One time—this is true—
he owed me $9.60 for pancakes.
He wrote a check.
Tore it carefully from the pad.
Handed it to me like he was bestowing land rights.
And in the memo line?
He wrote:
“For syrup and good company.”
The check bounced.
Temporarily.
(Beat. Performer shrugs.)
But the sentiment cleared.
Bob is not a scammer.
He’s not cheap.
He’s just… committed to a dying craft.
A fiscal artisan.
CheckBook Bob doesn’t pay you.
He memorializes the transaction.
He still owes me $19.87 for movie tickets.
That was in 2019.
But every time I see him, he says:
“I’m working on it.
Just waiting for the tendons to trust me again.”
I believe him.
Because when that check comes?
It’s going to be beautiful.
Signed with a flourish.
Folded into thirds.
Memo line reading:
“For entertainment, popcorn, and brotherhood.”
And I will cry.
CheckBook Bob.
Long may he write.
Weapon of Choice
WEAPON OF CHOICE
A Domestic Tragedy in One Financial Gesture
By: Mason Absher
There are moments in a person’s life
when you reach for your weapon of choice.
Mine?
Was already in my hand.
The basement had flooded.
There was chaos.
Wet socks. The smell of drywall dying.
The washer made a sound like regret.
I called in reinforcements.
He showed up in ten minutes.
Tool belt. Steel-toed boots. A calm that made me suspicious.
He fixed it.
Quick. Clean. Like he’d been born with a wrench in his hand.
And as he stood, wiping his hands on a rag,
I knew what I had to do.
I reached into the drawer.
Pulled it out.
Laid it flat on the counter.
The checkbook.
Yes.
A paper weapon.
An instrument of honor.
A gesture that says:
“I will not let this debt go unpaid.
I will acknowledge your labor with a flourish of ink and old-world formality.”
I drew it.
Slowly.
Dramatically.
And then—
He said:
“No need.”
(Beat.)
I froze.
Mid-stroke.
Pen hovering like I was about to sign a treaty.
“No need?” I asked, as if he’d insulted my lineage.
He smiled.
Wiped the last of the water from his boots.
And said:
“I’m your brother-in-law.”
(Beat.)
Which… yes.
Technically, he is.
But in that moment—
in that posture—
he was a tradesman.
A savior.
A hero of the sump pump.
And here I was.
Trying to cut him a check
like a Victorian widow paying off a chimney sweep.
I said, “But… I insist.”
He said, “Still no.”
And then he picked up a Gatorade and left like it was just another Tuesday.
And I stood there.
Checkbook open.
Signature unfinished.
Alone with my financial instinct and a house that no longer needed rescuing.
(Beat. Performer slowly folds invisible checkbook.)
Weapon… holstered.
I don’t know what the moral is.
Maybe it’s that family doesn’t always charge.
Maybe it’s that gratitude can’t always be quantified.
Or maybe—
just maybe—
I’m not supposed to pay people in cursive anymore.
(Beat. Performer nods, rueful.)
But still…
when the next flood comes—
I’ll be ready.
Because a man has to have a code.
And mine comes in carbon copy.
Release The Kraken
RELEASE THE KRAKEN….or…A Sea Beast by the Name of Regret
By: Mason Absher
There are dark spirits in this world.
And then…
There is The Kraken!
At a first glance, it hardly seems insidious
But just one sip, and you’ll soon be deciduous
That being said, don’t get yourself down.
I’ll share with you the warnings that the Kraken has come to town:
An ornate glass bottle that piques the imagination
A label that warns of hubris and ruination
A spirit so potent it could tear the rigging from your memories and send them drifting out to sea.
A rum so smooth, you can drink it like iced tea!
This is a tale from my youth.
When I was reckless. Curious.
And very, very bad at saying “no” to free liquor.
I don’t remember the first time I drank Kraken.
But I remember the second.
I woke up in someone’s apartment the next morning…I think his name was…Jimmy?
I was twelve hundred knots above sea level…
with a traffic cone on my head…a bruised knee…
and no idea how I’d gotten there.
The Kraken does not arrive gently.
It comes in swigs.
Straight from the bottle.
Offered like communion by friends who should know better.
With glasses raised, they’d say:
“To poor decisions,”
“To legendary nights!”
“To unleashing the beast!”
And unleash it… we did.
Each bottle was a map of mayhem.
A journey into the fog.
You take one sip—you’re charming.
Two—you’re loud.
Three—you’re atop the table, reciting Hamlet in a pirate accent.
Four?
You are the table.
I once drank half a bottle of the old beast and woke up in a bathtub—fully clothed—holding a slice of pizza like it was that door from the Titanic.
I once urinated on my own television set.
I once fist-fought my own reflection because I thought I was the very knave who had wronged me in a high-stakes game of Uno several years back.
I once climbed a utility ladder and gave a dramatic reading of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians to no one—no one—on the roof of a Speedway Convenience Store.
And when I say once, of course, it was always more than once
The Kraken, my friends, does not knock.
It boards.
It commandeers.
And when it’s done… it vanishes,
leaving only vague memories, sandwich crumbs, and shame.
The hangovers were…epic.
Biblical in nature, if unnatural in scope.
Like my brain had been scraped out with a rusty spoon.
The Kraken doesn’t just steal your night—it owns it…it. The next morning it evicts it…it charges interest…and…storage fees!
Eventually, we began to fear the bottle.
Started hiding it. Refusing to say its name.
“Don’t open that,” we’d say. “The beast is sleeping.”
It became a warning.
A threat.
A myth whispered between friends as we matured into people who drank things that came with labels we could pronounce.
I haven’t touched The Kraken in years.
But every now and then… I see it.
On a shelf behind the bar.
That same dark bottle. That same squid in mid-attack.
And I feel the ghost of a headache pass behind my eyes.
I nod respectfully.
And I walk away.
Because I survived the beast.
I lived to tell the tale.
And some nights—
some sacred, stupid, beautiful nights—
I remember what it was like…
to be foolish
and fearless
and drunk on freedom.
Release the Kraken?
Oh, I did….
And it released me—into chaos, fury, and reckless adventure
I wouldn’t do it again.
But I’m damn glad I did it once.
And when I say once…
Well, that’s enough for today.
The Super Terrific Bankruptcy Happy Hour!
THE SUPER TERRIFIC BANKRUPTCY HAPPY HOUR!
By: Mason Absher
Welcome…Welcome…Welcome…one and all!
… to the Super Terrific Bankruptcy Happy Hour.
That’s right.
Drinks are half-off.
So is my dignity.
The ice is free because I’m not.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the last time I filed…
Chapter 7…
It’s a chapter unlike any other.
A chapter where you don’t “restructure” or “negotiate.”
You just… wave a white flag made of old credit card statements.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, you’re sure to ask…well…how did I get here?
Well, I’ll tell you.
For me, there were no yachts or mountains of cocaine.
No golden carousels with hydraulic ponies in my rumpus room.
I earned my bankruptcy the old-fashioned American way:
Theatre school.
Freelance invoices.
Bar tabs.
A can’t miss business or two.
And the fatal belief that everything was “gonna work out.”
It started small.
A late payment.
A bounced cheque.
A pawn loan abandoned
And one day you wake up,
You check your bank account
And it just says:
Nope.
I stopped checking it, honestly.
The low point?
There was no single low point.
Every low point was lower than the last.
But here’s the twist.
Once everything collapsed?
I felt… calm.
I felt…weirdly… honest.
No more pretending.
No more “I’m just in between gigs.”
No more “I’m building something!”
Just… me.
And a mountain of debt that legally wasn’t mine anymore.
To celebrate, I decided to host a live game show.
I called it:
The Super Terrific Bankruptcy Happy Hour!
Games include:
“What’s in My Wallet?” (spoiler: nothing)
“Guess That Credit Score!”
and of course…
Duck. Duck. Default.
The food?
Mozzarella sticks.
The kind that burn your mouth and your pride.
Because nothing pairs better with financial ruin than hot dairy and ranch.
And you know what?
I wasn’t alone.
Turns out everyone has been here.
Or somewhere like it.
Friends.
Neighbors.
That one guy who used to sell me essential oils out of his trunk?
He was right.
This is a cleansing.
I’m not saying it’s easy.
The shame still knocks.
The fear still visits.
But the power’s out,
and I’m not answering the door.
I’m broke.
But I’m also… free.
Like a raccoon in a Dollar General parking lot.
Unhinged.
But resourceful.
So if you’re here tonight,
If you’ve ever hit the bottom,
If your dreams are on layaway and your plans declined your invite—
(beat)
Pull up a folding chair.
Grab a mozzarella stick.
And raise a glass.
Because if you can laugh at it?
You’re not ruined.
You’re just…
In a new phase.
To bankruptcy.
To broke
To brilliance.
To mozzarella sticks…
and the stories we never wanted, but well…here they are
The Horse And His Tailor
THE HORSE AND HIS TAILOR
A Strange Fable for the End of the World
By Mason Absher
Once… in a time that wasn’t quite a time…
there lived a tailor.
And this tailor…
had a dream.
Not of riches.
Not of fame.
He wanted to dress a horse.
Not just cover it.
Not blanket or saddle.
But trousers.
Shirts with buttons.
A little vest with a pocket where the horse could put… something. Anything. A leaf, maybe.
People laughed.
Of course they did.
You cannot dress a horse, they said.
They do not care for fashion.
They are beasts. They do not blush. They do not browse.
But the tailor said only:
“Wait.”
And he began to sew.
He started small.
A scarf.
Just a scarf.
Something soft, something the wind could pull at.
The horse blinked.
Snorted.
Tried to eat it.
(Beat.)
But it wore it.
For one full hour.
That… was enough.
The tailor came every day.
With new things.
A sleeve.
A boot.
A belt that served no purpose except to look just slightly dramatic.
And the horse… learned.
It learned how to step into trousers.
How to tolerate buttons.
How to swish with style.
And the tailor smiled.
He never forced.
He waited.
He praised.
He whispered:
“Yes, my beautiful idiot. You are magnificent.”
Years passed.
And one day…
the horse changed clothes.
On its own.
It chose blue.
A crushed velvet vest.
The one with gold thread that shimmered like pond water in moonlight.
And the tailor wept.
Quietly.
Into his thimble.
And then…
at the end of his life,
with no heirs, no shop, no plaque to his name—
he stood beside that splendid, vest-wearing horse
and said, simply:
“Change, change, change your clothes, you lovely horse.”
And the horse did.
And that is the story.
Of a tailor.
A horse.
And a miracle made one button at a time.
The Legend of Ian Downey…or…The Kid Who Stirred Up Chaos and Vanished Again Like a Ghost with Wi-Fi
THE LEGEND OF IAN DOWNEY
The Kid Who Stirred up Chaos and Vanished Again Like a Ghost with Wi-Fi
Everyone knew Ian Downey.
Or at least… thought they did.
He was a myth before he hit puberty.
A local legend.
The kid who once said—dead serious—“I’m Robert Downey Jr.’s third cousin…by marriage”
And the thing is…
no one could disprove it.
He had that face. That smirk. That terrifying confidence.
He could say anything and make you doubt your own memory.
Sometimes, Ian was my friend.
We’d ride bikes. Talk about movies. Share a soda at the corner store.
Other times?
He was a rogue psychologist with no supervision, too much free time.
He once told me—calm as a monk—
that we were in a cult.
(Beat.)
Not hypothetically.
Not as a game.
He said, “No, it’s real. You just haven’t been initiated yet.”
I didn’t sleep for three nights.
I made a list of everyone I knew who might be a sleeper agent.
I threw out a sandwich my mom made me because it looked too symmetrical.
Ian claimed he could code websites.
What he actually did…
was open WordPad and change the font color.
Then he’d call me over and say,
“See that? HTML, baby.”
I didn’t even know what HTML stood for.
But Ian sounded like he did.
He had the vibe of a guy who hacked the Pentagon when really he was just changing text alignment in Comic Sans.
And yet—
he was magnetic.
The teachers liked him.
The parents thought he was charming.
The girls? Obsessed.
The guys? Also obsessed, but in that weird boy-code way where you have to act like you’re mad at someone just because they’re cooler than you.
Ian Downey was a one-man hurricane.
He’d show up, stir the pot, flip your worldview like a cafeteria tray,
and then disappear again.
He moved away, officially, in seventh grade.
I remember the goodbye being… vague.
No party. No hugs. Just:
“I’m going to California. Maybe. Or it might be South Dakota.”
And like that—poof.
Gone.
But every few years…
He’d reappear.
At a football game.
At the grocery store.
At your cousin’s bonfire.
Like a local cryptid.
You’d blink, and there he was—older, taller, still with that same glint in his eye like he knew something about your childhood you didn’t.
And he’d say something weird.
Something casual but off.
Like:
“Hey, remember the basement? They finally removed the altar.”
And you’d laugh.
But only a little.
He’d stay a weekend.
Cause minor chaos.
Convince someone to dye their hair or break up with their girlfriend.
Then vanish.
No goodbye.
No trace.
Just a vague Facebook status like, “Headed where the clouds don’t ask questions.”
What does that even mean?
I’ve Googled him.
Nothing conclusive.
There’s no “real” trace of Ian Downey.
Just a few blurry photos.
One semi-defunct blog.
And a conspiracy Reddit thread titled “What Happened to That One Kid?”
Sometimes I wonder if he was even real.
Or if he was just a trick the neighborhood played on all of us.
The human embodiment of adolescent confusion.
The boy who could lie to your face… and somehow make you grateful for it.
But I know he was real.
Because I still don’t fully trust sandwiches.
And every time I see a hyperlink, I think…
Is this HTML? Or is this another Downey trick?
Ian, if you’re out there…
I hope you’re well.
I hope you’re even better at document formatting
Geocities 4Lyfe
The Forgotten Wallet
It was the winter of 2014,
and I was a young actor adrift in The Old City.
A city so cold it snapped dreams like kindling.
I lived in a slanted apartment, surviving on black coffee, artistic delusion… and instant rice.
Then came the call.
Mysterious. Vague. Alluring.
An audition. Medical in nature. Acting-adjacent.
Or as we artists call it:
“Please pretend to cough convincingly for no applause, just coin.”
The night before: two rehearsals, back-to-back.
First in a damp rehearsal crypt.
Second delayed—snow, traffic, existential sighs. We started at ten.
I got home at 2:40 a.m.
I showered, laid out my outfit, packed my bag, lined up my boots like soldiers by the door… and slept. Like a fool.
**4 a.m.**– *snooze*
**4:15**– *snooze*
**4:25**– *nothing*
**4:30**– *still nothing*
**4:40**– PANIC
I launched into my clothes, into the wind, into the train—just in time. I collapsed into a seat, exhaled… and reached for my wallet.
Nothing.
Scoured my bag. My coat. My soul.
Still nothing.
My wallet was in the jeans I had thrown across my apartment floor.
The one day I didn’t pick my pants up off the floor! That’s the most of what I regret!
The conductor approached.
“Ticket?” he asked, mustache twitching.
I spilled my shame.
He said, “You ride often?”
I nodded like a desperate pigeon.
He vanished… came back with a voucher.
I filled it out like a confession. Handed it over.
He… tore it up.
No receipt. No lecture. Just mercy, silent and strange.
I arrived downtown, walletless, voicemail ready.
No backup. No answers.
Until… an ad: *Lyft—first ride free.*
Downloaded. Needed a card. Strike one.
Switched to Uber. Same hurdle… until: “Pay with PayPal.”
YES.
Ding. “Your ride is here.”
The Driver, Roger, I think his name was.
A fellow actor. Of course.
We spoke of hustle. Of simulation.
He said, “Curiosity—more important than experience.”
I said,
“Well… I’m still here, aren’t I?”
In the waiting room, paperwork filled.
A grainy video. No interview.
Just “We’ll be in touch.”
I left. Summoned one last Uber.
Fifty dollars poorer, full of something else.
Because I survived.
Not the audition.
Not the job.
But the day.
The wallet-less waltz through The Old City.
And I returned with a story—the richest currency I know.