An Encounter with a Cashpoint

This piece is based on a poem by James Brown called “Cashpoint: A Pantoum”

Tim didn’t say I was supposed to bring cash. I drove all the way across town to be at this goddamn dance recital, only to find out that the tickets are cash only. I didn’t have any cash on me—who does anymore?—so here I am, peering into dark side streets at ten minutes to seven looking for an ATM that’s supposed to be “just around the corner.” Well, guess what? There are dozens of corners, and so far no ATM around any of them!

At eight minutes to seven, I find it. I suppose you could technically say it’s around the corner, but I stand by my judgement that there are far too many corners on this street for that to be any kind of useful instruction. The ATM is set into the wall next to a dairy, and neither of them look like they’ve seen any kind of TLC in this century. The dairy is, in a word, dilapidated; the machine itself down on its luck. If ATMs were people, this one would be the old drunk in the back corner of the pub, the one who hasn’t washed in a week and is moments away from toppling over. In defiance of all reason, the dairy is shut—I’ve never known a dairy to be shut before 9 pm, but the building is dark behind the barred windows, lit only by the harsh fluorescence of the drink fridges.

I approach the ATM with caution. The screen gives the immediate area a greenish tint, and between that and the fridge lights from inside the dairy I can just make out the badges next to the screen that indicate which banks are accessible. The images themselves are quite grimy, but it looks like all the major banks are represented. Good. The screen flickers. It reads:

WELCOME TO CASHPOINT

OPEN 7 DAYS

PLEASE INSERT YOUR CARD

TO BEGIN TRANSACTION

“Open 7 days”? Wow, this thing must be old. I insert my card as directed, and wait. Nothing happens immediately. I check the time: seven minutes to go. I hope the whole process doesn’t take this long. The screen flickers again, and the words have changed. Under the banner advertising 7-day service, the instructions now say to ensure that no-one can see (no problem) and to enter my personal identification number. My what? Personal identification…? Oh, PIN. I punch at the numbered keys, and after a moment’s thinking the instructions rearrange on the screen.

SELECT SERVICE REQUIRED, it now says, and USE A BLUE KEY. Easy enough, except that all the keys look green in this light. I pull out my phone, and use the torch feature to better illuminate the machine’s keypad. The sudden brightness makes me blink a few times before I’m able to see the keys properly. Ah yes, there’s a column of blue ones down the side. Looking closely, I can see the remnants of words next to the keys. Presumably, they say (or used to say) “Deposit”, “Withdrawal”, and “Check Balance”. I peer at the chipped flecks of paint, trying to figure out which one is for withdrawing. This will be why modern ATMs put the words on the screen now, I suppose. I punch at the key that looks most like it will give me money.

Nothing happens. The screen is still telling me to enter my PIN—should I do that again? Or is the machine just being slow? It’s hard to say. I check the time on my phone. I have six minutes. At this rate I’d be pushing it to get back to the recital in time. I consider the possibility of just not going—Emma and Kiri won’t mind, I’m sure. They are only six, after all, and even if they do notice my absence tonight (which I doubt) they’ll have forgotten about the whole affair in a week.

The machine gives a bit of a tired whirr, and the next instruction blinks onto the screen. God, the graphic design on this thing is terrible. It’s telling me to SELECT FROM ACCOUNT and USE A GREEN KEY, but the last instruction to select a service with a blue key is still showing on the other side of the screen, and the whole thing looks very jumbled, like one of those “Don’t dead, open inside” memes.

The green keys sit in a column along the side of the screen opposite the blue keys. I inspect them with my phone-torch, but the only writing that I can see hasn’t completely worn off is a couple of “-ing”s. Fan-fucking-tastic. Actually, on further reflection, the girls may not mind, but Tim will. He made me promise to come—since Tania got sick he’s gotten really militant about the rest of the family pulling together to help with the girls—and if I bail he’ll have my hide. And anyway, the machine still has my EFTPOS card half stuck in it, and I don’t think anything good will happen if I pull it out while it’s in the middle of whatever it’s doing.

I punch the topmost green key and wait for the machine to catch up. It must be warming up to its task (or maybe I’ve just started zoning out), because it doesn’t take anywhere near as long as I expect for the next instruction to show up. Thank God, it looks like I picked the right keys; I’m being told to enter the withdrawal amount in a multiple of ten dollars. I punch in “1-0” on the number keys, then the green key in the corner that I assume means “OK”.

The ATM thinks for a moment. It whirrs. It growls. Is this a noise I should be concerned about? It occurs to me that I have no idea when the machine was last maintenanced. Is that even a thing? Or is it maintained? Anyway, I don’t even know if the damn ATM has any cash in it. It’s not strictly affiliated with any bank from what I can see, so maybe no-one’s refilled it since the ‘90s. The growling becomes grinding—uh-oh. I’m starting to fear for the safety of my EFTPOS card. I need that thing.

New words start to flash on the screen as the machine continues to grind. YOUR REQUEST IS BEING PROCESSED. PLEASE WAIT. TRANSACTION ACCEPTED. PLEASE WAIT. I think I will do that, thanks. I check the time again: four minutes. Shit. Oh shit, the damn machine is beeping now! Well, it’s an approximation of beeping. It sounds like a beep that’s risen from its deathbed just to harass me. The grinding stops, and the machine spits a single ten-dollar note into the cash tray. PLEASE REMOVE CARD IF YOU HAVE FINISHED. FOR FURTHER TRANSACTIONS SELECT A BLUE KEY. No, one transaction is more than enough for me. I cautiously tug my card out of the slot. Nothing explodes. Good. PLEASE REMOVE CASH AND TRANSACTION RECORD, says the screen. THANK YOU FOR USING CASHPOINT. I pocket the cash, but there’s no sign of a “transaction record” (receipt?). There’s a brief, hollow whizzing noise, but nothing else happens. No matter, I don’t need a record of this encounter anyway. I’d rather I didn’t have one, actually.

As I put my card back into my wallet, I notice the screen change one more time:

CASHPOINT IS OPEN EVERY DAY

PLEASE INSERT YOUR CARD

7 AM TO 11 PM

WELCOME TO CASHPONT

I’m pretty sure that’s not the message I saw when I found it. But I got my ten dollars for the recital ticket, and that’s the important thing. It’s three minutes to seven. If I run, I might just make it…