What do I do with this?

 WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS?

by

Les Clark

“I’m going for a walk,” I announced on that fateful fall day when I hit a triple: the laundry had been washed and folded (I actually know how to do that), Spanky’s kitty litter had been changed (I hate doing that!) and my leaf blower made short work of the first of the red/green parachutists accumulating on the deck (I love doing that).

           I wiped my feet before coming back in the kitchen.

           “Did you wipe your feet?” I knew Irene would ask that. After twenty-five years, we still ask and comment on the obvious.

           “Do you need anything before I head out?” I’ve been pressed into service as Captain Shopper.

           “Hold on a minute, Hon. I have a list for you,” my wife called from the gurney we’d installed two weeks ago downstairs when her rehab stay concluded. She was quite comfortable in a bed/sofa/chaise thing doing everything but levitate. The effects of her stroke and the hip she cracked falling were diminishing quickly as opposed to the bill moving in the opposite direction.

           I walked into the parlor. Our kids roll their eyes when they hear we call it that. Living room. Sitting room. Tomatoes, tomahtoes. Irene had her top-spiral notebook locked in the bed desk clamp writing with her good right hand.

           “It’s just us two, lady. We need all that food? And I’m just walking? And you know I have balance issues?”

           “Pish, tosh, Larry. Take the rolling basket. Get your steps in. If the kids come over we need to receive and serve.”

           “Love, I served two tours and received a lot of incoming. We can handle our brood and their brood. Our larder is full.” They don’t know that word either.

           “Here’s the list. Do you have money, Larry?”

           “Today is good looks day at the market, Irene. No need for cash.”

           I leaned over and kissed her. “See you later, love. Don’t talk to strangers.”

           Spanky blinked at me as I opened the kitchen door leading to the deck. She had a paw resting in her food dish, jiggling it like a prisoner abusing a jail’s bars with a tin cup.

           “You’ll live. Go keep mom company.” I interpreted her meows in the pejorative. “Such talk. Same to you.” Our orange cat then flipped the metal dish over like a football ref at the start of the game.

           “Tails,” I laughed and scooted out with the shopping basket I’d use both for the bounty my wife wanted and support I’d been needing lately. It’s a twenty minute walk to Market World with its 27 aisles up, down and back. It’s only missing a rotary and you know how that can be a mystery to some folks. What a hoot that would have been during COVID with its one-way aisles.

           Our street, leading to the market, is lined with shady oaks and maples providing message centers for all manner of leashed (I hope) dogs. Homes are bordered with towering arborvitae for privacy or bushes carefully trimmed or manicured grass right down to the side walk. As autumn progresses, leaves are collecting in irregular clumps along my way. Often, when I think no one is looking, I kick my way through them. When my Irene is better, we’ll do that together. She’s still a bit shaky but the progress is there.

Lately, I have to watch where I’m walking. I’m not as steady as I used to be. Too many close calls long ago with IEDs, so I’m careful where I step. I once did with a hand held mine sweeper on rutted paths in a country I can’t name and recently with the peaceful version, my new metal detector on the local beach helping me find bottle caps and the occasional nickel. Break even will happen with forgetful bathers.

The empty basket I’m pushing is light but when I saw a really nice and inviting pile of leaves, I let it swing behind me. They’re calling to me. It’s a knee high mound, maybe raked there by the homeowner who had to take a break and head inside for a mug of hot chocolate with a duplicate mound of whipped cream atop the aromatic steam and they’ll be out shortly to bag the leaves and I’m rationalizing between human intervention and natural sculpting.

Wait! This batch isn’t in front of a house. Well, not directly. It’s in the gutter along with fresh and pliable arrivals and older wrinkled and dried residents. I hear kick me, a different kind than the scrawled sign once stuck to my preteen back. I looked around. Along the street, flannel-bedecked rakers and scrapers are intent and focused on making their plots pristine. And let’s not ignore that one fella (with whom I have simpatico) wielding his turbojet blower creating an impenetrable fan of gold and scarlet and orange. He can neither see (nor hear) his next door neighbor making like a boxer. I’d like to stick around for the amateur fisticuffs sure to follow but I’m on a leafy mission.

No one is paying attention to an older guy reliving his childhood. I parked my cart  against a sidewalk elm shedding its leaves like our kids once shed their clothes for a backyard swim in summers past. I stepped onto the street touching its furrowed bark for support and gave the first batch a good kick. Not as good as a Patriots place kicker, however, good enough to send them flying. “Take that,” I said aloud, as they went every which way, along with a small scattering of pebbles. A really foolish smile flit across my face.

A few feet away lay my next target, slightly larger with a dip in the middle like a crinkled volcano. There was a Cracker Jack surprise waiting for me. I gave that batch a soccer-style whack making contact with a stone I think had been put there as a deterrent to autumnal saboteurs such as myself. This thing skidded into the street I needed to retrieve so a motorist, or kid on a bike, wouldn’t lose an axle or ankle. Man, it was the size of a triple cheeseburger. I felt that all the way up my leg. Across the street, someone saw me and waggled a finger. Have your fun, I thought.

There was one final batch, perfectly shaped, larger than the rest. Uh-oh!

“I’ll bet there’s a cinder block under there,” I muttered. Gingerly, I toed that two foot high mountain. Yes, there’s the prize. Something softer than created when the Earth was young. It had give. I moved it with my foot until it was free and out in the open.

“My word,” I gasped. “It’s a bank bag. One of those nightly deposit things.”

I bent over and picked the worn, blue green thing, up, turned it over, examined it and tried to open it. Nope, it’s locked on the top over the zipper. There’s printing on the side, pretty much scraped off. I can see something looking like “Don’t” and at the end, “.Col.” Not dot com. The bag was light. I could feel things shifting inside. “Hmmm,” I hummed, let’s get the shopping done and give my Irene a shot at it.

An hour later, having put on miles in Aisles 1 through 7, avoiding pharmaceuticals and gift wrap and calorie laden snacks 8 through 12 and finishing up just over the horizon 13 through 27, I headed home.

“Irene,” I shouted to her in the other room whilst I was finding homes for asparagus through ziti, “I’ve got something to show you I found in the street.” Spanky was still standing guard over her bowl. Okay, cat, I bow to your demands. I received no thanks for water and something squishy Spanky attacked with the same relish one might see on wildlife videos.

“You didn’t bring home another lost cat did you, Larry?” She shuffled into the kitchen, leaning on her cane. “I’m feeling mighty fine, just like the pudding,” she announced. Her speech is pretty good now. “What do you have for show and tell?”

“I found this bag under a pile of leaves in the street. It’s locked. No bank name. Feel it, love.”

She looked at me, rolled her eyes, took a breath and gave her head that brief shake wives are known to do when their displayed patience is better than the look to the heavens followed by the oft-quoted what were you thinking? I would have been better off with an exchange of a cow for some magic beans.

“Give me that, you.” Irene didn’t add anything onto my pronoun. And no ‘please?’

Her left hand has much improved. She took the small bag, turned it over, shook it, smelled it (I’d wiped it clean with some Purell), and eyeballed it better than I had.

“Look, Lar...initials. H.B.S.” They were faded. “This belongs to someone. Financial? Medical?.” She grinned at me. “Celestial, maybe? Get your metal detector, the hand held and let’s see if it registers other than the zipper and lock.”

I headed into the garage and retrieved the small one hanging next to the long handled detector Irene and I had scoured beach after beach. I make fun but we’ve found necklaces, many coins, a cheap ring or two, belt buckles and dentures. I ran the small device over the bulging contents---not even a beep revealing cash. While I was gone, Irene had taken the local phone book and was looking for a last name starting with “S” followed by the other two initials.

“Do you want to make some calls, Lar? There’s two dozen that make some kind of match.”

She looked up at me, rocked her head side to side, smiling that convincing smile she used on our first date so the clod she would ultimately marry knew to pay for dinner.

“Okay, love. These are going to be funny calls. Write them down as I make them.” I punched in the first of the numbers along with a code to block my number.

“Hello, my name is Larry (I left off my last name) I found...” Click. Next.

“Hello, you don’t know me. Have you lost a bag...?” “Why yes,” the female voice went on, “it has tens and twenties, my driver’s license...” I hung up

Blah blah...

Yadda yadda...

Through 18.

It was getting tedious and close to supper. “One more before soup and a sandwich, love.”

I punched in the numbers. “Hello, I found a bag in the street and I’m looking for the owner...” The male voice on the other end cut me off. “Yes, it’s mine,” he shouted enthusiastically. “It has my initials HBS, and it ends in dot col,” which he spelled out. “My name is Herbert Barnett Sampson. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Where can I pick it up? And when? It’s very important.” It was hard keeping up with him.

“Hold on,” I told him, putting the phone on mute. “What do you think, Irene? Can he come here to pick it up?” She’s so wise. “Sure, Larry, but call Muriel and see if she can be here as well. We don’t know who this guy is. I’ll Google him anyhow.” I unmuted him.

“Mr. Sampson, give me a few dates you’d like to come by, and I’ll see which one fits in with our schedule.”

He did while Irene scribbled furiously. I made another call. “Hi, Muriel, how are you? What are you doing this week?”

“Hi yourself, Dad. I’m working the Evidence Room, bringing order to chaos. No one organizes crime scene stuff like me. Why, what’s up?” I told her. “Plain clothes or uniform, Dad?”

At noon two days later, Sampson rang the bell. Irene, my daughter (in full uniform, and I mean complete), Sampson and I sat around the kitchen table. Our guest was ecstatic. He held the key like it was the Olympic torch.

“What’s it say on the bag, Herb?” He told me Mr. Sampson was his dad and Herb was fine with him.

“It says DON’T TAKE ANY.COL. I’m a collector and these are,” and here he unlocked the bag. Out spilled small square clear plastic bags containing---all manner of funny, round light brown tokens. Centered on each was the number “5.”

Sampson was beaming. “I am the preeminent collector of wooden nickels, and this was the group I wanted to display at a convention. They are invaluable from The World’s fair a hundred years ago. Someone broke into my car, stole everything and when they realized they had nothing to open these indestructible bags, they chucked it. And you found it, how?”

I sheepishly explained my discovery. Muriel looked at me. “Really, Dad?

“I have a reward for you, Larry. Irene. But I must be on my way. Thank you for everything.” He handed me a small white, almost flat envelope. “I’m very grateful to you and you can take that to the bank.” It’s odd how he emphasized those words.

After he left, we sat around, finishing our coffee. Muriel kissed Irene and I and went back to her closet Evidence Room.

“Open the envelope, Larry,” Irene urged when everyone was gone. I slit it open. Out spilled Monopoly money. Two beige hundreds and a blue fifty. “Hahahaha,” I hollered. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Irene buried her face in her hands. “I’m going to wet myself, Lar.”

As I tilted the envelope, out dropped his card. I turned it over. On the back, Sampson had handwritten, Like I said, Larry, you can take this to the bank,. Mine is Peoples National. Present it to any teller. Give them my account number below. They’ll know what to do. Best, H.

           Irene looked at me, her lips quivering. “You must be re-leafed, Hon.”