The Discovery

                           THE DISCOVERY                                                   

     It was a hot, humid July in 1961. I was just shy of my tenth birthday. We lived on the South Side of Chicago, about six city blocks from Rainbow Beach on Lake Michigan.

      In the summer, I would often return alone to the beach on my green Schwinnbicycle with a small, broken window screen. There I would sift the sand in the spots where most of the daytime crowds congregated -- looking for lost coins, rings, earrings, keys, or anything else of value. It was akin to panning for gold, I told myself, remembering the books I read about the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898. I always turned in anything of any real value to the lost & found at the lifeguard station building, but I kept the coins and an occasional lost folded up dollar bill for myself. Finders Keepers!

     On this particular day, I had about an hour at the beach until it got dark and before I had to return home or risk punishment. The burning beach sands had cooled, but the smell of spilled Coppertone sun tan lotion was still in the air and on the concrete by the concessions stand where hungry people had stood in line in the sizzling sun for popsicles, popcorn, ice cream bars, and hot dogs. Now, there wereonly a few scattered people gathering up their belongings, drying off from a last splash in the chilly lake waters, and shaking the sand off of their beach towels. The lifeguards were already off-duty and gone, their rescue rowboats back in their berths, with only their lonely white wooden watch tower chairs still staring off into the horizon.

     I sifted with my window screen for about twenty minutes, turning up a nail file, a dirty comb, a crumpled, gooey, sand-encrusted Fudgesickle wrapper, a dime and three pennies, and a cat charm from some teenage girl’s charm bracelet. Not a very profitable night. But then I tried one last spot, and I was amazed when I hit the jackpot.

It looked like a wristwatch when the last of the falling sand revealed it. I flipped it over. It was nice, really nice -- a newer Bulova with a flexible gold metal band. Although I knew I wouldn’t keep it, the thrill of my discovery was exciting. I walked back to my bicycle and pedaled to the lifeguard building to surrender my find. But the big white door was locked. I must have just missed closing time. Darn! Guess I’ll have to come back tomorrow, I thought, as I tucked the watch into my jeans pocket and zipped home through the adjacent huge beach parking lot and vast park, past my church and school, and then down the residential streets whose windows were glowing now with electric light.

For some reason, I was afraid to tell my family about the watch. My father was an alcoholic, even though he worked for the Chicago Fire Department driving a fire truck. I guessed that being in the War had wrecked his nerves. He never talked about the war, but I saw that he had once been an artillery sergeant from photos that my mom kept in a scrapbook. He was deaf in his left ear. My mom was a housewife. She sold Avon products to earn extra money. She was once very sociable and out-going, but lately she was more moody and withdrawn. She argued with my dad on a regular basis. They would scream and yell and slam things, which terrified me and my two sisters. My dad slept alone in the basement, which had a makeshift bedroom in it. We knew that the neighbors knew all about our dysfunctions. It made me ashamed and embarrassed. I hesitated to invite friends over. I spent as much time as I could away from the house. I felt like I was an orphan who had been punished by being left on the doorstep of the wrong house. My friends and their parents were my real family. I also escaped my sad reality by reading a lot of different books on just about every topic. My secret goal – when I got older -- was to leave and never come back.

The next morning was cloudy and it threatened rain. The nearby South Works steel mills were going full blast, and our neighborhood could smell the pollution more than usual during the sweltering summer when the wind shifted, like today. I went to visit my two buddies, Donnie and Skibbie, to see if they wanted to hunt for garter snakes in the nearby abandoned lots which ran along the sides of an old railroad line near our houses. Or we could pick garbage cans, looking for empty pop bottles, which we then could take to the local Jewel supermarket and trade in for two cents each (a nickel for the quart size). With that found money we would pool our cash and buy gum or candy or popsicles at another small variety shop on 79th Street. It was our favorite place, because it also sold comic books, trading cards, and plastic models of airplanes, cars, ships, and tanks. Or, I suggested, we could dig foxholes and play army in those abandoned lots. Anyway, I snuck the Bulova watch into my pocket to show them my discovery.

Both of my friends were impressed. They said I should keep it. I was torn. I should turn it in to the lifeguard station, I argued. They countered by saying that was stupid. Finders Keepers!

The next day was Sunday, so it was off to the 11:30 a.m. Mass at St. Bride’s. My entire family only went to church on Easter and Christmas, but I was expected to go on my own every Sunday, seeing as I went to Catholic school. Often I would see my friends or other classmates there, so it was not too bad. Father MacNamara’s sermon, however, particularly struck my conscience that day. He talked about how we should always give to the needy, to those who had so very little that they would be grateful for any kind of charity. It was our duty as Christians, he said. I pondered his wise words as the collection basket was poked down the pew rows. I have to be good to get to heaven, of that fact I was utterly convinced and determined.

​There was one person in our neighborhood who I knew needed help. Everyone called him Benny. He was an old man with a cap and a scraggly beard, who seemed to wear the same clothes year-round. Nobody knew where he lived, or even if he had a family. He would appear at irregular times and go up and down the concrete covered alleyways behind our houses, collecting put out bundles of old newspapers or cardboard boxes filled with tin cans or scrap metal, which he took to the nearby junkyard in his wooden wagon, the recyclables to be weighed and sold for a few dollars. Benny was a man of few words, but he would smile if you said hi and he seemed a nice fellow. He never bothered anyone as he went about his habitual task. Some of the neighbors called him a dirty Jew or a “rag sheeny”, but to us kids he was as familiar and as welcome as our reliable mailman, Kelly.

​The following week I saw Benny and decided right away to offer him the Bulova watch for free. I walked up to him. I was a little nervous, but he smiled with kindly eyes as I approached. I cleared my throat and handed him the watch and indicated that it was a gift, and that it was now his. His eyes got wide as he focused on the timepiece. His eyes also got a bit moist as he rolled up his shirt sleeve and slipped the watch on his wrist. I noticed that his wrist had some numbers written on it, which was a surprise to me. He said something, but I couldn’t make out the words. He nodded his thanks a few times, then turned and resumed his work. I was happy with my good deed for the day, as I was taught in my Scout troop. I wanted my gift to be a secret between Benny and me, so I didn’t tell anyone else. It felt good to give to someone in need, and that was plenty for me.

​Another week or so lazily drifted by, for summer vacation always made time crawl pleasantly. Mostly the days were sunny, hot, and humid, but occasionally we got big thunderstorms with wind, thunder and lightning. Even a rare tornado sighting could happen! Hail even fell once from the sky, like ice marbles. I was in the alley alone playing “bounce and fly” catch off our garage door with a rubber handball when I saw Benny in the distance with two policemen. I walked slowly towards the scene to get a little closer and see what was going on. They were putting Benny in handcuffs and loading him into a paddywagon! I got scared and walked back to our garage, then hopped on my bike to race and tell the guys. I found Donnie and Skibbie pitching pennies near the curb at the corner of theirblock. When I told them what I saw, they said that maybe Benny murdered someone. They didn’t seem very concerned, and went back to their game and their conversation about what was the best firecracker brand to blow up. They asked me to hang out with them, but I lied and said I had to run an errand for my mom.

​That night I couldn’t sleep. The image of Benny being loaded into that paddywagon by the two policemen played on and on in my mind. What had he done? Where did they take him? Was he going to be OK?

​Saturday was the day that you could always go to confession from noon until 3:00 p.m. We were told by the nuns at school of stories of sinners who greatly sinned during the week, with the assurance that their souls would be wiped pure and clean again by simply going to confession – only to be run over by a car when they were crossing the street to church. This justice sent their unredeemed soul straight to Hell for all eternity! Needless to say, us kids waited until there were no cars in sight before crossing that deadly street. I needed to seriously talk with Father MacNamara in the confessional.

​After kneeling in the box and listing the usual sins of impure thoughts, using swear words, and telling lies, I artlessly changed gears and told Father about what had happened to Benny. Could he, I pleaded, try to find out from the police what happened? Cops and priests are honest. Father said he would try.​​

​About two weeks later, I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, and I dropped by the church rectory to see Father MacNamara. Did he find out anything? Yes, he said. It seemed that the police thought Benny had stolen an expensive wristwatch, so they took him to the local precinct headquarters for further questioning. According to them, he told a wild story about some boy giving him the watch for free, as a gift. Well, the police shook their heads and took the watch away from him and put it in their lost & found department for the rightful owner to turn up. Because it was late after the questioning, they gave him some supper and then they put him in a holding cell overnight because he didn’t have a home address. The next day, after a simple breakfast, the police took Benny back to his wagon, told him to stay out of trouble, and that was that.

​I was in a state of shock and numb all over while listening to Father’s story. Was I to blame for all of this? I was sickeningly afraid, and I quickly decided not to mention to Father about my giving Benny the watch. I vowed to apologize to Benny the next time I saw him. How terrible to be innocent and be put in handcuffs and to be wrongly thought a criminal, and to have to be put in jail, even for one night!

​By now, July had turned to August – my favorite month because my birthday would be coming up in a few weeks. But it was also a bittersweet month because soon the lazy freedom of summer vacation would be over and it would be time to head back to school. I kept a watchful eye out for Benny every day, but he never seemed to be around. I asked my friends if they saw him, and they said no. I was getting worried.

​Even though it is now some fifty years later, I remember the date clearly, as if it was only yesterday: August 10, 1961. My dad was smoking a Chesterfield and reading the Chicago Tribune after breakfast in our tiny kitchen. My sisters were playing dolls in their bedroom, while my mom was washing the dishes. The newspaper front page said something about a big wall being built in the middle of some city in Europe, and that President Kennedy was mad. But it was the small story at the bottom of the page that caught my attention. It was only a short paragraph. The headline was: Homeless Man Found Drowned. It seemed that an unidentified elderly man had drowned off the south breakwater pier at Rainbow Beach. Evidence pointed to the death being a possible suicide. His only identifiable body marking was German concentration camp numbers tattooed on his wrist. The article ended by asking that anyone with information about this person should contact their local police authority…

​     The End

​by Jack Karolewski