Finders Keepers

Cathryn Farr

1

Finders Keepers

The air sticks to my face and a drop of it skims down my neck adding to my dirt necklace. The pavement has reached an unbearable temperature and my bare feet are stinging, so I hurry to the closest clump of grass growing from the cracks. My house is just across the enormous parking lot and I make a run for it on tip-toes. “Hot-hot-hot-hot...”. A glimmer catches my eye, “Is that a quarter?” I swerve in my route to scoop it up as I pass. I’ll have to endure more steps on what I call ‘hot lava’, but a quarter is worth it. Now I can buy a whole fist full of candies and a Coke. “Ow-ow-ow-ow...” I catch it at a run like a ground ball in my mitt and bolt to the grass line. Opening my hand, I study the coin, “L-I-B-E-R-T-Y, bald man’s head, 1977.” I flip it into the air, like I’ve watched my brother do, and it lands in my palm – tails. “An eagle, O-N-E D-O-L-L-A-R.” My throat gets a knot. “I’ve found a silver dollar? This is my lucky day!”

Ten-year-old me skips the rest of the way home clutching the coin in my fist, not at all aware of the singed calluses carrying me there. I burst in the backdoor and head for the icebox. No ice; guess I’ll have tap water. As I drink, I ogle my treasure front and back, dragging my fingernail along the ridges around the edge. Then there’s clicks of canine nails on the harvest gold linoleum and Taffy bounds toward me as if she knows there’s something to celebrate. I set my water glass and silver dollar on the counter to ruffle her head and share my good fate. Cross-legged on the floor, I tell her how lucky I am as her tail rhythmically knocks against the cupboard door, her compact body wriggling with my excitement. “Let’s go play!” I jump up and we run outside to find her ball.

My brother’s light blue Dodge Charger pulls up into the driveway. As he walks toward the back door, Taffy’s ball rolls up to his feet. “Hi Wayne!” I shout, “Pitch it to me please!” He chucks the ball into the neighbor’s yard and my eyes follow it over the fence.

“You butthole!” I glower.

I plod across our backyard and climb the chain link while Taffy waits. On the way back over, my foot slips, my shorts catch on the top barbs and I rip a hole in them.

“Great, now I’m gonna get it. I’m done playing, Taffy, let’s go inside.”

I open the door and feel the welcomed coolness of indoor air. Montgomery Alabama swelters in August. The butthole is sitting at the table drinking Kool-Aid with ice. I fetch my glass from the counter so I can pour me some Kool-Aid and that’s when I notice my silver dollar is gone.

“Where’d my silver dollar go?”

Wayne gets up from the table and starts to leave.

“Wait, you took my dollar! Give it back!”

I yank the back of his shirt and he turns his sweaty, determined face to me. His eyes sparkle, his mouth stretches to a wide toothy grin, “Finders keepers, losers suck!”

“No! Give it back! It’s mine!” I scream in a panic. He holds out his hand with my treasure, and I lunge to grab it from him as he re-coils and runs full speed down the hall to his room. I follow just behind his mocking scream. He reaches his door, sticks out his tongue at me, and just as I get there, he slams the door and locks it tight.

As I’m crying and pounding on the door, I hear him prophesy, “You’ll always be a loser.”

Smearing a day’s worth of dirt, sweat, and tears on my shirt, I return to the kitchen. I remember the ice-cold Kool-Aid. I figure he had hidden it in the fridge behind the pickle jar. I lift the avocado-colored pitcher to pour, and it is empty.

***

Knock-knock-knock.

Taffy sounds the alarm and runs to the door. There are two big boys standing on our porch wearing suits and smiles.

“We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ, and we have a message to share.”

“You look like my brother; I’ve had enough of brothers.” I squeeze past them as Mother opens the squeaky screen door. Taffy races me across the threshold, her nose on the trail of something, so I follow. Just ahead of her I see two, ten-speed bicycles lying on the lawn. “Finders keepers...”

I lift the first bike by the handlebars; the seat comes to my chin. “Dang.” I set it back down. A car is coming up the road so I quickly straighten up and pretend, “I’m just minding my own business. See? I’m just walking to the mailbox.” When the coast is clear, I head to the second bike chanting, “Please make it short–Please make it short–Please make it short...” Lifting the bike, the seat rises and rises until it stops at the height of my armpits. “I can work with this!”

Now I need something to stand on. The only thing tall enough is my brother’s car, so I push the ten-speed alongside the back bumper of the Charger. “If I can just edge around the bike, and get my foot up...” My bare foot sticks to the bumper but my angle is wrong and the bike pulls away and crashes onto the driveway. At the clatter, Taffy and I run and hide. But nobody comes. “What are we gonna do now?” Taffy responds with a lick. “Well, I better work on this over the grass then.” As I wheel the bike to the backyard I notice the fall has scuffed the seat, “Crap, now I’m really gonna get it. I’m such a loser.”

Distracted from fate by a bucket, I regain my plan. Balancing over bike and bucket, I push off and mount the bike like it was a horse. Just then, those boys come round the corner of the house in their suits and smiles. As the bike and I careen toward them, I realize I don’t know how I’m going to get off. “Hold on–I’ve got ya!” The short one catches the handlebars and steadies the bike,

“That was a real good ride, Cathy.”

I hop off the too-tall seat and with a scowl demand,

“How’d you know my name?”

“It’s on the back of your jersey.”

“Oh.”

My hackles begin to relax.

“What’s your dog’s name?”

Taffy has already taken a liking, so I tell them.

“What are you doing here? Nobody ever visits us.” I say.

“We have a message about Jesus Christ. Do you know who that is?”

“Yeah, we go to Our Redeemer; I go to Bible school.”

“That’s good. So, you play softball, huh? What position?”

“I play 2nd base and I’m learning to pitch – wanna play catch with me? I only have one mitt.” “Sure, we don’t need mitts.”

“Wow, this might be a lucky day after all!”

Those guys toss the ball with me for a long time and I muster the courage to ask a very important question. One I think will predict the rest of my life.

But then they have to go.

“We’ll be back on Friday and play again, okay?”

“And I’ll teach you how to ride my bike.” The short one offered.

“Thank you!” my smile fades, “Um...I’m sorry I dropped your bike... and scuffed-up your seat.”

“You didn’t do that; I did it, yesterday.”

***

“Mother?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s fate?”

“It... er... it’s what decides what your life will be.” “So... somebody just decides what it’ll be?” “Somebody or something does.”

“Oh.”

“Well, yesterday, butthole Wayne told me that...”

“Alright – enough of the name-calling! Go fetch the soap so I can wash your dirty mouth out!”

***

“It’s Friday the 13th. You know what that means?”

“Every kid in the 5th grade knows that.”

“My momma says we’re not going to the lake; I’ll drown for sure.”

“When I poured milk in my cereal this morning before school, it spoiled as it left the carton!” “My cousin died on Friday the 13th.”

“What happens if you break a mirror while walking under a ladder with a black cat on Friday the 13th?”

“The broken mirror breaks the bad luck of the ladder and the bad luck of the ladder undoes the black cat curse but since it’s on Friday the 13th then you’re still a loser.”

“You’re a loser every day.”

“NO – You’re a loser!”

“Yo' momma’s a loser!”

***

“Yes, I would rather smell like a horse!”

“You’re worthless, get in there and shower anyway!”

“Ahh-man, it’s gonna ruin my dirt necklace!”

I pretend my hair is a mane and I’m scrubbing it for a horse show like I have read about in my Horse & Rider magazine. Shampoo always stings my eyes. I rinse and rinse then open my eyes to the horror of a two-inch long cockroach dangling from the ceiling of the shower just above my head. I gasp and move just as it drops into the tub, its six spiny legs articulating, trying to get to me and climb up my naked leg. I stand shivering long after it is sucked down the drain. Friday the 13th is my unlucky day.

Knock-knock-knock.

I hear talking in the entry way and quickly get dressed.

The talking includes the sardonic tones of my father so I approach with caution, then figure I’d better go outside. Taffy agrees with me.

There’s a length of twine at the back door and so naturally, Taffy becomes my horse. I sit in the un-mown grass and call her to me. She lays on my lap as I fashion the twine around her head and over her muzzle like a bridle. Her tongue writhes against the twine I have fitted into her mouth to be the bit. It looks good. I lament she is too small to ride. Finally, she has had enough, she lowers her head, pulls back from me, and paws at the twine, shaking the bridle off. Taffy is free.

The front door slams. The sound bounces around the neighborhood. Taffy heads to the front yard so I follow. The boys in suits are picking their bikes up off the lawn. Their smiles are gone.

“Hey!”

“How are you, Cathy?”

“It’s Friday the 13th ya know. Bad luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck.” The short one says.

“Why not?”

“Because I have agency.”

“What’s that?”

“Agency means making our own choices. God gave each of us the ability to choose.” I took a deep breath, it was time to ask my question.

“Can I choose who decides my fate?”

“Yes — because you decide your fate.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“Then... that means, I’m free! I’m not a loser.”

“You are definitely not a loser, Cathy.” Says the tall one.

I look back at my house. At the heavy curtains on the windows.

“But I can’t even choose what I eat for dinner. Tonight we had liver and onions and I had to eat it all or sit there ‘til the cows come home. Do you know when the cows come home?”

Smiles return to the suits.