Ninety Days, Then It's Yours!

NINETY DAYS, THEN IT’S YOURS!

I could hear the music thumping through the walls of my office. I looked at my watch. Right on time — eleven fifty-four. The contract said the show needed to end before midnight.  

“WE’RE DONE! NO ENCORES! GO HOME!” screamed the amplified voice of the lead singer.

Then a chorus of boos, and “You suck!” and “We hate you!”

You had to love punk bands. It’s like they hated their fans, almost as much as their fans hated them right back.

I looked at the monitor, and I could see the house lights come on. Yup, the concert was over. I walked into the break room where my crew of seventy waited. The stadium should be empty in about half and hour, maybe an hour later for the band and roadies, but we could start cleaning from the top. We always start with the sweepers and blowers, then the final wash. Cleaning up after sixty thousand fans is always a big job. And I was the person in charge, making sure it was all done properly.

“‘Evening, everyone. Tonight’s concert was a punk band, so it shouldn’t be as messy as a ball game— ”

A small cheer went up through the group.

I smiled, and continued. “Hardly any food, so no ketchup covered popcorn, and no sunflower seeds!”

“YAY!”

Sunflower seeds were the worst — they stuck to everything, were hard to sweep up, and made the stairs slippery as hell when mixed with liquids, like, say spilled beer.

“But,” I said, and the group calmed down, “There’s probably more used drug paraphernalia than with a ball game. Make sure that you use your broom to sweep everything into your bags. But if you need to pick something up, use your Kevlar gloves. No needle sticks tonight.”

The group nodded. They knew that Omar, one of the cleaners, had a needle stick and had to undergo months of antibiotics and repeat testing for HIV, Hep B, and Hep C. His blood work came back negative every time, and the doctors assured him he wasn’t infected, but it was a cautionary tale for all the other workers. No body wants to go through that.  

“And,” I said, looking at them intently, my eyes roving over my crew, “I don’t need to remind you about lost and found policy. If you find free-range cash, it’s yours. There is no way to determine who belongs to it. Losers weepers, finders keepers, sweepers. But — and this is an important but — if you find a wallet, you cannot have the cash in it. You have to turn it in to me, intact. I will document it, and if no one claims it after ninety days, it’s yours. But that’s probably not going to happen because there’s going to be ID in the wallet, so don’t get your hopes up. Same for phones, ear buds, jewelry, clothes, sunglasses — anything that can be identified has to be handed in to me. I will write it up, and give you the receipt. If it is claimed, I will let you know. And if, after ninety days have passed, it’s yours.” I turned to Sven, all six foot seven, three hundred pounds of him. “Ain’t that right, Sven? You got to keep that pair of Louboutin shoes, size five, if I remember correctly?”

“Right you are!” said Sven. “And since I do not wear a ladies’s size five—” There was laughter in the group. Sven wore men’s size fifteen. “—I was able to sell them for five hundred bucks on e-bay.”

“Yeah,” said Mark, “I couldn’t get a buyer for the ripped poncho I found in the fall, but my dogs love to sleep on it.”

“I love my air buds!” chirped Rene, pointing to the white buds in her ears. She’d found them about a year ago, and no one had come to claim them, so they were hers.

Every employee in the room had stories about stuff that had been returned to them after the ninety day hold had expired. Lots of clothes, and a surprising number shoes — pairs of shoes. Not just the singletons that they were going to find in the mosh pit tonight, but matching pairs.. Who comes to the stadium with shoes, and leaves without them? Angelina got a great pair of snake skin boots that fit her father perfectly.

But not handed in for the ninety day hold were the large variety of undergarments. Those, without exception were swept into the garbage bags. Nobody wanted someone’s used underwear. Gross.

Along with cash, the group found other stuff they could keep. Like transit passes. Or actual subway tokens — at least until the system went electronic. If the cleaner was lucky they could ride free most days depending on how observant they were when cleaning. There were always packs of smokes and lighters galore. 

And a fair amount of drugs, in particular weed. Policy was that it was supposed to be handed in to me, and I would contact the police, and they would be in charge of disposal. But it was legal now, and we worked with a don’t ask, don’t tell, policy, at least with weed. I knew that there was a barter system between the employees, but I didn’t want to know about it. If Andre swapped some smokes for some weed, well, that was his business. It was hard enough to get people who wanted to do this job. A little discretion on my part went a long way. 

But, I did draw the line at hard drugs, and more than a few of my employees turned in pills and glassine packages when they found them. And, I am not naive enough to know that not all hard drugs were handed in. It was just a case of noting who, over time, handed in the drugs and who didn’t. If someone never found any drugs, then I had to suspect they were keeping what they found.  And if I found out that was the case, then you were fired. Ask Kendall. It was only last week when I caught her with some ecstasy and meth. She tried to tell me she was just holding it till the end of the night, and then was going to hand it in to me, but the fact that I caught her as she was leaving for the night put the kibosh on her story.

It was almost time for the groups to head out and start the Herculean task of cleaning up after sixty thousand people. I handed out the sections to each of the teams, and gave the group leader a walkie-talkie. My job tonight was to make sure that everyone did their jobs and cleaned the stadium, as well as checking to make sure that all of tonight’s attendees had left the building. A couple of years ago I stumbled across a small storage closet that no one was supposed to be using, but someone had set up a bed with a small television, a rug, a hot plate. It took me about a week before I found out who called the storage closet home. It was a former security guard who’d lost his job because of the pandemic, and then lost his apartment. He said he used to hide out in the closet on the night shift when he was working, and decided to move in when his life went south. I gave him three days to move out before I called security. He moved, and took all of his belongings. I told management about the room, and they had new locks installed. I still make a habit of checking that room every night.  

“Okay, if you need to find me to hand in something to lost and found, I’m on the upper level. I’ll be clearing the luxury boxes and the washrooms. Then I’ll be on the three hundred level. You all have my phone number. Call me if you need me.”

And with that, they headed out. I grabbed my oversized duffel that I used to keep the lost and found items in, my clipboard, lost and found receipts and log, and my iPad with the schedule. I started the trek up to the top the stadium, to the five hundred level.  

I hadn’t even gotten to the third level when my phone went off. It was Dory.

“Hey,” she said. “I, uh, found some teeth.”

“Come again, Dory. It sounded like you said you found some teeth.”

“Yeah. I did.”

I paused. “So, like lose teeth, or like a denture?”

“Denture. A full set of dentures, uppers and lowers. Should I hand them in?”

“Yup,” I said. “Someone’s gonna notice them missing when they wake up in the morning.”

I told her where to meet me, and she handed over the dentures. I noticed that she was wearing gloves. I did not blame her. I put on a pair myself, put the teeth in a plastic bag with the receipt. I tried to hand the other half of the receipt to Dory, but she declined.

“Eww! No! Yuck! What the hell am I going to do with someone else’s teeth. Eww! If no one claims them, you can have them. Gross.”

I smiled. “No, that’s okay,” I said and stowed the teeth in the duffel.

As I made my way up to the top, a number of lost and found items were handed in. A very nice hand tooled leather belt that would have fit Sven, but was found by Eloise, who could have wrapped it around her body twice, and still had extra. A bunch of shirts and tee shirts, some with the band’s name on them from the mosh pit. Quite a few were vintage tees, and could be valuable to a collector. There were a number of wallets, especially, again, from the mosh pit area, along with over forty single shoes. I told everyone to just pile the shoes up in the break room, with their name on a piece of paper, stuck in the shoe. There were lots of dropped ear bud cases with the buds intact. Hats, sweaters, jackets. And, pants. Much like the shoes — who doesn’t notice that they aren’t wearing any pants when they leave the show?  

When I reached the top and started my sweep of the hospitality suites, I radioed the team leaders to ask everyone to hold their treasures, and I would log them during break.

I started with the suites. For wealthy people, I found that they could be a little … what? … careless with how they left the suite. It wasn’t gross. No one peed on the floor because they couldn’t wait, but they did have a tendency to drop stuff and not pick it up. There were lots of half finished bottles of liquor, so— I checked my clip board — Gene and is team were going to be happy. Heavy on the hard liquor— Jägermiester and Jack Daniels, with beer and wine. Whomever cleaned the suites usually shared with the rest of the crew — there were lots to go around — but they got first dibs on the loot. Drinking wasn’t allowed at work, so it had to wait until after shift. I quickly cleared the suites on the five hundred level, and moved down to the suites on the three hundred level. Same deal — lots of booze and food left over, but no one sleeping it off in the washroom. A good night.  

I was walking around the three hundred level when I heard something. I stopped and listened. I had, on more than one occasion, happened upon a couple of workers — how can I say this — enjoying each other’s company. But this was different. I was supposed to be the only one on this level. Gene and his team were still up in the five hundreds, and most of the other teams were in the stadium proper, sweeping and blowing all the detritus from this evening’s event down to field level.  

I heard it again. It sounded like mewling. Almost like a kitten. I wouldn’t be the first animal we’d found. You’d be surprised at the number of dogs that are left by their owners. My first question is always how did they get the animals in, through security in the first place. Who doesn’t notice a dog? The majority are small, purse pooches. But we did find a black lab tied to one of the urinals on the two hundred level. Japser — that was the dog’s name — was a service dog, and his owner had tied him up, had too much beer, and forgot him. The guy was back in less than an hour looking for Jasper, apologizing over and over. Not to us, but to Jasper. I’m pretty sure that good boy got lots of treats that night.  

But we’d never found a cat.

I listened again. Silence — well as silent as a crew of seventy can be when cleaning a sixty thousand seat auditorium. Then I heard it again. It seemed to be coming from behind one of the kiosks that sell beer. I moved towards the sound.

“Hello,” I said. If it was a cat or a kitten, I didn’t want to startle it.

“Help!” came the very weak reply.

What the—

“Please, help me.”

I walked behind the concession stand tentatively. Cats don’t talk.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Here” came the reply.

I had my finger on the SOS button we all had on our radios, you know, just in case. It was dark back there, I and pulled out my mini mag light, and shone it around. There huddled in the corner was a woman. She was holding something small, wrapped up in maybe the her shirt, as she didn’t have one on. And surrounding her was a lot of blood and goo. I knew what I was looking at.

“My baby …” she said weakly.

I took out my phone, immediately called nine-one-one, gave my name and location. The operator asked me what my emergency was.

“Hold on,” I said, turning to the woman. “What happened?”

“I had a baby. I didn’t even know I was pregnant,” was the woman’s reply.

“Okay, I said back into the phone, “She seems to have given birth.

“Is the baby alive?” asked the operator.

Just before I was going to ask, there came that mewling agin.

“Yes.”

“Okay, you’re going to have to check the baby to make sure it’s breathing, and there is no mucus in its mouth.”

I put the phone on speaker, and bent down.

“Hi there, I said, trying to sound confident. “I’m Marsha. What’s your name?”

“Billy Jean” 

She looked scared, and worried, and in pain.

“It’s going to be okay, Billy Jean. Help is on the way. Can I see the baby?”

She moved her shirt off of the baby who was lying on her chest. The baby was covered in amniotic fluid goo, and blood, but looked okay. I ran my fingers gently down the side of the baby’s nose, to make sure there was no mucus in the nostrils, and gently swirled my baby finger in the baby’s mouth to make sure there was no blockage. This was not my first rodeo. I’m the mother of five.

I spoke to the phone. “The baby seems fine. What next?”

“Is the umbilical cord attached?”

I looked at Billy Jean, who nodded.

“Yes, “ I said.

“Okay, paramedics will be there in a couple of minutes. Place the baby on Mom’s chest, and make sure it is warm.”

I gently took the baby, and before swaddling, had a look.

“You have a beautiful baby girl,” I said to the new mom.

Billy Jean just continued to look shell-shocked.

“Can you take the phone off of speaker, please,” asked the operator.

I did as asked, and she said to me. “Is the mother bleeding. Some discharge and the ejection of the placenta is normal. What I’m asking you to look for is excessive blood, a dark red colour.

I looked around where Billy Jean was laying. It was gross, for sure, but there didn’t seem to be any excess blood. I relayed that to the operator.

“Good,” she said, “And paramedics are on site, and coming to you.”

Just then I heard a ruckus.

“I’m back here!” I yelled.

Two paramedics, and about half the crew crowed around. I stepped back and watched as they loaded Billy Jean and her baby girl onto the stretcher. I walked with them to the elevator.

“Thank you,” she said as they wheeled her into the elevator.

“I”m glad I found you both,” I said as the doors shut.

I turned around to the crowd that had followed us to the elevators.

“Well, that was different,” I said. “I’m sure not claiming those two after ninety days.”

We all went back to work.