Money Isn't Everything But It Does Help

He sat on the wooden stoop eating his jam sandwich.

Opening up the two pieces of bread he inspected the inside, sighed loudly and put them back together again.

“I can’t eat another jam sandwich” He said aloud “I might splurge this week and buy some ham!”.

John opened up his thermos and drank a gulp of tea. It warmed him. And then he looked around at the hall he had been cleaning. The jarrah floor boards were now free from dirt, grease, beer and anything else that had been slopped on it since last week when he cleaned it.

“Oh well it’s a job I suppose” he said out loud thinking of the family who relied on him.

His twins were born just twelve months after the first baby – quite a shock really and four months after their birth his wife was diagnosed with cancer.

Their world went spinning out of control – nothing seemed normal any more, emotions ran riot, time ran away and money ran out. It was hard, but when you are all of a sudden not only the bread winner, but the carer and rock for everyone around you, the only thing you can do is ‘get on with it’.

They did get through it, tireder, poorer, and after what seemed like forever; but with a cancer free wife and mother. The down side was that Jenny had gone from one medical episode to another. Two weeks after having her final chemo session she tripped over a loose brick in the garden and broke her ankle and fractured her arm. The specialist said that she now had quite weak bones after all of the chemo.

Neither John nor Jenny had family close by. Jenny’s father was a widower and lived overseas and she was an only child. John had been fostered as a child. His foster parents would come and visit but they were quite old and weren’t much help when it came to chasing children or helping. So it was just themselves.

There were some nice neighbours and on occasion there was a meal made for them but it wasn’t an area where many people were flush with money – it was referred to as the ‘poorer side of town’…

Unfortunately though with just the one income, a substantial mortgage, and medical expenses that seemed to multiply on the kitchen bench while they all slept at night, John had to take on an extra job.

His day job was working in the bank in town. He had been there since he left school and worked his way up from ‘tea maker and general dogsbody’ to the manager of the branch. The pay wasn’t very good even with the title ‘Manager’ but he just counted himself lucky that with all the ‘cutbacks’ happening everywhere he had managed to avoid getting the ‘Dear John’ letter!

So when he saw the ad in the community paper for someone to clean the local hall every Saturday and Sunday he applied - it was mornings or later in the day depending on if it had been a day or evening event. He spoke to the hall manager and got the job. And after his first week, he knew why no one else wanted it! It was hard work….

John got told at the meeting in the hall what was expected of him and the rate of pay. He thought it sounded alright and the pay was cash in hand – always a bonus.

But his first Saturday, being after a twenty first birthday party the night before, made him realise what he was in for!

Before he had even used the key to open the door into the hall, he could smell the stale alcohol!

He walked in and looked around, dismayed. The floor had gone from the shiny clean wooden floor he first saw to a scuffed, dirty and very sticky area.

He thought he would have to vacuum the floorboards and then polish them, but didn’t account for all the alcohol and food that had been spilt across the whole area and that it needed to be washed first!

He continued on his rounds to see what else had to be done – the kitchen area wasn’t too bad, no dishes as they had obviously warmed up pies and sausage rolls and used paper plates, which he noticed overflowing out of the bin!

“I’ll check the toilets before I begin” he said aloud and pushed open the door.

“Oh yuk!” he yelled as the smell and sight of the regurgitated pies hit him!  He quickly got out of there and into some fresh air. He never had been good with that sort of thing and even when his wife had suffered from morning sickness during her pregnancies, and the sickness from cancer treatment he had cleaned that up out of love but this……

He walked around outside for a few minutes, took a breath and went back to tackle it!

So here he was months later cleaning the hall, still with a big fat mortgage, bills to pay and children who needed more money spent on them the older they got.

He knew now a lot more than when he started his extra job…it’s usually only extremely dirty to clean after a twenty first or eighteenth birthday party. Wedding anniversaries and family functions are the easiest and he can clean them in half the time he gets paid for!

John usually took about three hours to clean the hall floor and all that went with it, but tonight he got paid for an extra hour to clean the stove top thoroughly. And he always sat after finishing, in the peace and quiet, because he knew that there would always be at least one noisy interruption during the night!

He screwed the lid on his thermos and went in to lock the back door before turning off all the lights and locking the main door behind him.

On his way home he had the radio on in his car and the guest speaker was someone from the Real Estate Institute talking about investment properties. Someone had rung in to ask the ‘guru of real estate’ if they thought he should buy a third property or put his money into something else.

John sighed and rubbed his tired eyes….’I wish I was stinking rich’ he thought to himself ‘I really do’.

A couple of months down the track John had an accident on his bike – it was on his way to work – maybe if the bike had of actually been roadworthy he might have fared better (or rather the rust bucket might of!) It wasn’t his fault entirely but as he was partially to blame he couldn’t expect to claim any money from the driver of the car involved, so knew he would have to find the money to buy himself a new bike. It was too old and damaged to fix up. He sat on a small wall with his mangled bike and cracked helmet thinking about where the money was going to come from, and waiting for his wife to pick him up in the car.

John had never been what you would call a pessimist – on the contrary he was quite optimistic about most things….I mean he could get disillusioned like all of us when problems piled up, but as he sat on the cold bricks, slightly bruised and very tired, he felt a little down in the dumps!

‘What have I done to deserve this’ he thought to himself ‘goodness knows I work hard enough as it is to pay for everything. Now it’s a new bike, a screen for my phone, bike helmet and I have a big hole in my work pants!’ He looked around at some of the fancy cars going down the road and realised that they could never afford a second car let alone a modern one.

His wife pulled up in their old van, children looking out of the windows at dad, the older one wondering why he was sitting on the side of the road.

“Oh John I was so worried when you said you’d had an accident. Are you Ok?” Should I take you for a check-up?” And she rushed up to give him a hug.

“No love, I’m fine, just a few scratches and bruises, but look at the bike!”

“Yes I see it” his wife said quietly, thinking of how much a new bike would cost. “Never mind that now. Put it in the back of the car and I’ll take you home”.

“Oh sorry love I’ve got to go into work – there’s a meeting I can’t miss. I’ll have to go straight into it – ripped pants ‘an all! I’ll give you a buzz after it and you can pick me up if that’s ok?”

John did enjoy going into the bank. The staff were easy to get along with and there was always some banter going on. He felt like he was a part of the furniture – and felt as old as some of it too!

Of course all of the original staff had gone but some of them had been in the bank for over ten years – John was the longest serving staff member by far.

With most businesses at the moment it was difficult even for banks but his team were all hard workers and put a lot of effort in. He had heard that the new General Manager was quite a tyrant for getting as much as he could out of as few staff members as possible. He hadn’t met him yet but apparently he was coming in on Monday to make a few announcements.

John was worried by the sound of it!

On Friday night there was a twenty first birthday being held in the hall.  “It should be left in a civilised condition though John – it was for the daughter of the Mayor and apparently quite a few dignitaries came along” the hall manager said.

 He sighed when he was told he would have to clean tomorrow – he was still stiff and sore from coming off his bike and really couldn’t be bothered cleaning the hall at all and to be honest. In his experience, it didn’t matter who hired the hall, when people had a few drinks, they all acted the same!

He knew he had to go to clean the hall so he trudged off  with foreboding in his bones!

And true to form, the aftermath of the celebration was big (Mayor’s daughter or not!) It was stinky, sticky and today, bloody annoying!)

Obviously nobody thought to take the balloons down or pick up any of the streamers that lay all over the wooden floor. At least he would make the children happy when they woke in the morning  to find helium balloons hanging from the ceiling at home.

John could clean the hall in quick time now so immediately began to pick up all the rubbish he found on the floor. The smell of stale beer was strong and sour – he was used to it now though after all this time and his stomach no longer lurched up to his throat with the distinct variety of odours that came from the main hall and the bathroom.

One good thing was that the kitchen was in reasonable condition as the party had obviously been catered for so not much of the equipment had been used. ‘That is what you call a bonus’ he thought to himself.

As he sat drinking his tea out of the thermos before tackling the bathrooms he couldn’t help but come back to the thought that on Monday he could well be told ‘See you later John’….no one was safe in this economic climate. “What will I do if I can’t get another job quickly?” he said as if talking to another person. But of course there was no answer forthcoming.

He hadn’t told his wife about Monday’s meeting, and only because he didn’t want to worry her. She had enough on her plate and still had days when all she could do was the basic jobs at home and then need a lie down!

His break finished, John got on to the bathrooms cleaning. The quicker he finished the quicker he got home – always his incentive.

‘I will never know why people can’t put paper towels in the bins provided and not toss them on the floor. He gathered them all up and threw them in the far bin ‘basketball style’ – “A three pointer” he yelled! And walked over to take the bin out and empty it in the skip outside. As he walked past one of the toilets that had the door open, he noticed a brown paper bag wedged behind the toilet cistern. He was a bit tentative to pull it out as people who had been drinking or worse, did some gross stuff.

It was quite thick and took a bit of muscle to pull it free. He almost fell backwards with the final tug and steadied himself on the door. Wondering what he was going to find inside the package he unrolled the top of it and peered inside… “What the…” was all he could say, so surprised at what it was. For some reason he looked around but of course there was no one else there.

John felt nervous with his discovery, a bit excited too. He shoved the package inside his shirt and went outside with the bins, not being able to get the picture of what he found out of his mind.

When he finally locked the hall door, got the errant balloons shut securely in the back seat of his car and locked his doors he drove down the road to the main street and parked in one of the bays along the side.

Reaching inside his shirt he pulled out the paper package and put it on his knee, and putting on an interior light he tipped the contents on to his lap and began counting the hundred dollar notes.

John got to a figure he had only ever dreamt of holding in his hands (that didn’t belong to the bank) and quickly shoved it all back into the bag.

“What shall I do with it?” he said out loud “I don’t think I’ll say I found it - I’ll just wait for someone to ask if I did……yes that’s what I’ll do. I won’t even tell Jenny because I know what she would say straight away”. John could hear the voice of his wife in his head telling him that it wasn’t his money and he needed to ring up the manager of the hall immediately.

His mind was whizzing with thoughts ‘I could pay off the mortgage, buy a new bike with all the latest trimmings, a fancy helmet, a trampoline for the children, air-conditioning, a dishwasher…..we could even add on a room….. I’d better not get ahead of myself, after all someone might have rung the manager by now – but there’s such a lot of money – I wonder if those stories about the Mayor and dodgy dealings are true!’

He wasn’t sure where to put his ‘find’ so he locked it in his tool box that he kept in his bedroom because they didn’t have a shed. Jenny was sound asleep when he got home and didn’t even stir with the ‘click’ of the tool box lock.

He couldn’t sleep and got up twice in the night to make sure the tool box was still in the wardrobe.

“Why do you keep asking if Paul has rung you?” John’s wife asked as he yet again enquired if the manager of the hall had been in touch. “Was it wrecked or alright?”

“No it was the same as usual but I wasn’t sure if there was something on today and it would need cleaned tonight again, that’s all”.

John felt as if he had done something wrong, and he hadn’t… yet. He had some money, well more money than he had seem in one spot – (except as he thought previously –in the bank), in his wardrobe and it didn’t belong to him but he hadn’t spent any of it yet. ‘I might not spend ANY of it’ he though, but that all depends on what I’m told on Monday I guess’…

Watching his children playing excitedly with the pink and white helium balloons he thought how it had been a good evening last night.

Monday arrived, and John who had been keeping secrets all weekend, felt slightly nervous in his stomach. No one had rung up about the money which could mean it was from ‘dodgy dealings’ and this made him very uneasy about spending any of it……but he had to see what the meeting was about.

The General Manager of the bank was a tall heavy set man. The ‘team’ were seated at the round table and Mr Graham sat at the head of the table. The room was quiet except for the jangling of nerves!

“Good morning everyone” he began, smiling. “Now I know from personal experience that when there is word the GM is coming for a visit, it’s all doom and gloom, but not today. I’m here to tell you all that because of the profit we have made this financial year you that you will all be getting a bonus”.

Of course that was great news for everyone and even better for John when taken aside by Mr. Graham after the group meeting to be told that he would finally be getting a pay rise.

John was so relieved.

He thought about the money he found.

No one from the ‘hall’ had missed it, so he would take it to the police….if no one claimed it in three months it was his! ‘If not’ he thought ‘we don’t really need it now’.