Stolen

“Stolen”

Snow gave under foot as I made my way toward the yellow beast, the only sound the crunch of boots perforating the icy layer. I took an unsatisfying pull from my coffee, now cold. It’s going to be a long day, I thought, climbing into the cage. Turning the key, I sat back to survey the area for a few moments while the engine sputtered to life. The beginning of sunlight threw glimmers across the terrain below and I hoped it would warm the frigid air.

I hated my job but loved this time of day. No one else around, these solitary moments before starting the day’s labors offered time to think. Suzanne was right, we weren’t going to make it. “You’re too emotionally distant!” she’d cried. It was true. I couldn’t love her the way she hoped. I wanted to leave, but I wanted to stay. I didn’t know what to do. “If there’s a God up there this morning, give me guidance.” I closed my eyes, took a long cleansing breath, and sighed.

The morning unfolded like any other; after defogging the windows and checking controls, I began moving the earth. Digger Dave, that’s what they call me. I drive a bulldozer for the county, rolling over hills from project to project, operating minis, straight blades, power-tilts, you name it. I’ve moved rocks, dirt and all manner of debris to make way for bridges, roads, housing, shopping centers. I’ve seen parts of this land from angles that most people can’t imagine.

One of the only cool things about my job is the possibility of unearthing artifacts and collectibles. I spend a lot of time alone in my cab, hypnotized by the repeat back and forth motion, fantasizing about ancient ruins and fossil remains. On a hot summer day three years back, I discovered half of a human skull, which helped to solve a decades-old missing person case. I’ve got a room in my basement with vintage bottles and glassware, car parts, and a host of other treasures long discarded and buried in muck, later to be exhumed by me. Most of what I find is just junk.

The right front tire stopped suddenly and the crawler jerked to a halt. Probably hit a tree root, I thought. The demo team must have missed something. Their job was clearing large obstructions around the site so I could get in. I started a signal but couldn’t see any orange vests nearby. I figured I was still on my own that morning, so I zipped up my jacket and jumped out of the cab to check.

I could just make out the corner of a rusted metal box lodged under my wheel. I tried kicking it with my boot, but it was frozen tight. We’d had a rough winter and the ground was hard, so I grabbed my pick from inside the cab and set out prying the box loose. Still no coworkers in sight, I hopped back in the cab to warm my hands and take a closer look at the find. Imagine my surprise to observe four rubber-banded stacks of bills; a bit weathered on the edges, but in pretty fair shape.

I’m not sure how much time passed, but my bitter hands shook as my mind wondered. How much? I remembered reading somewhere how bank money was bundled, and I figured this little jackpot was worth somewhere between four and five hundred grand. I rubbed my fingers against one of the packets to see if it was marked. No dye. Whether these were bank funds or dirty money, I’d need to use caution. I spied the landscape again for signs of life. By now the sun was up and I could easily tell if someone was nearby.

The rest of that day went by in a blurred mix of fantasy and reality. I shoved the box up under the seat and carefully completed my shift. I didn’t speak to anyone. I ate lunch alone. I stayed a little past quitting time before heading home, so as not to draw attention. I wanted everything to look normal and mundane as possible, so no one would suspect my prize.

When I got home, Suzanne was at her yoga class, so I figured I had some time. I’d spent the better part of that afternoon formulating my plan. A man could do a lot of things with nearly half a million dollars, and this man could really organize his mess of a life in a whole new way. Somehow, the heft of all this cash in my hands and its endless promises rolling around in my head made what was once “us” insignificant. It was over and I knew it. I hunted around in the garage, found a couple of suitcases, threw in the bulk of my clothes and a few treasured possessions. Then I patted the cat and said goodbye. Scrawling a quick “I’m Sorry” on a dry erase board in the kitchen, I walked out of my life.

I drove my beat up pickup to the airport and left it in a far corner of the lot, tossing the keys in a nearby trash bin. I wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

Four months later, I’d created a pretty nice set-up for myself down in the Keys. I loved how it was warm and beautiful every day of the year. I could dig my toes into the sand on the beach and laugh about never having to walk on ice again. I spent my days lounging under the sun, writing stories, something I’d always wanted to do but never had time. I’d hoped I could develop something into a novel, to provide a legitimate income, just in case the luck I’d found ever ran out. I carried a little black notebook around with me everywhere, jotting down random thoughts, ideas, words and phrases. I’d make character studies of people I encountered throughout the day, or, just doodles.

Most fun were my nights, since I was once again a bachelor. Every evening around happy hour I’d find my way to a bar, for drinks, dinner, and if I got lucky, time spent with a beautiful young tourist. Both money and liquor infuse the libido with great confidence.

I never did hear from Suzanne. I’d hoped she’d go through life remembering me as the jerk who walked out and want no further contact. It was easier not to have to explain things. As for the rest of my friends and the few living family members I still had, it was easy enough to claim I’d been offered a better job down south. With no kids and few formal ties back home, everything fell right into place so naturally that I started to believe finding the money was supposed to happen to me. It was fate, I deserved it, and that’s why the new path for my life wasn’t rocky mounds of mire, but instead neatly paved.

Then came Paula. We met one night at a bar called the Blue Parrot. Right away I thought she looked like trouble, but I hadn’t met anybody worth a one-night screw in over a week and I was hungry. She approached me at the bar and asked me, in a somewhat affected southern drawl, what I was “writin’ in my little black book.” I was two bourbons down by then, and she was half my age and half-dressed. You know how these tourists can get, on vacation in a tropical paradise, far away from home and farther from any moral behavior. She told the bartender to set me up again and give her the same. We struck up a chat.

She was pretty, not gorgeous, but had a body that might ride like a stallion. And I was ready to saddle up. She gotten pretty flirty then a bit handsy after dragging me onto the dance floor. I’d thought about buying her dinner but things were moving so quickly I asked if she’d like to head back to my place. What the heck, she’d be going back up north in a few days, and I’d done worse. Once we got to my apartment, I put on some music and she asked if she could open a bottle of wine. I pointed her to the kitchen, and she came back with two glasses full of chardonnay. That’s pretty much all I can remember.

The next day she was gone, and so was all the money.

I woke up late that morning with such a headache, I figured out pretty quick that I’d been drugged. I looked for but found no remnants of an evening guest. The bed was made, wine glasses had been washed and put away, and the bottle she’d opened had vanished. The music was off and all was still, like she’d never even been there.

I’d been so damned careful. How could anybody know or even suspect what I had? I’d spent days researching how to lay low and start over. I acted as normally as possible, I didn’t flash bills around, or spend money in a way to draw attention. I never gave people my real name, and the place I chose to hunker down was even a bit of a dive.

When people asked what I did for a living, I’d used the starving writer line, saying I was working on a novel which I hoped might have promise some day. I’d learned how to dress and talk like the locals, and with my tanned skin and blond hair, could convince people I’d been in the south all my life. Even the blue-collar calluses on my hands had softened and disappeared. I felt like I finally belonged somewhere.

What was I going to do? I couldn’t call the cops. And Paula, or whatever her name was, was long gone. I’d had that money hidden pretty well, and not where any thief would think to look. You’d need a magician’s skills to figure out the hiding places. But that’s what happened. It must have taken her all night, but she’d ferreted out everything I had. She’d even taken my little black notebook.

Two years later I was wiping down the bar after my shift at the Parrot, where I’d slowly worked my way up to become the assistant night manager. Everyone had gone home and I was alone. I noticed someone had left a familiar-looking book on one of the chairs, so I picked it up to toss into the Lost and Found. As I did so, the back cover caught my eye — it was her. Paula! Only now her name was Lorraine Chandler, and she was the author of the black book I was holding, titled “Stolen.” She was apparently living quite a fine life on the west coast with her two dogs, after publishing her first novel. My heart stopped.

I quickly scanned the inside jacket. Sure enough, she’d not only stolen my future, but also my past. Inside that book were all of my own words, in plain black and white.

I sat at the bar reading until dawn, in between tears, the award-winner she’d dedicated simply “To Dave.” Those pages told the story, my story, about the digger, his girlfriend and their loveless union, the secret cache, and the escape into a new life. In the end, a pretty thief posing as a tourist drugs Dave, takes all the money, and his little black book — the whole story — stolen.