The Benjamin

word count: 1157

“The Benjamin”

By Mike Ball

Kyle could feel his face contorting as he removed the tissue paper from atop his gift from his Uncle Karl. His face, now frozen in an unblinking smile, must have mirrored the one looking back at him from the package as he heard his mother gasp, “Oh, no! Not the clown…”

“Yup,” Kyle replied, and he started to laugh as he pulled the family’s dreaded running-gag-gift from the box to reveal the clown’s new outfit. Kyle had not-so-subtly asked his extended family to please “send a Benjamin” for his high school graduation gift, hoping a hundred dollar bill from numerous cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents might be a nice start to his college tuition fund. Kyle would be the third child enrolled in college for the family to afford, and although he had been accepted to his first choice, Vassar, and was able to secure some scholarship help, it was unclear if they were able to afford it. Like his brothers before him, he would likely have to spend two years at community college to save for a transfer to Vassar. Kyle’s request for “Benjamins” from his family was earnest, and everyone had come through, including, apparently, his favorite Uncle Karl who had dressed the clown in grey knickers and tailcoat, with scraggly hair hanging from under his matching tricorn hat. He held a paper kite in one hand and had a little black book tucked under his other arm. His painted clown face was all that remained of his original costume; he was still grinning wildly.

“Figures,” remarked Kyle's father disdainfully, which drew a quick, harsh look from his wife, “Probably all he could afford,” he added under his breath.

Everyone knew the history of “The Clown.” Uncle Karl had purchased him years before while waiting in an endless line of cars crossing the Mexican border back to the US from Tijuana. He had paid the kid working the line twenty dollars for the cheap, paper mache relic which made it instantly “more valuable than any of the others” for sale that day. “The Clown,” now infamous, had made his debut one year later at the annual family Christmas draw when the theme had been “handmade gifts” and Uncle Karl had drawn the name of his sister, Martha, Kyle’s mom, who had spent a month hand-crocheting a matching scarf and hat for some other more fortunate family member to cherish. Kyle’s older brothers soon found the true value of Uncle Karl’s gag-gift when they discovered Kyle's fear of the hideous thing, and they mercilessly arranged it so the “The Clown” suddenly appeared smiling at Kyle in the kitchen, bed, or bathroom. Martha found the first possible occasion to re-gift it, and “The Clown” had bounced around various family celebrations for years, until someone had the inspiration to give it to Jillian, the youngest cousin, who fell in love with it and kept it in her bedroom indefinitely, much to her parent’s chagrin. Now, “The Clown” had re-emerged and had finally been given new clothes and a proper name, Benjamin.

“You don’t have to keep it,” Martha said protectively.

“No, I love it,” replied Kyle, “He’s coming with me to Vassar.”

“Great idea,” sang his brothers sarcastically in unison.

Kyle was used to this. He and his Uncle Karl were both considered “different” -- in similar ways. Unlike his brothers, or his dad even, his uncle “got him,” and visa versa. When Uncle Karl would visit, the two of them would disappear into the garage or the basement for hours, combing through piles of coins with magnifying glasses, searching for additions to Kyle’s coin collection, or removing from formaldehyde jars any number of insects, arachnids, or arthropods to be pinned onto corkboard for Kyle’s enormous bug collection -- which was not allowed in the house, as some bugs would mysteriously revive and wriggle for days still pinned to the board, causing Kyle’s mom to scream and gag.

Still admiring his Uncle Karl’s humorous gift, Kyle gently pushed Benjamin’s book more securely under his arm, revealing the book’s title in gold lettering.

“What’s it say?” asked his Mom, and leaning in to read it, she answered, “Diligence.” Kyle held his smiling gaze on the clown, and she added, “Didn’t he have a famous quote, ‘Diligence is its own reward’...or something?”

“Diligence is the mother of good luck,” Kyle replied.

“Answer in the form of a question, Alex,” one of his brothers chimed in. This was a reference to one of Kyle’s many nicknames, “Alex Trebek,” referring to his ability to answer almost any trivia question while watching “Jeopardy” or any other game show on TV.

Kyle got up from the table littered with a dozen sets of envelopes, cards, and hundred dollar bills, and he took Benjamin to the safety of his bedroom -- both were still smiling. His first choice was to sit Ben up on the bookshelf in a place of honor next to the photograph of him receiving an award at his school’s science fair. Kyle stepped back and reconsidered. Ben seemed too prominent there, and a little too spooky, sitting up so high and smiling so creepily down on everything. So, he caught him back up and placed him in the empty chair across the chess board table, finally giving Kyle someone “real” to play. As he set him down, Benjamin dropped his little, black book which fell rather heavily to the wood floor with a clunk. Kyle picked it up and shook it gently. He could feel something sliding inside the book’s painted cardboard cover. Kyle went to his desk and found his razor knife and made a careful incision along the book’s bottom edge. With the utmost of care, Kyle then took his bug tweezers and removed, from inside the book, a large coin. He switched on his desk light to reveal a 1961 Ben Franklin half dollar. Not particularly old or rare, Kyle thought, just a fitting addition to the joke, “One last Benjamin,” he thought, and showing the coin to the clown he stated aloud, “Good one.” He was on his way out to show his mom the final joke, when he stopped short at the sight of something only an avid coin collector might notice: a slight doubling of some of the letters on the coin. Kyle scrutinized both sides of the coin, and sure enough, he could see clear evidence of this “Double Die” condition, and he knew that this minting error might increase the value of any coin for collectors. Kyle then booted up his desktop computer and logged into his favorite coin valuation site. In the stillness of his suspended astonishment, he imagined he heard the sound of his Uncle Karl laughing through the clown across the room as he twice checked the value of a Benjamin Franklin 1961 Half Dollar in good condition, showing a Double Die: 20,000 dollars!