Cursed

Do you believe in curses? I didn’t use to, but that was before we found the money. And the body. It was so hot that day, the kind of heat that makes you irritable. Someone that has never been to Florida in August might not understand, but for three unsupervised boys, the heat was only going to lead to trouble. Clayton lived one street over and he was an asshole. I didn’t normally hang out with him but it was summer and my usual crew was on vacation. I wished I was on vacation somewhere cold, like Alaska. Mark lived across the street from me and I considered him a friend sometimes. He was chubby and a total nerd, but a nice kid. I drifted towards him when there was no one better around. I guess I’m an asshole too, but he was the responsible sort of kid my parents wanted me to hang out with. What teenager wants that? Looking back on it though, it’s surprising that he was the one that opened the gates of hell.

You have to understand, this was before cell phones and modern video games. It was a time when our parents sent us out to play with strangers and told us not to come back until the streetlights came on. Not that we wanted to be home anyway, we didn’t have air conditioning. One of our favorite pastimes was sneaking into the pool at the Islander Resort. If we waited until a large group was returning, the man behind the desk might not notice us. We would slip past, swim all afternoon, and then, if we happened to make some friends there, we might get invited up to a cold condo and fed vacation snacks.

That particular day, Mark saw me walking up the street to the beach and came running over, his face red and splotchy from the heat.

“Hey, Casey.” He said when he could catch his breath from the jog.

“Hey, man.” I stopped walking for a minute so he could breathe. I wasn’t always a jerk.

“Where are you going?” Mark asked.

“ Boardwalk. I need a smoke.” I almost whispered. My nosy sister was watching me from the yard. I flicked her a bird.

Mark nodded and we walked the rest of the way in silence. The boardwalk was packed so I walked down the steps to the beach. Mark followed. That’s when Clayton came riding up on his bike. He had obviously been there for a while. His skin was starting to burn and he was covered in sand and salt.

Clayton took his wet towel and whipped Mark in the butt with it.

“ Leave him alone, Clayton,” I said as I lit a cigarette.

“ Give me a smoke and I’ll think about it,” Clayton retorted. I forked one over and offered one to Mark too but he shook his head.

“Where are you headed?” Clayton asked after he had taken a drag. I shrugged.

“I’m going to the Islander. You wanna come?” he asked, eyeing my full box of smokes. A swim did sound nice, but I saw the panic on Mark’s face and I knew why. If he got caught sneaking in, his Dad would beat him. He didn’t give me time to answer.

“ I saw an old tent in the dunes. You guys wanna check it out with me?” Mark asked. I wish now that he would have just gone swimming and taken the beating.

That’s how we found ourselves breaking into a tent instead. I don’t know how he found it. You couldn’t see it from the road or the beach. The poor guy that set it up was invisible in the tall sea oats. Clayton was the one who unzipped the tent. He screamed and stumbled back out as fast as he could. I laughed which pissed him off. Mark was as white as a ghost. I lit another cigarette and went in just to prove I was a badass like I wasn’t terrified myself. I had never seen a dead body before. He must not have been dead long because the smell was bearable and it was too hot for it to be bearable long. There wasn’t much in there, just the body, a sleeping bag, and a backpack.

I grabbed the backpack and brought it out. The other boys had backed up and were watching from a distance but once I opened that thing the fear was forgotten. It was full of money. They both started grabbing it in a frenzy.

“Stop!” I yelled through the cigarette pressed between my lips, “ We need to count it.”

They put it back in the bag.

“ We should tell our parents and call the police,” Mark said looking ashamed.

“ No way!” exclaimed Clayton, “ We found it. It’s ours!”

“ Clayton’s right, Mark. This is cash. Some cop will pocket it and no one will ever see it again. We divide it three ways and keep our mouths shut.” I commanded.

Clayton nodded but Mark took a couple of steps back.

“ I...I don’t know, Casey. If my parents find out, I’ll be the one in the body bag.”

“ Let’s count it and then figure it out,” Clayton suggested. I nodded.

It wasn’t hard to count. They were in stacks of twenty-dollar bills. Twenty thousand altogether. I started to pass out the bundles evenly and then realized that it wasn’t going to divide perfectly. we were going to have to split up some of the stacks. It was too windy for that, there would be money flying down the beach.

“Are your parents home?” I asked Clayton. He shook his head.

“ Let’s deal with it there then,” I said, zipping up the backpack.

We were barely through his front door when Clayton started in about Mark’s cut.

“ We should split it in half. You don’t get more because he’s chicken.” He said crossing his arms.

“Mark found the tent and he’s taking his share,” I said, pushing back.

“If you want, I’ll hide it with mine until you find a place to stash it, but it’s yours, ok? You know I’d never rip you off.” I said to Mark. He nodded. I might be an asshole but not that kind of an asshole.

Clayton wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t fight me. I was smaller but I could take him and he knew it. After a few minutes of us all trying to do the math in our heads without success, he brought me a calculator. Did you know that $20,000 divided by 3 is $6,666.66666? I should have known then. I divided it as evenly as I could and gave the extra to Clayton which seemed to pacify him.

Afterward, Mark and I cut through the backyard and headed straight for my house. My family had an old tire swing where I stashed my cigarettes. There were too many stinging nettles and sand spurs in our yard to want to play there so it was safe from my siblings. I had a roll of packing tape in the bottom and I’d use a piece to tape the boxes inside it. I grabbed a couple of plastic grocery bags and wrapped the stacks up and taped them in too.

“This bundle is yours and it will be here waiting for you, all right?”

Mark nodded but he still looked terrified. “Ok, I’ll find a place to keep it and let you know.”

Those were the last words he ever spoke to me. Four days later he drowned in a freak boating accident. A week after that, Clayton overdosed on drugs and ended up with brain damage. One night, while Clayton was still in the hospital, I snuck into his house and took the rest of the money. Why I couldn’t tell you. Once I had his money taped in with the rest, I just sat in the backyard and stared at the swing. Clayton hadn’t spent any of his either. Every dollar was accounted for and I didn't want a cent of it.

I promised myself, and any god I could think of, that I would figure out how to get it back where it belonged. If there was a curse, maybe I could break it. Maybe the backpack would have some answers. I pulled it out of its hiding place under my bed and looked through the contents. I hoped there might be something to go on, a driver’s license, a name tag, something. He must have been living out of that bag for months because everything reeked. Besides a couple of changes of clothes and some chewing gum, all that was in there was a little black notebook. Nothing was written in it. A single page had been torn out and, in the back, I found an envelope addressed to Lucy Smith of Portland, Oregan. Inside was a note that read:

Lucy,

Things have gotten much worse since I last wrote to you. I haven’t spent a dime of the money. I can’t dodge the feeling that someone or something is after me. I should have listened to you and reported it. I’m coming home and I’m going to try to make this right. Save the papers that I gave you. I’m going to need them. Mike

“ Mr. Williams, I’m going to stop you there. If I was a psychologist, I might find this interesting, but I’m a detective, and, frankly, I don’t see how any of this relates to you committing murder.”

“ I didn’t murder Lucy! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” I exploded. The burly detective rolled his eyes.

“ You were found standing over her body.”

“ I've told you a dozen times! I knocked on the door and it swung open! I saw the body and I dialed 911! You won’t find a single fingerprint of mine inside that house because I didn’t touch anything! Check the backpack with the money. Every bill we found is in there and has been sitting in there for twenty years! Mike’s note to Lucy is in there too. I just wanted to talk to her. I wanted to return the money. It’s ruined my life.” I said with my head in my hands.

“What backpack?”

I looked up. The detective had a slight smirk on his face. Part of me felt like I should try harder to warn him. There hadn't been a day in the last twenty years that something awful hadn’t happened to me or to someone I love, but who would believe me? It had been my problem long enough. Let him have it.

“Are you going to charge me or not?” I asked.

“ You’re free to go for now.”

I walked out of the police station into the bright light of day. For the first time in a long time, I felt free. I didn’t know whether that was because the money was gone or because I had finally told the truth, but I didn’t stop to think about it. I spotted a coffee shop on the corner. After last night’s interrogation, all I wanted was some caffeine. I placed my order before I realized that the backpack was gone and, with it, my wallet.

“ Forget it”, I told the barista,” I forgot my wallet.”

Outside, a couple got up and left their table so I took it. I’d barely flopped into the seat when a shadow loomed over me and something hit the table. My wallet and phone. The detective winked at me and walked the short distance to the corner. I was still watching him leave when the barista came out and set a coffee in front of me.

“ It’s on the house,” she said, smiling. Before I could respond, the sound of screeching tires and rising screams filled the air. Everyone around us was running to the scene but I stayed in my seat.

“ Do you believe in curses?” I asked the barista.