Finders, Keepers

Me and Charlie was sharing a place down on 16th Street. We weren’t close friends or anything, just sorta sharing the space. I had been sleeping behind an empty warehouse up on 12th but they decided to turn it into condos and ran me off. The guy who had been sharing with Charlie packed up and went to Texas, at least he said he was headed that way. We ran into each other at the free breakfast at the mission and got to talking about our situations. I needed a regular place, and Charlie needed somebody to kind of watch over him. He said he’d had two strokes, at least. Two that had been diagnosed and maybe a couple more little ones where he hadn’t been able to get to a doctor. He said he’d sometimes kind of zone out and it was usually no big deal, but he needed somebody to be around who could get help if he didn’t come back.

Well, I could do that. He talked about how he kind of hoped the next one would be the big one that would carry him off, how he was afraid of what would happen if he had a really bad one and lived. Well, that was sort of creepy, but I could handle it.

The place on 16th was pretty good. It was the side entrance to the old newspaper building, back when they had a real newspaper in town, with printing presses and all. The entryway was set back about five or six feet from the street, deep enough for some shelter and a little bit of privacy. It was on the south side of the building, so it caught some sun to keep it a little bit warmer. That was good with winter coming on. It wouldn’t be so great in the summer, but we’d worry about that when summer got here. If a fellow had to sleep on the sidewalk he could do a lot worse.

So I got my bedroll and what little stuff I had and set up. It was pretty good. The cops didn’t hassle you much if you were south of 14th, that was kind of an unwritten rule, and it was only a couple of blocks down to the mission where they had the free breakfast every day and showers twice a week.

So we settled in. Charlie didn’t talk much, but neither did I, and that suited us. He did tell me he came from St. Louis, and he gave me a paper with the name and address of his sister, told me to try to get in touch with her if anything happened to him. Said she would want to know. So I said I’d do that.

Most days we’d go out and work. We called it “work,” and it was work. Charlie had a little cardboard sign: “Stroke victim. Please help.” He’d go over and walk around the bars in the arts district. He had a little limp and you could see in his face something wasn’t quite right. He could sometimes do pretty good. I’d go up to the day labor place and most days get a little work of some kind, picking up trash, yard work, helper on construction, whatever somebody needed. If I didn’t get anything by lunch time and I was feeling more hard up than usual I’d head over to the arts district and work the lunch crowd. There was a lot of cafes and bars and a lot of people moving around. I really hated it, the begging, but I could usually pick up enough for a meal and maybe a beer or two.

So we went along. With the mission we’d have breakfast every day, and usually we’d pick up enough for an afternoon meal. I liked to have a beer or two when I could. Charlie didn’t drink because of his stroke, but he liked a bottle Coke when he could afford one.

It was getting near Thanksgiving and a pretty cold day when Charlie found the book. I got back late after a job across town, cleaning up a construction site. Charlie was wrapped in his sleeping bag, looking pretty perky. He had been kind of sickly the last few days and I was glad to see him looking better.

“Looky what I found,” he said, and he held up a little black notebook. He held it out to me. “Look inside,” he said.

I took the little book. It was some kind of fancy thing, or it looked like it to me. It looked a lot like leather and the pages were some kind of thick paper. There was writing in it, or I guessed it was writing, but not in any American language, not even in our alphabet. I was going too slow for Charlie, checking pages looking for something that might be a name or phone number for whoever lost it.

“Look what’s in it,” Charlie said.

I flipped the pages and stopped. Ben Franklin was looking out at me, old Ben staring out from a hundred dollar bill. And there was more of them. Five in all. It was the most cash money I had seen in one place in five years or more. Five nice, fresh US hundred dollar bills.

“You think they’re real?” I said. If you’ve been broke long enough you learn to not trust anything.

“Look real to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Don’t know. Been thinking.”

And he had. We talked about how there was no name in it, nothing we could see to help us get it back to the owner. We could hand it in at the mission, they might or might not find the owner. We could give it to a cop, but no way to know he wouldn’t keep it for himself. Or Charlie could keep it. Of course he had thought of that.

“Finders, keepers,” they say.

We talked about it. How we ought to get it back to the owner, but if we didn’t see a good way to do that, well, if it was lost to the owner and nothing we could do, then was there any harm in us keeping it?

Yes, I had started thinking about “us” with the money, not just Charlie. Thinking about maybe he would cut me in, and what I might do with a hundred bucks. Maybe more. Maybe he might give me half. Or at least two hundred. Money will make you think like that, make you greedy just looking at it.

We talked some more, talked about what was right and how we might get the book back to whoever had lost it. And we talked a lot of talk about how things could work where it was alright for us to keep it. Or maybe just give over the book and never mention the money, like it was already gone when Charlie found the thing. And after a while we had talked ourselves out of anything more to say, so we curled down into our bedrolls and went to sleep. Charlie tucked the book inside his pants where it would be safe.

I woke up pretty early and didn’t really think about the little book for a while. I went across to a vacant lot we used for a bathroom and did my thing. I stretched and walked around a little, went down to the corner where I could see the clock on the bank. 6:17. Funny I remember that, the exact time.

It was cold, so I went back and got under my sleeping bag. No point in getting out too early. Breakfast started at 7 and no need to be at the labor place much before 8. I thought about the book and looked over at Charlie. Thought about what a guy could do with that money. He could get a place to stay and a phone, and with an address and phone number he could look for a job. Get some clothes to look decent. It could be enough to get a guy back on his feet. But it wasn’t mine. Wasn’t all mine, and most likely none of it. Maybe Charlie could get going again, but Charlie’s mind was hurt from his strokes. He’d never hold a job and $500 doesn’t last long out on the street. I went down and checked the clock again. Close enough to breakfast time

It was then it struck me how Charlie was awful still, and that scared me. I went and bent over him. He was breathing, so I shook his shoulder and said “Breakfast time.” He didn’t stir, not a bit. Not a twitch. I shook him harder and he farted. No, he shit, shit himself right there in his bedroll. And he didn’t stir a bit. So I knew it was time to look for help. I could go to the mission and get somebody there, get them to call for an ambulance.

I was just started that way when a cop car came around the corner. I went out and waved, and the cop saw me and came down. His name was Justin and I knew him a little. A good guy, for a cop. I showed him Charlie, explained about his strokes and stuff. He took a good look at Charlie, then got on his radio and got things rolling. It was no more than a minute before I heard the siren from the firehouse a few blocks over. Justin went down to the intersection to watch for the ambulance. And it was then I thought about the book.

No point in letting it go to the hospital, no telling who would find it there. I stepped over, reached in his pants and got it out. He had pissed himself and it was wet, but I didn’t let that bother me, just slipped it into my own pants.

The ambulance crew gave Charlie a quick look, but they didn’t waste any time getting him into the truck and took off in a hurry with the siren blasting. Justin asked me if I knew a next of kin or who to contact. I got out the paper with the sister’s name and he copied it into his notebook. He said he would go to the hospital and see how things went. I made him promise to come back and tell me what he found out.

I was worried about Charlie, but I was also feeling hollow in the stomach. Maybe I could still get to the mission before they ran out of food. But just then Chris showed up.

I guess he had heard the sirens, or maybe somebody called him and tipped him off. Chris was this do-gooder type, but better than most of those. A lot of people talk it, but Chris got out and did it. He was this reformed drunk and druggie with a Buddhist/Christian ideal, and he actually got out on the streets and lived it, not just talked and maybe put a few bucks in the collection plate.

Well, Chris had done a lot for people on the street. Three or four times a week he’d be out with sandwiches or burritos or something. He helped people that had lost their IDs or Social Security cards work through the system to get replacements so they could get hired on jobs. He helped set up camps and shelter places. Like I say, he was a good dude and I couldn’t just blow him off, no matter how hungry I was.

He asked me what was going on and I told him, told him about Charlie and his strokes and how this might be the big one. He was quiet and listened, really listened. Then he asked if I knew anybody he should contact, and I told him about the sister.

I got out the paper with her name and address, and he reached in his jacket and came out with a notebook. A little black notebook that looked like real leather. And when he opened it I saw that same strange writing as in the book Charlie found.

“That book,” I said. “Did you have another one?”

And he told me how he lost a notebook just a few days ago. And right then I knew there was only one way to go. I dug in my pants and pulled out the little book, handed it to him.

“It’s wet,” I said. “Charlie had it. He pissed when he had his attack.”

Chris didn’t seem to mind. He checked inside and when he found the money the look on his face made me know I had done the right thing.

“Thank God,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

And then he explained that tomorrow was the last day to put down the deposit on a place for a warming room for the winter – a place where street people could come in on the coldest nights to be warm and safe. And how that money was the deposit, and without it he didn’t know what he would have done, that he might have lost the space.

He thanked me again and again. And he said how there should be some kind of reward, but he didn’t know right then what he could do. And I told him it was alright, that he didn’t have to do nothing. But he said he’d try to do something.

As he was leaving I caught his sleeve and asked him about the writing, was it some kind of code?

He said, “It’s Laotian. I was there for four years studying with the monks. I use it just to sort of remember them. And sometimes I like to keep my thoughts to myself. I’m not always as good a person as I try to be.”

That was good enough for me.

That’s really all of the story, except I should say Chris kept his word. He got me a room at the Western Skies Motel. It was an older place and the owner liked to help people when he had an extra room to spare. About the third day I was there the owner hit me up and asked if I’d like a little work, he was short of people for maid work and he could slip me a few bucks if I could help out. Well for sure I said yes and he put me to work. I did pretty good and got along with the crew, so in a couple of days he offered me a regular job. Chris helped me get my ID and SS in shape and I was in. That was two years ago and now I’m the night manager, working behind the desk and wearing a coat and tie. So it didn’t work out too bad at all.

And Charlie? Well, Charlie never regained consciousness. He was on life support when his sister got there the next day. She spent about an hour with him, so Justin told me. Then she came out and told them to let him go. Maybe not exactly how he wanted it, but close enough.

Justin said he went peaceful.