Quarters

Dante was exhausted. He was on his way home from practice, having spent the better part of the past two hours trying to guard Bobby Green.

He and Bobby had played basketball together from the time they could walk. Dante loved the game, but Bobby lived and breathed it.

Bobby was in the gym each morning at 6 A.M. When Dante was slurping the grease off a piece of cafeteria pizza, Bouncin’ Bobby Green was fueling up on steamed broccoli and grilled chicken.

Dante tried to match Bobby’s routine earlier in the year. He started on a Monday and by Friday morning, he could barely move. Every part of his body ached. The 5 A.M. alarm nearly brought him to tears.

Now he was tired again thanks to Bobby Green.

Dante had just crossed under Wilson Street when a bag came flying over the side of the bridge and glanced off his shoulder.

He stumbled into a tree, the bag landing with a thud behind him. A few seconds later, sirens and the blue lights of a cop car went flying down the street above. Dante looked around, but saw no one else in sight. The path was in rough shape, but it was the fastest way home from school, so Dante traversed it almost daily.

He rubbed his shoulder and looked down. A tattered, black backpack sat in the dirt at his feet. Dante picked it up, pulled back the zipper and looked inside. A few crumpled dollar bills spilled out. As he peered into the opening, Dante realized the bag was entirely full of cash.

Money didn’t just fall out of the sky, especially with a cop car that close behind, but curiosity got the best of him. Dante opened his own pack and pushed the black one inside. The fit was tight, but thankfully it was Friday and senior year was drawing to a close, so there was only a yearbook in his bag.

He arrived home and headed straight for his room. Dante pushed the door shut and spilled the contents of the backpack across his bed.

Apart from the few loose bills that fell out on the path, most of the money was organized in rubber-banded stacks, each totaling $200. Some bundles were all $20s, others a mix of $1s, $5s and $10s. In all, there were just under 100 stacks of cash. A gallon sized Ziploc full of quarters accounted for the heft of the bag and the bruise forming on Dante’s shoulder.

As he stared at the bed, Dante wondered what he could do with that much money.

A new pair of basketball shoes was high on the list. Not that there was anything wrong with his, but newer was always better. Maybe he’d do a full wardrobe overhaul, take over the position of Best Dressed Guy at East High School. That title currently belonged to Evan Roberts.

From the day he transferred in as a sophomore, Roberts dressed like he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ. Half the school had a crush on him. It didn’t hurt that Evan also looked like a blonde Superman and his family was loaded.

Roberts could have leaned into the looks and money and been a jerk, but he didn’t. When his parents were gone, he’d throw parties and all were invited. He would greet each guest by name and pretty much everyone loved him, especially the girls.

No one disliked Dante, but girls weren’t pining for him, either. A little cash might help his cause.

Dante continued to stare at the small fortune strewn across the bed. He stopped on the bag of quarters. Far too many to count. Instead, he pulled out his phone and looked up how much a roll of quarters weighed. A trip to the bathroom scale, a few calculations later and Dante estimated that there was about $1,000 in the bag. The number seemed insane; it would bring the grand total to roughly $20,000.

A twinge of fear hit him square in the chest.

Why in the world had he picked up a strange bag full of money? Who had that kind of cash?

No answers came to mind. Dante looked back at the bag.

He hadn’t gone through the other pockets.

As he unzipped the small front pouch, a worn black notebook fell to the floor. Dante picked it up and flipped to the first page.

It looked like a ledger. Each page had a date in the upper right corner. A column of names ran down the left side. An inch to the right, another perfect column of dollar amounts. Next, a column that laid out the different denominations used to create each amount. And finally, a series of three capital letters.

Dante flipped through the notebook. It was about 80% full and dated back to the first day of school. He turned to the most recent page, dated for the day before.

Smalls $18 8-$1 2-$5 MJ2

Harris $28 1-$20 Q-$8 RIT

Davis $12 2-$5 Q-$2 MJ1

Green $35 3-$10 Q-$20 OXY

Roberts $25 1-$20 5-$1 XAN

Suddenly it dawned on him, the notebook was a sales ledger. And the product being sold was drugs.

The MJ1 and MJ2 were weed. He’d heard casual mention of both around the hallways. Not the most subtle code, but essentially MJ1 was the cheap stuff, but MJ2 was what the stoner kids got if they were planning a big weekend.

And if the stoners were looking for a good time, there was only one person they’d call: Jefferson McQuaid.

Dante had been in McQuaid’s class since elementary school. If it was possible to know an 8-year-old was destined for jack-shit, Jefferson Richard McQuaid was that kid. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. McQuaid knew from the start and decided to give their boy a name like a law firm in hopes he’d end up on the right side of it in the end.

By middle school McQuaid was skipping class and giving his teachers hell when he did show up. Freshman year, he began a career in pharmaceuticals. From weed to prescription drugs, Jefferson McQuaid could get you what you needed, as long as it wasn’t legal.

Dante felt stupid for not putting it together sooner. Of course it was McQuaid’s backpack. When he didn’t have practice, Dante would see McQuaid walking home after school. While Dante took the stairs off the bridge down to the path home, McQuaid would turn just before and walk into the Brown Bottle, a dingy dive bar as appealing as the name suggested.

Mrs. McQuaid was sitting in the front window at a video poker machine nearly every time Dante passed. Jefferson must have bumped into a cop on the way home, taken off and tried to ditch his haul over the bridge before the police caught up.

Again, Dante’s attention turned to the ledger.

Not only did McQuaid keep notes, but they were remarkably detailed. And to have made nearly twenty-grand was impressive.

Dante felt a pang of jealousy.

He’d never made that kind of money before and, based on the dates in the notebook, McQuaid had made it all in less than one school year. Granted, it was by selling drugs, but Dante figured McQuaid was pulling in a few bucks selling bad weed, not a few hundred a week pushing weed and what else exactly?

Dante yanked out his phone and pulled up Google. He typed “drug RIT” into the search bar. The first result that came up was Ritalin, a prescription drug used to treat ADHD.

Dante looked at the name in that row. He could think of only two Harris’s in school. One was David Harris, who Dante once saw refuse a Tic Tac for fear that it was laced with LSD. Not likely that David was buying Ritalin from McQuaid.

The other Harris was Sonya Harris, the smartest person at East.

She had a perfect GPA and a full ride to a top school waiting after graduation. Dante was going to college, but his future involved student loans and a fairly even beer-to-book ratio.

Earlier in the year, Dante had worked on a group project with Sonya. While he put the assignment away to watch TV before bed, Sonya sent texts at midnight to confirm the bibliography was done properly.

Was it really possible that Sonya Harris, valedictorian and future president of whatever she wanted, was buying Ritalin from Jefferson McQuaid?

Dante scanned down the list.

This time he searched “drug OXY.” The first result was for Oxycodone, a prescription painkiller.

Green was the name in that row. Bobby Green?

Bobby worked his body harder than anyone Dante knew. As a freshman, he tore his ACL and was in the weight room a week later, limping from rack to rack, working his upper body. Maybe all those years of AAU ball, weekend tournaments and 6 am workouts were taking their toll.

Back to Google: “drug XAN.” Xanax. A drug to treat anxiety. And the name next to it was undoubtedly the coolest, most laid-back guy in school, Evan Roberts.

Those names couldn’t be right.

Dante snatched the yearbook out of his backpack. East High was small. It didn’t take long to confirm that Sonya Harris, Bobby Green and Evan Roberts were the only people who fit the names on the ledger.

Dante sat back on his bed, his mind swimming.

None of the drugs were inherently bad, but that was if prescribed by a doctor. Dante wasn’t even sure if McQuaid was going to graduate on time let alone get a PHD.

Sonya hit the books harder than anyone, but maybe she needed the extra level of focus that the Ritalin provided.

Bobby’s work ethic was equally as strong, but perhaps his body couldn’t keep up anymore.

And Evan lived a charmed life between the money, good looks and girls, but maybe keeping up with it all was more than he could handle.

Dante leaned against the wall and winced thanks to his tender shoulder. The pain snapped him back to his surroundings. There was $20,000 in drug money sitting on his bed and Dante’s mom would be home soon.

He considered his options.

Keeping the money, while tempting, was not a good idea. No way he’d be able to hide it all or spend it without raising suspicion, especially all those quarters. Plus, it was drug money, not something Dante wanted to be linked to.

He could go to the cops, but something about that didn’t feel right.

McQuaid was no angel, but he’d earned the money, illegally of course, but earned nonetheless.

Bobby, Sonya and Evan were clearly far from perfect, but that didn’t make them bad people. They were people struggling and, for better or worse, they had turned to Jefferson McQuaid for help.

Dante knew what to do. Ten-minutes later he was alone again under the Wilson Street bridge. He dropped the backpack on the edge of the path and headed home.

Jefferson McQuaid made his way down the steps below the bridge. He’d run 9-blocks and hid behind a bush for over an hour, each minute worrying about his backpack and its contents. He needed that money. Life without it was not one he wanted to consider.

As McQuaid walked down the beat-up path, a dark shape near a tree caught his eye. He lunged forward and clutched the bag. A quick inspection proved that everything was still there.

McQuaid pulled out the quarters and scooped a few dozen into his pocket. He slung the backpack over his shoulder and climbed the stairs to the street above.

Mrs. McQuaid was standing outside the Brown Bottle, a cigarette dangling between her fingers.

“Jefferson, you got my quarters?” she barked as her son approached.

McQuaid pulled a handful of silver from his pocket.

“See you at home, Mom,” he said as he walked away, the bag sagging low on his back, coins rustling with each step.