to late for the contest

The whole place was a dump. the town. the people. the weather. ‘what Am I doing here?’ My ego wondered. even the stray dogs look depressed, So did everyone standing around me. We all waited patiently for something or someone. An earthquake or a Spanish explorer. Something to move us from the spot we were standing. Even near death would be welcomed. everyone here knew it too but didn’t care to or couldn’t change it. Circumstances don’t change. Some souls are just built to pain. all the faces around me wore the same 'maybe next life' look. Wrinkled skin plus broken teeth, cherry noses and empty wallets.

chicken or the egg?

it was raining. Not hard, but a still wetness covered us and the wind whispered by to chill us to our organs. I felt a chill in my liver. I knew I wasn’t the only one unhappy with being ‘me’, with being here. We all seemed Easily confused. I don't think good weather would change that. I knew that I wanted to be better than this though . I thought, ‘there still is a chance…I just need a break.’ Famous last words uttered by every stupid son of a bitch standing in the rain waiting to make bids on junk other people no longer want or didn’t care enough about to come and get.

We all know what other people are doing wrong and how to fix it but never can seem to translate those words to our own brains.

we we're a group full of dreamers. you could smell the future and past defeats pouring off of us like steam off a ship. they had all become pragmatic, and no longer looked for the lessons in losing. I was still young and filled with the ideas of change and better days, or at least different ones.

awake, at 3 am I swore I would do something with my life, and It started today

It couldn’t be much worse there than If I stayed here for the rest of the day. The rest of my life, even.

so here I am, standing on a stained, cracked sidewalk surrounded by saints and savants, and the potential to strike it rich. ha! I thought. 'ha!' I even said out loud to myself.

here, we all are...standing in a semi-circle waiting for someone to come out and lead us to the tombs of other poor people’s lives. what could be in here worth even the dump fee? families fill these rooms with every intention of coming back to claim what the things that have value to them. Sentimental I suspect but maybe they probably should have just thrown these things away. The lie they told was that believed they would be back one day, to clean out their life’s worth of junk or the life’s worth of junk of someone they loved, but they never did. They promised them selves but never did. The bill keeps coming every month and the plan to keep the unit for only a month until they found a new place with plenty of space to fill or the time to dig thru the boxes of memories or heirlooms is lost. they pay the rent for a while and then just forget about it, and now that things are tighter finically than we they rented these room they start doing the math in their heads. Adding up the total value of items inside to what it is costing them to store it. Maybe it never crosses their minds. maybe somebody died and they just never could let completely

go or feel there is something in all those boxes worth something, if they just had time to dig thru it then it would be worth the trouble. either way, they stopped paying for the fantasy.

the funny things we do.

Finally, as the rain picks up and nicely dressed women in a beige pant suit appears out of the office hidden under an umbrella. she’s dressed to show success, but no one is buying it we walked down the road and around a few corners past orange doors with cheap locks keeping them safe. we all come to a stop in front of a wide door with graffiti covering it head to toe. This is the door to my first experience into the world of professional trash. god, it is ugly. Can I know say I’ve done everything?

No, not yet.

she pulls up the door revealing a huge room. It looks like it was built to house prisoners in a war film. 'the biggest one you can rent...10 x 30', she says, before she turns to see it is empty.

‘uh oh…shit’ she shouts. ‘oh look' she points to a blanket in the back of the room. 'looks like trash' a voice from behind yells. I had to agree. I stretched my neck in hoping that extra 8 inches would give me a better view of what was hidden. I wanted it.

'obviously whomever owned this cleaned it out and left their garbage behind...' a fat man in a too small a shirt and windbreaker he found in his last unit said confidently. 'what could be in there but trash?'

'25 dollars' I heard myself say. Jesus, really...I thought it but did I say that?

'so 25 is the bid...sir?’ I notice her eyes a deep forest green. she leans to one side and with a look I haven’t seen a women give me in a long time, fighting to see me thru her long damp hair. she'll never look more beautiful than she does at this moment.

‘sold!’ she pointed at me with a soft smile.

‘he’ll learn…you gotta take anything you can’ I could hear them think. Its always easier to tell others how to live their lives then to take our own advice/to do it yourself. ‘You know something about this that we don’t ?’ a few of them walked to the edge and peered back in.

‘that’s just trash!’ one uttered in complete confidence. I can’t wait to rub it in his face.

'you must really have wanted that thing...its practically empty'

'Ya...you never know...it’s a gamble, but I feel lucky right now, I guess.'

'well, I hope you are.... most everyone here thinks its empty boxes or newspapers. that’s what is. always in these big empty ones like this...or trash. if it was anything valuable, they would have taken it with them.’

'you’re probably right...but it too late now.' she shrugged. we exchanged info and monies and she headed on to catch up to the group so she could. sell the next unit. she turned back to shout.

'good luck'

'thanks'

I was all alone. the door was still open, and the rain was picking up it pace. so, I stepped inside to check on my treasure. I'm overwhelmed with calm and curiosity. I yanked the blanket like a magician revealing a bunny, but the blanket only half come off. I yank again, and the whole thing comes flying off. I toss the blanket behind me. I take my first glance at my first

good luck in months.

underneath the blanket sits 10 huge, overflowing 5-gallon water bottles filled to the top with coinage.

I was in shock. how much could there be here

I looked around for the black diary to see if it could shed any light on my good fortune.

I saw it peeking out from the tarps I tossed on the floor. I bent down and picked it up. It was not

worth mentioning. 'I think I have the same exact folder under my mattress' I thought with words.

I flip open to the first page and it just had two words printed in thick black ink all in caps and evenly spaced and perfectly in line with each other. 'boat fund' it read...ok, I thought, boat fund I flipped in a few pages,

looking for a name or maybe a reason why he'd hide this in a room he owed rent on each month.

2 pages after the title I found 4 more words, printed with exactly the same perfection as the others.

'NOT FOR YOU LORAINE'...ok, damn Loraine...this guy was so worried about you finding out about his boat fund.

He rented a whole huge space just to keep it away from you. that must have been love. ‘I never want to be in love’. I told myself. the rest of the book looked like it had never been touched except for the last 5 pages.

I found a page with a graph running down the page with 5 lines of headings.

the first one read 'PENNIES' the second, 'NICKELS' third, 'DIMES', then 'QUARTERS'. the last one was in red ink for some reason announced that this row was for '1$'. this had taking a lot of time. he really concentrated when he wrote all this down. there wasn’t a drop of white out anywhere. This man was amazing. I looked like a printed text.

down the left side it had dates listed, starting in 1999...over 20's years of work.

the first entry had small numbers like 2.23 in pennies or 13.50 in quarters, even 21 dollars in 1's.

every month the numbers got larger. he just kept adding to these bottles.

the first year he had 29.12 cents in pennies, then 98.10 in dimes, 245.00 dollars’ worth of dollar bills.

and every year it just grew and grew. I scanned quickly thru the ledger now fearing someone else of knowing about/seeing my windfall...I remembered what I thought of these people and this neighborhood. and ounce of fear appeared. I ran my eyes over rows and rows of numbers. each increased from the previous month. the numbers were growing.

I hurried to the end like needing to know who Is the murderer in a novel I stop and run my fingers down the last page where the numbers inked the paper about halfway down the book. it was dated from 6 months ago. the writing was just as perfect as it was in the first entry. strong, tall and assured. it read this.

PENNIES NICKELS DIMES QUARTERS 1'S

1/20/2019 252.17 4,395.15 9,208.10 10,100.25 47,244.00

the last numbers end the book said '71,199.67’ and 67 cents...I started to shake and looked all around,

again, to make sure I was alone. I closed the book, put it in my back pocket, moved as quick as this obvious hallucination would allow me and grabbed the blankets, and threw them back on top where they had been hiding my change of fortunes.

I realized I didn’t have a lock on me to keep this safe while I went to get my car. my breath

ran out of me. I ran out the door and closed it as quick as I could, I saw a group of men,

and tried to wipe away

any joy or satisfaction left beaming on my face

"trash?' one asked as they walked on by.

'what else' I said as slowed and defeated as I could.

'rookies'...another fat, ugly man said threw his broken teeth. I let them walk ahead matter-of-factly talking about their great finds over the years, bragging like they found Eden or a good woman. They knew nothing or were lying, but I couldn’t care less anymore. Let them lie.

breath deep you fool...'don’t be found out.'

'just make it to your car and your almost home'

as I approached the black automated gate it started to roll open, just for me. like the gates

of heaven or the red sea. I walked on threw promising to give thanks to the universe and to Lorraine.

as soon as I got home...I smiled so deep inside I remembered what It’s like to feel happy and thought,

'I'm gonna buy a boat.'