Money Troubles
by Cindy Preston
Copyright 2011 Cindy Preston
It was the first day of school. Junior year. I rushed to leave, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the album. A smile crinkled at the corners of my lips at the thought of looking through the threadbare book. My Gradma Troud had made it for me when I was just a little boy. Before she died. I didn't remember most of the images, but it made me feel good looking at them just the same. Her arms held me tight when I gazed at them. The book urged me to pick it up. “It’ll just take a moment,” it begged. The first picture showed me looking up at a wrinkled old lady holding a flower in the palm of her hand. That was Grandma Troud. In another picture, Mom's eyes twinkled as she laughed at dad who just flipped me into the air. I must have been about three. In yet another, solemn faces searched a shiny black box for solace.
"I wonder how different things would be if Dad hadn't died. Imagine what we would be doing," I mumbled out loud. Surely, it would be nothing like now.
My mom and step-dad, Walter, loafed around all day complaining about the heat in our tiny two-bedroom trailer house, that there’s no food, or about me and John my older brother. They didn’t ever do anything about it—just complained. There was never money for new shoes or a movie. But, of course there was always money for cigarettes and beer. Walter constantly complained about back pain and hadn’t held a job for four years. Mom hadn't worked since Dad died. I managed to save five hundred and forty-eight dollars this past summer from mowing lawns. It would have to last me the whole school year. I didn't dare tell my family about the money. I hid part of it in a drafting set a teacher gave me my freshman year and the rest in a jar under the work bench outside.
~~~
With no car to drive like other kids, I usually rode my bike. But today I walked. Unseasonably cold wind blew through my thin secondhand jacket. The overcast sky loomed heavy with rain.
I squished across the school lawn laden with morning dew. Black dusters flapped above the ankles of my brother and his friends standing around the corner of the building, hovered together passing a joint between them. John resembled Walter more each day. I hiked by them studying my feet hoping I was invisible.
“Hey Petey! Get over here. Want to ask you something,” John demanded.
His friends laughed at me like I'd grown an extra head or something. They laughed at anyone not like them; anyone who got good grades and didn't party.
I drudged over, my eyes shifting side to side knowing I’d be teased. “What do you want John? I've got to get to class.”
“What, you don’t got time for your big brother? Too high and mighty for us cool kids?”
Snickering, his cronies exhaled billowing puffs of sweet smoke. John leaped out and grabbed my arm tight. I planted my feet though my insides ebbed and flowed with the tide. The scavenging jackals fed on fear.
“I know you have some money stashed away. I want it.”
I stared dumbfounded, my jaw slacking. How did he find out about my money?
“You wouldn’t want to upset me, would you?” John sneered.
“No I wouldn’t want that, John. But I’ve got plans for that money. You can’t have it.”
Petrified muscles prevented me from running. The other dusters laughed at what looked like John's failure to frighten me. John trembled with anger as he dropped my arm. He couldn’t afford another fight on school grounds, even if it was with his brother. He leaned in close and whispered ever so softly.
“I want that money, Pete.”
I shrunk away averting my eyes. Having John humiliated hadn’t been my plan. Still I'd held my ground.
~~~
Except for encountering John so early, I'd had a pretty good day at school. Mr. Maxwell chose me to lead a computer lab group with my best friends Jared and Rick. Suzy Johnson, her long brown hair cascaded around her silken shoulders, snuck glances at me over the crowded lunch room. She flirted a lot with me last year, too. I didn't respond. She’d eventually want to come over to my house and I didn’t want her there. She was too nice.
By the last bell the sun had warmed the fall day. I was meeting Rick and Jared to study after running home to grab cash for pizza.
~~~
Cigarette smog hung thick in the living room. Mom and Walter zoned out on TV as usual. I hurried through the din, heading straight for the bedroom I shared with John. Upon opening the door a huge pit formed in my stomach. My mouth gaped at the mess. Bedding was strewn all over. The dresser was moved. Its drawers hemorrhaged clothes onto the floor. Album pages lay torn, pictures scattered violently. I knelt holding the treasured photos. Damp eyes strained to focus.
"Oh man. No." I whimpered under my breath.
Jumping up I dove into the closet throwing debris out of the way to check the box behind my shoes. The forlorn carton was empty, the drafting set gone. Heat flushed through me and heartbeats pounded against my skull. I staggered to the living room.
"Mom when did you see John last?" I quivered.
"John?" She hiccupped. "He just left a few minutes ago."
Colorful motions glued Walter's attention to the TV.
"Did he say where he was going?"
"What? John? He said somethin' about Scott or Scott's house or . . ."
Her speech trailed off to comatose sleep; a lit cigarette balanced like a tight rope walker on her lower lip.
I ran out hollering over my shoulder that I'd be home later, not that hey heard or cared. The weathered screen door slammed against its splintered frame. John had no right to what I'd worked hard for.
~~~
Cutting across Johnson's field, I arrived at Jared's house winded and panting. Rick was telling him about an accident scene a couple blocks down and over from my house. An old blue Plymouth had rear-ended another car at a red light. Rick described John's friend, Matt's car.
"Did you see John there?" I urged.
"There was someone else standing around. It could have been John. Come to think of it, he was wearing a red jacket like John’s." Rick reported. "The police hauled them in."
I told them about my drafting set and the money being gone, my words tumbling down white water rapids out of control.
I caught my breath and declared, “We’ve got to come up with a plan. If that was John and Matt, then they had just left my house when they’d gotten in that accident. They would still have had the money with them. Will you guys help me get it back?”
“Yeah,” they retorted in unison.
By the time we got over to the accident scene only a few people stood on the corner gawking. The other driver and his car were gone, John and Matt were gone, and the wrecker was getting Matt’s car ready to tow. I snuck over to the car to search for my drafting set.
“Hey kid! Get away from there!” the wrecker driver squealed, his teeth playing with a stud piercing his tongue.
He looked something like a cross between Brittany Spears and Michael Jackson. Small. Blonde. Perky. And male? Visions of future nightmares staring this guy flashed through my mind.
I told him my brother had left something of mine in the car and I wanted to get it.
“Can’t. It's all evidence. Gotta take the car straight to the police impound lot. You’ll have to check with them about removing anything.” He squeaked rubbing his hands together nervously like a scared mouse.
“Fine. Where’s the lot?”
Squeaky directed us to the impound lot across town and said he'd have the car there in about an hour. According to him, we'd have to get a DF185 form from the Police Towing Supervisor at police headquarters before they would release anything from the lot. Oh great.
“Well,
we could go over there pretending that we’re there to see John. Then tell the supervisor that we had left some homework in the car and we need to get it back.” Jared considered.
I said that might work so we headed for the station.
The cop shop was in the basement of a two-story brick building housing the municipal court on the top floor and the clerk's and treasurer's offices on the second. The structure kept regal watch from high on a hill in the middle of downtown. Built over 150 years ago, it hadn’t been updated since except for adding electricity and plumbing. We found Sgt. Watson sitting behind an antique oak desk.
“Uh, I’m here to see my brother, John Parrow,” I managed to say.
“Sign the sheet and take a seat over on the bench.”
I signed in and the three of us sat down on the bench against the wall.
I whispered to Jared and Rick, “What do we do now? I don’t really want to see him?”
“I say go with it until we can casually ask about getting into the car,” Jared recommended.
A tall, overweight officer came over to us and ordered me to follow him. Putting my hands in my pocket and glancing over my shoulder back at Rick and Jared, the officer lead me out the lobby door and down a grey hallway. Matt lay staring at the ceiling of a holding cell stretched out on a cot against the wall. I slipped past unobserved. The officer deposited me in a room with one empty chair and John sitting across a table. The door clanged shut behind me.
Dingy grey walls moaned with suffering making me uncomfortable. John slumped in his chair. His blood-shot eyes bore into me.
“How’d you know I was here?”
Wary attention washed over me. Wringing my fingers, I told my brother that Jared and Rick had seen him at the accident. When we’d gotten there, he was gone and Matt’s car was being towed to the impound lot. Where else would he be?
“Very funny, Pete. What do you want?”
“Nothing man. Can’t I just check on my brother? Do you want me to call mom?” I shifted my weight on the cold metal chair.
“Hell no! Scott's older brother is coming over to bail us out.”
“Okay. Great. I’ll see you later.” I said standing up stumbling over the table leg. I caught myself reaching for the door knob. It was locked. I knocked and waited to be released standing with my back to John. My pulse quickened.
“This is not my fault you know,” John sneered.
The guard unlocked and held the door open for me. Lifting my chin, I turned and met John’s hollow eyes.
“It’s never your fault, John,” I sighed following the guard out.
~~~
Sgt. Watson said that because Matt’s car was evidence in an accident, I wasn’t allowed to get anything out of it. We left.
The escaping sun left cool air in its wake. From the steps of the courthouse the whole town appeared serene. We stood shoulder to shoulder taking in the view mulling over our next move.
“We have to get in that car somehow,” I finally announced. “If the cops find the money, they’ll think its Matt’s and John’s pot money. If the cops don’t find it, then Matt and John will get it when they are allowed to get the car back.”
“I say we go to the impound lot after it closes and jump the fence,” Jared suggested.
“Man, I don’t know,” Rick countered. “If we get caught, we’d be in as much trouble as Matt and John.”
“Guys, I’m doing it," I avowed. "If you don’t want to come, I'll understand, but I’m not going to let John get away with stealing my money.”
They decided they were in and we took off hoofing across town for the impound lot. The sun dipped further behind the horizon casting eerie shadows that reached out shrouding everything in their grasps. We were panting and smelled like day-old gym socks when we reached Henry’s Salvage. The chain link fence around the five-acre yard was ten feet tall with barbed wire lacing the top edge. Darkness consumed now save a low-hung full moon in a sparsely starred sky with translucent clouds floating back and forth in front of it. A few street lamps on sentry duty illuminated the impound lot. The gate was padlocked. Matt’s car sat just twenty feet away on the other side.
“Now what?” Rick asked hesitantly. “How do we get in?”
Jared suggested maybe there was a loose seam in the fence that we could wedge through. With hands fingering the cold chain links we started around. I lead with Jared behind me. Rick picked up the rear. We were half way around or so when my foot fell into a hole sending me crashing to the ground with Jared and Rick piled on top. After we dislodged, I saw that the hole must have been dug by some animal. It went all the way under the fence to the other side.
“If you were a little smaller, Peter, you would have fallen through the hole to the other side,” Jared quipped. “Like Alice in Wonderland!”
“That’s it!”
“You’re too big to get through that hole Peter,” Rick argued.
“Yeah. But not if the hole were bigger,” I exclaimed.
Rick and Jared knelt helping me dig the hole big enough that I could squeeze under the fence. A rip split the quiet and my jacket as I squirmed underneath the chain fence. Rick and Jared made their way back to the other side of the yard on the outside of the fence as I made my way across the yard inside the fence. Cannibalized auto parts scattered the ground. A partially buried tail pipe tripped me, blooding my nose when I kerplunked to the ground. I hoisted myself up on a bumper wiping my nose on my torn sleeve. I reached Matt’s car about the same time the guys made it back to the locked gate.
Climbing in through the open passenger window I started searching. The car reeked of pot. No wonder it had been confiscated. The glove box contained three condoms still in their packaging, thank goodness. A joint clip, car registration and a bottle cap kept them company. Candy bar wrappers, potato chip bags, pop cans and other garbage lined the floorboards front and back. It would take awhile to go through it all. I ducked when headlights washed over. I heard a truck stop and the door open. Peering over the dashboard I witnessed Squeaky get out of his tow truck and walk to the gate. He fiddled with the lock, rattling the chain as he opened the gate. Returning to the truck he screeched the door shut and drove to the far side of the yard over by where I’d gone under the fence. Breathing again, I continued searching.
“Look at that,” I whispered.
A beam of moonlight shown down on my drafting set wedged between the bucket seat and the console. I grabbed it checking that the money was still there. Tucking it up under my shirt into my jeans waistband, I scanned the area. Squeaky had left the gate open and was still across the yard unhooking a towed car. Now was my chance. I dove out the open window rolling over and onto my feet like a commando, running for the gate. Just as I rounded the fence a hand reached out of the darkness and grabbed my arm. My breath caught and my muscles froze.
“Peter, it’s us,” Jared whispered.
“Man. You scarred the crap out of me," I exhaled. "Come on, let’s get out of here.”
We ran full out for about a half mile, then cruised to a jog. Reaching Jared’s house in record time we collapsed on his front lawn looking up at the full moon and stars, panting to catch our breath.
“You should have seen your face when I grabbed you,” Jared laughed. “I thought you were going to faint.”
“I think I peed myself.”
Our sides ached with laughter until we could laugh no more. Crickets serenaded the cool, crisp night.
After a long while, I sat up turning to Jared and offered him my drafting set. “Tomorrow calls for a trip to the bank. But would you keep my money safe for tonight?” I pleaded.
“No problem. Ya' know, John will be extremely pissed if he finds out you got the money back.”
“Yeah. I know,” I weighed in. “But I’m not going to put up with his crap anymore.”
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