13- Liberty Dime
Dave finds the letter on the ground near the two brick apartment
buildings down from Curie Avenue not far from The Crooks Avenue Sweet Shop.
Dennis always too curious for his own good tells Dave to open it;
Dave's not sure.
He's still stinging from that thing at Curie Park and how the cops
wanted to charge me and him for the nail guns Dennis and Little Dave used -- since
Dave wouldn’t give up his brother and I wouldn't tattle on Little Dave when the
cops knew neither me nor Dave did the shooting.
I kept mum about the fact I invented the nail gun in the first place.
The kid we painted red was something else. You just don't go around
painting kids red and think that you'll get away with it the kid’s parents were
very peeved yet would not press charges against us if we met with them and
apologized.
Dave and I spent hours rehearsing it we just could get it right. Every
time Dave said it, he broke down crying in the middle and we both knew crying
during a confession just wouldn’t do.
When I tried it, Dave said I sounded insincere which I was because I
didn't really think painting the kid was all as bad as people made out.
When the time came to face the parents, we agreed I'd start and when I
sounded too awful Dave would take over and if he started the ball, he would at
least it would sound sincere.
They lived on 1st Street, but the
kid wasn't a member of the 1st Street gang, one point in his favor and gave me
a twinge of guilt over having painted him as red as I did since at the time with
Dennis and Little Dave egging me on I painted the poor fool red all over,
making him undress except for his jockey shorts. And when I heard the cops were
coming and I decided to get Little Davy away from the place, the poor fool was still
dripping red as if I’d shot him all over with nails.
The house he lived in was halfway between Vernon and Trenton with a
small lawn and a low white picket fence and a screened in porch with two lights
one on each side of the front door.
We didn't have to knock or ring
the bell. The boy and his parents waited outside for us. They looked angry and
the boy looked embarrassed and wouldn't look us straight in the eyes, he,
thinking this whole thing as foolish as we did.
What's the point of apologizing for something you can't take back? I
didn't make Dave apologize when he took my bankroll I'd stolen to go to
California and bought a CB radio with it instead. I couldn't ask for the CB and
I didn’t. What’s done is done and the CB radio seemed to make him happy. I only told him he owed me one and that I'd
pick the time when I would collect.
The boy's parents looked like parents we always thought we wanted,
straight out of the Dick Van Dyke TV show, all clean-cut and proper and not at
all like real parents we knew most kids in this neighborhood had. Even their
fingernails were clean.
The dad wore a white shirt and black pants cuffed at the bottom the
kind Catholic schools make me wear. The mom was dressed in a kind of dress the
mom on Leave it to Beaver wore.
The dad told us we ought to be ashamed for what we did to his son. Then
I started on the spiel Dave and I rehearsed, saying how sorry and all for what
we did and how we should never have gone as far as we did, and if we could take
it back we could we would, but we can't, so, the best we can do is say we're
sorry -- all this sounding phony even to me even though in some fashion I
really meant it and not just because we got caught.
At this point, Dave was supposed to take over with the tearjerker part.
Before he could the man looked straight at me and said, “I can understand you
taking my son's clothes off but why did you have to paint in red?”
Before I could answer, the boy’s mother got into it, not with us, but
with her husband, “Qhat do you mean it's all right for them to take off his
clothes?”
“I only meant...”
“Don't you love our son? Why would you want people doing bad things to
him?”
This went on and on they forgot
about us. We just stood there waiting for them to get back to us. When they didn’t
I looked at Dave and he looked at me and we both shrugged and backed up a step
then another step then we ran like hell, me glancing back over my shoulder at
the boy we painted red. He looked even more pathetic than before. I felt sorry
for him.
This isn't like that, I tell Dave, taking Dennis’ side about the letter.
“Somebody's bound to miss it and will be glad we found it,” I say. “But
we should look inside to make sure it's important.”
Dave shakes his head. But he doesn't stop Dennis from taking letter to
tear it open. Pieces of paper flutter to the ground. I pick up the first. It is
some kind of payment slip for a car loan. Dennis gets the other and it's a check
and he whoops and says we're rich. I tell him to calm down. We can't cash a
check like that unless it's made out to us and this one is not.
Dennis suggests we find someone who will cash it for us. Dave howls and
tries to grab the check back. Dennis, smaller but more agile, ducks away from
him.
“We can't cash it,” Dave says. “We have to give it back.”
“Give it back?” Dennis yells. “Are you crazy?”
“No,” I say, “He's got a good
idea.”
This draws a surprised look from both Dave and Dennis.
“Maybe we’ll get a reward for bringing it back to the women whose name
is on the check,” I say.
“If we just show up at her door, she'll think we stole it,” Dave says.
“You're right,” I say. “We’ll call her first.”
“We can't bring it back in the envelope,” Dave says. “Not after Dennis tore
it open.”
“We'll say we found the check like it is,” I say.
“What about the other paper?” Dave asks, holding up the payment slip.
“Who cares it's not worth anything,” I say.
Dave tears up the slip, and lets the pieces fall through his fingers,
the wind snatching them up and making them fly away.
The we go into the sweet shop where the black men play poker in the back,
and who know us well as our families do, grinning at me in particular since I
used to collect my papers here when I still had a paper delivery route. They
know we're up to something. They just
won't say anything to us about it, our business being ours and theirs being
theirs.
Me, Dennis and Dave crowd into the phone booth in the back behind them.
all elbows and knees, poking this one or that, me complaining I need more room
to make the call to information, and when finally I do I have nothing to write
the number down with or on, and so say it out loud so that one or both of the
others will remember it in case I don't, and when we get the number and I hang
up, I struggle to find the liberty dime I have in my pants pocket, so smooth
from a generation of fingers, I can hardly tell it's a dime I'm at all. I
always save it thinking it might be worth something someday. I figure if we get
something back from this it will be worth the investment.
I start to dial then forget the number and ask Dave. He repeats a
number different from the one I recall and different from the one Dennis says.
So, I call information again and the number she gives is different again from
the number any of us recall. So, I make Dave memorize the first part and Dennis,
the second then dial as each recites until the phone on the other end rings and
a lady with a kind voice responds.
I tell her we found the check and she sounds grateful and then she
asked if we found the other paper, too.
“No,” I say, “just the check.”
She says that's too bad. She can replace the check easily but can't get
another payment voucher so easily.
I want to tell her we can get her the receipt, too, only I see all the
pieces of it fluttering away like snow, and know that even if we could get them
all back, and taped them all together, we would have to explain how they got to
be in pieces in the first place. But I know we can’t find them all and know it’s
pointless to try.
“Sorry, lady,” I say and hang up hearing my Liberty Dime go clink
inside the phone.