As
the city thawed to reveal minutely wider cracks in the walk and deeper
holes in the street, we continued our obstinate and incremental labors.
Odd
events took place in our periphery. There was a race riot all up and
down 25th, from Fifth to Sixth. Blacks shut out of construction work,
apparently. We heard the commotion from the office—sharp cries of
venomous hatred, the crack of splintering bricks.
One
day on our way to lunch we found twelve hundred dollars in cash. Peter
saw it first. Or was the first to point it out. To put a word onto the
apparition: that.
“Look at that!”
There
it was: a tight, rubber-banded roll of sixty twenty-dollar bills, green
against the gray cement blotched with petrifying gum. It was a dense
and powerful object, exerting a dark, magnetic force. You looked at it
and you just knew it was twelve hundred dollars in cash. Had to be. You
wanted to touch it but you didn’t want to touch it. You wanted to grab
it. But you didn’t.
Two
passersby, young men from some indeterminate European country—possibly
Switzerland—or maybe Belgium—saw it too. For the merest moment we
all—seven of us—stood in a circle to behold the radiant thing.
Finally Peter picked it up. He unfastened the elastic and began to count.
“Whoa,” we murmured.
“Wow.”
“Jeez.”
“Holy shit.”
The
two men grimaced and gesticulated. It soon became clear that they were
not laying claim per se. But they were clamoring for some kind of
recognition. They had seen the money on the ground. Now here it was in
this man’s hand. These were the facts. Perhaps they were due a token? A witness fee, of sorts? Peter peeled off two hundred
dollars and handed it to them. They accepted the money with grandiose
shrugs, Europeanly, as if to say: We’re not asking for it, you know. We’re not even really accepting it. But we’ll take it. Since you insist. They went on their way with waves and smiles.
Back
in the office, we sat down to eat at the conference table. Peter had
the money in the kangaroo pocket of his nylon windbreaker. He opened the
discussion with a vow to respect the group’s suggestions and concerns. A
subtle rift began to form between those who felt we should divvy it up
right here, right now and those who felt that morality dictated some
other course of action, or at least a decorous exercise in delayed
gratification. I didn’t know how I felt.
“Hey Peter, keep it. Come on, you found it. Keep it,” suggested Rob, perhaps hoping to flatter Peter into sharing.
“My dad’s a minister,” answered Peter. “I should bring it to the police.”
“They’re going to put it in their pockets,” Kevin howled. “They’re cops!”
“Cops are different now,” I volunteered.
“The right thing to do is the right thing to do,” asserted Peter. “It doesn’t matter what they do.”
“You
wanna give it to the cops, call the cops. Give it to them. Give it to
the cops,” Kevin said. He got up and gathered his trash. “Walk over
there with the money. Like a fool. Hand it over.”
Later
that afternoon, by email, Peter reported that the police at the 13th
Precinct barely cared. Come back in nine days, said the lady desk cop.
If it’s here, it’s yours. Nine days later, Peter circulated among our
desks and handed each of us $200 in cash.