Rude Awakening

Sunday morning, 5-something a.m.

The Cartel boss calls me on my cell phone, waking me before sunrise. He says in a booming voice, "Boy, ya betta get those fucking trucks outa Florida and back to New Orleans." His message is brief and I am rattled.

Hamsini is sleeping soundly by my side. I stumble into the kitchen naked. The house is cold. I turn on the computer and make some tea. I check Ike's track. The bastard Ike is ducking below Florida's foreskin. Ike is going into the Gulf. Nobody knows where Ike is going to hit land. Some are betting on Corpus Christi. The fundamentalists say Ike is going back to New Orleans to finish off the sinners.

I call Christopher in Boston. It is nearly 9 o'clock on the East Coast and he was sleeping, too. He is pissed. He hates guys like me giving him the third degree.

"Where are the trucks?" I ask.
"We finished unloading last night. The crackers are in a warehouse out by Homestead."
"Well, call the Teamsters again and get those snack foods loaded. We need that convey moving towards Baton Rouge."

Turnpike Dollar

Episode 10:

Today I spent my Charlie dollar at the Natick Plaza on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Four quarters in the bathroom vending machine.

Not a false French Tickler made in Lumberton, NC.

Not a pouch of strawberry-scented personal lubricant.

Two Tylenol capsules for a midnight headache.

Driving towards Boston, ahead of the hurricanes.

Soft Flesh Pressing the Leaning Tree

Episode 4:
There are many gin and tonics. We are sloppy. We hatch identify schemes and knock on the fish tank at the ugly algae sucker. There is much laughter and the agrarians are starring at us. Hamsini makes me happy. I would like to marry her someday. I would like our photograph to appear in the New York Times with the other beautiful, interesting people who attended the finest schools. Her family and I have never met. They are hoping for a Hindu son-in-law, I think. Her family hails from Pittsburgh. Her father is an optometrist. Her mother is a retired math teacher.

Should we track down Charlie Dalton? How would this be accomplished? We ask the waitress if she knows a man named Charlie Dalton. She does not. We sidle up to the bartender, Ben. He does not know this Charlie. We ask for a Vashon telephone book. After another gin and tonic, the telephone book appears seemingly from nowhere. There is, apparently, no Charles Dalton residing on Vashon Island. There is no Dalton clan living way up Shingle Mill Creek.

Before leaving Vashon, under a gravid moon, I make love to Hamsini as her soft flesh presses into a steeply leaning madrone tree.

I whisper to Hamsini, "We shall spend the money one dollar a day for the next year in honor of Charlie Ray Dalton."

She trembles. "Whatever," she says.

The first dollar has been spent already. Pocketed in the form of a tip to Ben and a waitress named Magdalena.

Gin & Tonic on Vashon

Episode 3:

This is the wallet of Charles Ray Dalton. It is the shittiest wallet I’ve laid eyes on. It must be at least 20 years old. It may be older than I am. The leather has worn paper-thin. It is torn and can no longer hold its contents properly. Does a man resemble his wallet? Mine happens to be eel skin.

On the wallet is a dull impression of a camel. I think Charlie got his wallet free by sending in the tabs from fifty cartoons of Camel cigarettes. Charlie must be a smoker.

Hamsini actually smells the wallet for smoke and nicotine. I scan the room to see if anyone notices. Then I search for anyone resembling the wallet. There are no scruffy, faded fellows suddenly short of cash in this tony bistro. There is no Charles Dalton here.

It takes fortification to go through the wallet of Charles Ray Dalton. In fact, it takes six gin and tonics between us. First, we count out the cash. It is a wad of $366. Then we lay out the rest of the contents. Remarkably, the owner of the wallet has no address or telephone number. There is no driver’s license. There is no picture ID. The wallet is full of odd, impractical things.

Warm Leather

Episode 2:

The wallet is still warm. We wonder together, how did this happen? Was the wallet’s owner riding a motorcycle, too? I check my back pocket and feel the auspicious mass of my own wallet.

We do not linger on the road. We gather up the bills and the wallet quickly. We do not examine the contents of the wallet. For me, there is some self-reproach in finding a stranger’s wallet. I hand the wallet to Hamsini and we get back on the bike. She hugs my waist tightly. I already said, I am the luckiest guy in the world. Hamsini is a resident urologist. She is smart and beautiful and funny.

We decide to stay on the bramble covered island a bit longer. We head to the island’s commercial center and enter a dark place called the Go-Go Girls. It turns out to be a restaurant full of lesbians wearing gum boots. This is not a scene to be affronted by; it is simply a fact. Everyone is fully clothed. If there are pasties worn, they are obscured by Carharts and flannel. I find this odd on such a warm evening.

We order gin and tonics and sushi. We sit next to an aquarium full of African cichlids raking the gravel bottom.

The Exhilaration of Found Money

Episode 1:

This is all true. And it is happening now. Or just a little before now.

There is something exhilarating about finding money on the ground. It is like discovering a cheerleader splayed in the dry grass on the side of the tracks. At first, her warped body is so beautiful. Then you realize what has happened. Some kind of horrible accident, initially, you hardly recognized the train wreck.

It was dusk, at the end of the hottest day of the year. A sultry day that is rare on the edge of the Puget Sound.

I was cruising across Vashon Island, taking the long way to Tacoma. Hamsini was on the back of my Enfield. She is so amazing. I am the luckiest guy on the planet. Found money, my girl, the smell of blackberries ripening on the cane.

The bills were blowing across the country road like leaves. We passed through them before it hit me. Money, littering the land.

We parked on the shoulder. Below us, sheep in a meadow overlooking the Colvos Passage. We scrambled for the loose bills blowing across the dividing line. Hamsini found the wallet. I scanned for onlookers, excitement laced with guilt, I suppose.

Nobody was watching but the sheep, idle as lawn ornaments.