A Dollar for Jill

Episode 9:
The day starts early with a shared taxi ride to the airport. My accidental passenger is Jill who talks incessantly at 6:15 am. She is headed to a funeral in Dallas. She is chirpy and explains that her friend would have wanted it that way. No mourning allowed.

She is excited to see old friends. At 6:30 she is already talking about how the whiskey will flow. Her faced is pocked, heavy with foundation. She is generous with her personal history. Her family owns a chain of Sicilian pizza restaurants. She once bred Yorkshire terriers but the state suspended her license. She is unable to have children. She is allergic to wheat, diary, and egg yolks.

She speaks often of hurricanes. It is a busy week for hurricanes. Gustav, Hanna, Ike and Josephine. She tells me that she is a refugee from Katrina. She was airlifted from New Orleans to Seattle three years ago. She pops a red and white capsule.

Jill waves her hands a lot. The driver is watching her closely in the rear view mirror. She tells me that her flight from Seattle is not until 2 pm, but she could not sleep. She was scared that she would sleep through the alarm. I said, me too. My two words to her two thousand words.

There are vague references to an accident that required the total reconstruction of her face. I shrug in feigned sympathy. I am sorry that I am having trouble believing her. It just looks like bad teenage acne.

Halfway to the airport, she confesses that she is taking Dilantin. She is taking lithium, too, "to take the edge off." She tells us that the Dilantin makes her talk too much. She knows that she is annoying. She annoys herself, Jill says, with all her blither blather. Blither. Blather. She apologizes for jabbering.

She tells me that she lives in a yurt on Vashon Island. My ears perk up. It is a long shot, but I ask. Do you know Charlie Dalton?

Dalton? Oh yeah, he live in a trailer at the Eagles Lodge.

Suddenly, Jill turns an imaginary key that locks her lips. For the rest of the ride she is silent. I can tell it is really hard for her and she is concentrating. Steam seems to be rising from her. There is an odor.

At the end of the ride, I offer to pay the full fare. I’m working, I tell her. No worries. She surprises and thanks me with a sloppy kiss that smells darkly of cigarettes and Jim Beam.

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.