I am the book keeper by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

This one hurts me only because of one man’s torment and another’s disinterest in the day to day impact of his occupation. The man of this book is correct for a lot of people’s lives, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Stolen life’s coincidences

I’m working but I am at age 74. I’m worn out and tell the manager I’m going home for good. He tells me that he is going to set me up with a one day a week at his buddy’s place. Thanking him, I say that I will just start driving until I run out of road or life.

I have a lot of various work coats, one for each situation, around my work station. I gather as many as I can carry then tell him that I will put these into my car and come back for the rest. As I walk out I remark that I hate being this old.

I got out to find my car stolen, a fully restored Studebaker Avanti. After finding the car gone, I had just left the coats at where I worked. The manager told me that they would box them up and have the driver deliver them to me.

I start up the hill to the main road.

After a while I pass a young man and ask him for a drink of water. He takes me inside then gets the water for me. As I am drinking it, he asks me why am I walking on a hot day. I tell him about leaving work only to find my car stolen.

He is shocked and takes me to his boss. We sit at a booth the boss and the young male relates my tale. I tell him that it is quite a frequent thing with me. More than four times at my work address. I was asked where I worked. I told him and also told him that it was a Studebaker Avanti.

He turns to another man in the room and stares at him.

That man tells him that there has been a number of really good cars there. I told them that those were my cars that were stolen. “Every time I finished one, I would drive it to work to show it off. Every time someone would call me to tell me that it was gone. Every time, the police would never find it or the culprits. This was my last one and on my last day working, I took a chance. My mistake. Why did you steal all my happiness?”

The boss hangs his head and asks for a cigarette. He has not smoked for quite a while.

Then the boss and that man leave the room and I hear yelling. I ask if there is another way out and I am shown that way. I had had enough. That was the last car that I would ever restore. I decided that the remainder of my life, the only thing I would own is the rust bucket I normally drive.

Even after all that, I still walked towards my home. It was a long walk.

I did not recognize the boss but he sure as hell recognized me. It was quite a few years ago and I was walking. I had gone shopping but these were small city shops so I had parked in one of the parking garages.

While walking, I spotted a rather over stuffed wallet on the sidewalk. I went through all the actual nonsense saved things that really should have just been stored somewhere or thrown out. I did find a name and address on an identification card.

The address was only a few blocks away. Coming to the address, there is a guard, of sorts, at the gate. Before he could ask me what I wanted, we hear an angry old man’s voice yelling at anyone and everyone to find out just who stole his wallet.

I pullout the wallet and tell the guard that it was lying on the sidewalk near the bakery. The guard shakes his head and tells me to follow him.

Cautiously we enter the house and are confronted by an angry old man. Before he really could say anything to the guard, the guard asks, “How did you like the pastry that you bought this morning?”

The boss was thrown off the tirade, looks at him with both an angry but befuddled look answered that they were delicious, “What does that have to do with a thief? Who is this, the thief?”

Before he could say anything more I pull out the wallet. “I found this on the sidewalk by the bakery. I looked in it to find out who owned it. I brought it right over.” I hand it to the man. He looks through it and finds it all there.

The boss looks like he still has his doubts as to if I was a pick pocket. He jams the wallet in his pocket and it immediately drops to the ground. His jacket pocket has a hole in it but it holds the wallet just barely. The old man shoving it in causes it to fall out.

Now all the household is looking at him. “What? You should have made sure that the pocket was whole before you let me wear it.” He said but his son tells him that he will not wear anything else and will not let anyone touch it.

“You tell us that if we touched it all the luck would disappear. You have threatened even mom if she tried to throw it away.”

His wife now has a very cross look, holds out her hand. Reluctantly he hands over the jacket thinking that she is going to mend it. He follows her into the back yard. The son thanks me but asks if I would come into the back yard.

“My father will not yell at my mother while you are here.”

I know, with a guard, that commanding and the presence he had, he is someone very important. So his family is also. I follow them to the back yard only to see the wife put the jacket on the charcoal grill, douse it with lighter fluid and lite it.

She looks at him, “That ratty old thing made you look ridiculous. You have a standing in this community. You need to command respect not pity. Now you haven’t even thanked this honest man. He could have just thrown it out. God knows that there are only a few things in that wallet that, besides the money, are worth anything. If you say one word other than to thank him, I’ll take that wallet and burn it too!”

She looks at me, “I thank you for bringing his wallet back. Can I get you anything?”

I tell her that I was just going back to the parking garage to drive home. I say to her that it was my honor to get it back to him. She instructs her son to go with me and take care of the fee for me.

We walk only to find, when we get to where it was parked, it is gone. My vintage 1941 Chrysler New Yorker has been stolen. The son was angrier than I was. I found out that they owned the parking garage.

He goes to the attendant, “Where is that New Yorker?”

The attendant looks at him and then me. He now realizes that his answer may or may not get him dead. He knows that he needs to tell the truth. “Vinney was in here and spotted it. He took it and told me to show the owner the sign.” He pointed to a sign that said not responsible for lost or stolen items.

I was asked to go back to their home which I did.

Both his parents were surprised at my return but when he looked at his father and told him of the stolen car that Vinney took they were visibly shaken. The old man tells another man to call Vinney here. When he gets there, the old man tells Vinney,

“This man is looking for a vintage New Yorker. Have you seen anything that he would be interested in?”

Vinney looks very proud when he shows me a picture of a 1941 Chrysler New Yorker. I look and say that it is my car. He thinks that I mean that is the one he wants but a split second later he realizes that this is not the time to be proud.

He is told the tale of me finding the wallet. Not wanting any reward for his kind deed. How they were going to pay for his parking only to find out it was stolen. I almost feel sorry for Vinney. He did not know. He was ordered to return it here within a few minutes or face the consequences.

Shortly, my car, or what was left of it was on a trailer in front of the home. A sheepish Vinney told them that there was a buyer that wanted most of the parts and those already were on their way to that customer. “That is why I snatched the car in the first place.” Vinney told them.

I was on the verge of crying. “That was an original whole car that my parents owned. All those parts made it my parents car. Keep it.”

I just walk away and get a cab ride home.

Some days later they show up at my home with a replacement duplicate. “The parts were not retrievable for your car. It was someone that also had power and would expose all of our operations. Please accept this one.”

“I mean no disrespect but that one is not mine. My parents did not drive that one. I appreciate the thought but my monetary loss was covered by my insurance. I could buy another like that one you have here but it has no sentimental value to me. Sell it and give the money to a charity. That wallet your father had and that jacket had sentimental value. Has your father a new jacket and wallet that he is comfortable in as he was in that burned up one?”

I turn and go back into my home.

The son shows up at my door again. This time he has the Avanti. It is on a flatbed and is complete. Now old memories come flooding back. I know who this is. I cannot help myself when I say that I should have tossed that wallet in the trash. I should have never restored another car.

“Keep it! No good deed goes unpunished and unpunished for the rest of my life.” I throw my keys to my rust bucket to him. “Might as well take that on also. I’ll just walk unless your people want my shoes. Take my house while you are at it. You may or may not shoot me for what I am about to say but say it I will. Those cars were all dear to me. My boys helped me rebuild them. Each was going to one of my sons. They along with my wife were caught in a gang shoot out. Wrong place at the wrong time. Matter of fact, now that I realize it, it was in your neighborhood. Their graves are in the town’s cemetery. The stone is not complete. It does not have my death date. My life is the only thing I have left. You people take and take regardless of who you hurt. There is a special afterlife for you and your wonderful associates. Enjoy your life now. What is waiting for you is nothing that I would wish on anyone but your kind.”

I don’t even look back. I just walk but tell them my final words. “You will find me in the grave yard on the ground, leaning against that head stone. When you shoot me, do one decent thing, have me buried there with them.”

All I heard was them driving off.

Sitting there on the freshly cut grass and leaning up against the cold gray head stone. I am talking out loud cursing my parents for even bringing me into this lousy life. Nothing but being allowed to climb to great heights only to allow others to push me off the cliff.

“I will bet that when these people come to put me out of their sight, they will dig my grave only to steal the meager bobbles my family were buried with. Maybe they will not go to the effort to fill it back in.”

Only then do I hear an old woman crying. I look to see the son and his mother with him. The others were standing by the cars. Again I cannot care how this is going to sound.

“Just shoot me and get this over with.” I look at the both and remember a very old saying about when an old hunting dog is too old to hunt. I look at him in his eyes then say something that he will get. “Two go out and one comes back from the hunt. The grave next to us is unsold.”

She looks at her son and now is angry. “See what your people have done to this man. All he did was to help your father, God rest his soul. You are head of the family. You stole from him his work, his hope and his family. Now all he wants to do is join his lost ones. You, my son, are the one that killed this man’s spirit and all you offer is the car you stole from him. After he returned your father’s wallet and refused the replacement car, what was your father like? He was a changed man. He found that one person that money and power could not corrupt. That is when he turned over the family to you.”

It looks like she wants to say more but she sits on the ground next to me. She is crying as she leans against me. I put my arms around her and we cry together. I say to her, “Why don’t we just close our eyes and let our ones that have passed greet us in their morning on their side of life.”

She now is not saying a word. I know that she has just done that.

The son is crying because her last words were her voicing her disappointment in what her son has done in his life. She in so many words knew what her husband was. How he quit and lived the rest of his life. He just continued in his father’s old footsteps. Now there is nothing he can do.

“I will comfort her until you have them come and pick her up. Lay her to rest next to your father or next to me. I will welcome her if you choose next to me. As for me, I will stay here until someone finds me in the same condition. Now just go and leave us dead alone. This hallowed ground is not for your kind.”

I shut up as I hold his mother as guard of her shell.

The son does leave. During the time that he left and made the arrangements to pick up his mother, his mother and my wife came to me and invited me to come with them. When the son came back with those who were to pick her up, they found that both of us had crossed over. He had his mother’s choice done. Both his mother and father are next to my family.

The last page has a picture of both his mother and the man sitting on the ground. He is resting against the head stone and she is leaning against him with his arm around her. As to comfort and protect her. The son’s book is still on the shelf by that room. It’s fate is still hanging in the balance. He regrets but still has not reformed.