Black Cheque

Looking back now, it was such a fantastically ordinary Monday in his extraordinarily simple life.

Wake. Brush teeth. Pull on fresh clothes. Coffee. Eggs. Refill coffee. Grab bus pass. Kiss wife. Lock door.

In this typically ordinary day like any other, he’d stepped out onto the crunchy fall leaves and grabbed the 7:15am 99 Bus Downtown to his workplace.

It was good, decent life. Sure it was. Maybe not the life he’d wanted to live, but a good, decent life. As a teenager, he’d loved to cook. His senior year of high school he’d made it to the top of his state-wide cooking competition and even fetched a fancy $7000 scholarship to culinary school, but his father told him “Barry, son, there’s no money in restaurants.” So he’d gone into business school. He got alright grades and knew his father wanted him to go on and get his MBA, but he just couldn’t keep the numbers and charts inside his brain, so he’d rushed to graduate, degree in hand.

Initially, there was no full-time work for him, so he started as a dishwasher. Those felt like the best days of his life. He worked 16 hour days, made $8 an hour, lived in a rundown Brooklyn apartment with three other roommates, and spent the majority left over of his paycheck on Newports and Coors. Every Tuesday they would go to Dixon’s Pub for bucket wings and sing karaoke. Saturday mornings were always spent shooting hoops. After particularly long shifts, they would sit on the roof of their building, smoke, and talk about going to Spain and the Great Wall and taking scuba diving lessons until the sun rose above the skyscrapers. The smoke rings caught their hope and floated up into the sky, white affirmations whispering promise into the black sky.

Eventually, he’d met his wife through his best friend. A fellow Long Island University alumni, this friend was engaged to a gorgeous art buyer. One night out, this art buyer had brought along her friend. The friend’s name was Elaine and they had hit it off. Ten months later, he followed his best friend’s lead and proposed. His mother was very happy that she had a daughter-in-law and she and Elaine made quick work of planning the wedding. His best friend got him a job at the local advertising firm he was an associate with. And life was alright.

Ten years later, he worked in that same Operations department. He’d managed to climb the ladder enough to make a good, decent salary. Enough for a down payment on the home his wife longed for, never quite enough left over to save for that trip to Europe he’d been talking about going on since he was twenty-two.

But life, as his father had always said, was not some fairy tale. Life was hard work and a solid marriage and being a good family man. So in some ways, he had almost accomplished exactly what everyone expected of him.

The 99 creaked to its stop and he flipped open his wallet, pulling his metro card out. He nodded at the driver as he stepped on, shuddering softly at the temperature change, and looked around. As normal, its riders were sparse. An elderly woman with her grocery cart, a mother and her son bundled thick in winter clothing, and finally an older man towards the end of the bus dressed head to toe in grey and wearing a Breton hat.

Barry wandered to the back of the bus, sitting down. After a moment, the man across from him looked up, staring at him.

Barry nodded, before turning his head to look out the window. He still felt the stranger’s eyes on him.

He felt the stranger speak even before he did, “Cold Monday, son?”

Barry gave him a thin smile and tipped his head slightly.

A moment’s pause.

“Are you happy, son?” came from the stranger.

Barry looked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Are you happy, with your life, are you content? Merry?”

Barry spoke hesitantly, “I mean, sure. Aren’t we all?” the stranger kept his heavy gaze. “You know nobody’s life is perfect. We could all have more time, more vacation, more money.”

“And what would you do? With more money?”

Barry thought carefully for an instant. “I would take a trip to Spain. Get my wife a new wedding ring after all these years. Repaint the living room. Surprise my father with a new grill.” He paused and chuckled, “Pay off that credit card.”

“Credit card, huh? Some say that money is the root of all evil,” the stranger responded.

Barry frowned. “We all need money. It’s all about how you use it, you know?”

The stranger stared at him again solemnly, as if he had a warning that couldn’t quite slip past his tongue, “Maybe.”

Another pause. Barry couldn’t help but find himself wringing his hands, not sure if he could keep the conversation going or continue staring out the window. Just as he was about to make a friendly comment about the weather –

“Well here’s my stop,” the man stood up, taking his time to collect himself, pulling his coat tight around him and jutting his finger at the seat beside Barry. “Oh son, it looks like you dropped something.”

Barry looked down to see a thin and slightly worn black leather notebook next to him. He picked it up, forehead creasing in confusion.

“This isn’t mine,” Barry startled, looking back up at the stranger. “I didn’t even see it when I sat down.”

The stranger paused and looked at him, expressionless.

“Well, Barry, seems you are about to have a fantastic life. But don’t forget, gifts always require repayment twofold,” he said, before lumbering down the stairs and into the open air.

When Barry flipped open the notebook there was a note, explaining that the receiver of this gift would be able to write any amount up to $20,000 inside its pages. The note went on to clarify that the amount would then be deposited into the receiver’s bank account within 3 business days.

At first, Barry was incredulous. Then, confused. He wasn’t sure how to explain this strange discovery, so he’d waited a few days, keeping the notebook stuffed in the back compartment of his backpack. Over cold turkey and mustard sandwiches in the breakroom, he would stew over how to explain this newfound fortune. What would his wife say? His friends? Or was it just some harmless joke left written in a book by some teenagers looking for a laugh? Certainly it was someone having a laugh.

It was Friday evening, on his way home on the 99, that Barry finally got the courage to pull the notebook out. He wasn’t sure if he’d need a special pen. The note hadn’t said. But it was probably a hoax, a scam, some joke. So what did it matter? Special pen, Barry snickered. He was starting to sound as unhinged as that stranger on the bus.

Barry opened his coat pocket and pulled out a thin yellow pencil. He flipped the notebook to the first page. And paused. Waited.

It’s a hoax, Barry, it’s not real. Just write a number. Write a number. Don’t be silly, just -

$500.

There it was, on the page. $500 written in pencil ink. Then he flushed, embarrassed by his childishness, and closed the notebook quickly, shoving it back into the deep recesses of his backpack.

He put it behind him and the weekend passed without a second thought. Elaine’s best friend from college was having a baby shower. Of course, this meant that Elaine had been thinking of nothing but babies for weeks. Barry tried to say all the right things without saying too much and stay out of her way.

The week started and the notebook was all but a forgotten figment from the past.

Wednesday evening, he came home like every other, flicking the lock closed behind him and taking off his shoes. His eyes hurt from staring at maps and computers all day, he needed a beer. He was just pulling his jacket off when his wife came in, holding a stack of papers.

“Barry? What is this?” she looked at him, jutting the paper into his face.

Their bills and bank statements. He squinted, “What?”

“Well it’s just so strange,” Elaine said, taking the papers back. “I was going over our budget for the month and it’s so odd. Maybe I miscalculated, but I checked it three times. It seems we have an extra five hundred dollars this month. I’m not sure where it came from. Do you think it’s a scam? Should we call the bank?”

“NO!”

The room stood still. Elaine looked up, blinking. Barry looked back at her, blinking.

“Well, it’s just…”

“What is it?”

“It’s mine. I mean, it’s ours. I know that you’ve been talking about wanting to redo the living room and…maybe make the upstairs study into a baby room. So I picked up some consulting. You know, advertising. And I started some consulting. The client paid us the five hundred dollars. There might be more coming in, I’m not sure.”

Elaine looked at him for a moment, eyebrow raised. Then she breathed out, shaking her head in confusion, and wandered out of the room.

“Dinner will be done in fifteen minutes!” she called out.

Barry threw off his coat, bounding up the stairs to his office, and flinging the notebook open onto the desk.

$500.

He stared in shock. It tasted like freedom and everything he’d ever dreamed of. Very carefully, he pulled out a pencil from his desk. He stared at the notebook, silently. Pressing the pen tip onto the paper, he crafted his next wish.

$10,000 stared back at him from the page.

Three days later, $10,000 was deposited into their account.

That night, he told his wife he’d received a raise and would be doing more consulting. Money wasn’t an issue anymore. She could buy that dress she’d been eyeing for her birthday. And they would be going to Spain.

They traveled, ate, drank. Saw friends who had the glimmer of newfound respect and envy flicker in their eyes. Splurged. There were even attempts for a baby. His father boasted to friends at BBQs “That’s my son, he’s a consultant.” His mother would beam “I always knew Barry would find his place.”

Elaine even looked at him with light in her eyes again. Old schoolmates looked him up when they were in town to ask him for drinks. It was as if Barry had been plucked from obscurity, shined, and placed on a pedestal.

Twenty-eight months later the stranger had come back, as he promised, to collect his repayment. And what a repayment it was.

***

“So, Officer, that’s about it.”

Barry curled his hands together, looking across at the two detectives. He couldn’t quite meet their eyes.

The first officer leaned in incredulously, “You’re telling us…all this horror, to repay a debt? To a stranger who dropped you a little book?”

Barry looked to the side, hangs wringing together, his finger still had a slight tan line from the wedding ring he no longer wore. Rocking a bit. He wished his father was still alive, he’d always given great legal advice. If only his mother would take his calls.

“Well, Officer. I suppose money is the root of all evil after all.”