A Miracle on Maple Street

It was a Tuesday- an intolerable Tuesday. The skies were sickly, with just enough rain to flirt with the sidewalks and soak into my coat. The earth breathed coldly- almost passive aggressively- in my face as I trudged uphill on Eagle.

I had walked to work today. A quarter of a tank of gas, $42 in my bank account, and nine days until my next check. If my Volvo ran on tears, I’d be set for eternity. But it didn’t. And the saline concoction of stress, hopelessness, and raw fatigue that clung to my face was frozen. Earth’s exhalation was most definitely passive aggressive.

At the peak of Eagle, I turned right on Sycamore. It’s supposed to get colder in the next few days. I’ll have the weekend off, then a full 32 hours of work until payday. Seven days of work, nine days of waiting… for the next laughable check that’ll go straight to bills and topping off my car’s starving tank. Maybe I’ll splurge and get my Catahoula the sirloin wet food with this month’s earnings.

My thoughts give me warmth, pump blood through my veins, bring heat to my skin. Or at least keep me occupied. At this point, I’ve numbly made it to Maple. Another 20 minutes and I’ll be home.

The overcharging used car lot on the left, the mom-and-pop gas station right next to it. Both likely thought they’d made a solid investment by constructing side by side. Each hardly got any business. A laundromat on the left, paint chipped bricks and barred windows betraying its “Worlds #1 Clothing Cleaners!” sign.

And then I’m in front of the grocery store my mother used to take me to as a child. Simion’s Supermarket. I say my mom used to drag me here, but almost two decades later, I’m still in and out for food and necessities. It’s just that it always reminds me of her. Memories bring with them a tornado of emotion, and I’m already being rained on. There’s no need to dwe-

Hello there.

A small black book. I look both ways, then behind me. The tome looks planted- sitting perfectly centered in the concrete square of the sidewalk, sitting just left of a weathered crack invaded by grass. Bending down to get a closer look, I notice it’s roughly the size of a check book in width and length. A check book?

I peek over my shoulder one more time, and then snatch it up, firing it into my pocket fast enough that if anyone did see me, they’d think I had just found something illicit.

I try to maintain normalcy as I half saunter, half sprint to a rusted bench on the side of Simion’s. My mom and I used to have picnics here. I was 14 when we had our last one. The book! I shake my head to clear my thoughts and slowly pull out the paperback.

Brushing the cold dampness from it, I see its skin didn’t come from a tree. It’s leather. But not a soft, thin kind of fur. It’s cool and bumpy and firm. Alligator? I’m not sure, but if my nose wasn’t frozen numb, I’d say it smelled like rich. I took the front cover and flipped it open.

On the inside cover, taped to the leather, was written a poem:

The contents of this book are yours to possess,

For better or worse- to curse or to bless.

Use wisely, use sparingly, or use in a flash.

Pass it on, keep it all, or throw in the trash.

Whether born high of class or born unto low,

You shall always reap that which you sow.

A clever little collection of rhymes, but what does it mean? Intrigued, I took the first sheet of notebook paper and flipped the page…

And instantly felt my head go light. Needles poked at my fingers, and suddenly- even sitting on the icy bench, freezing droplets permeating my scalp- I sensed my skin growing extremely hot. Almost panicky.

One hundred dollars. There laid a single $100 bill taped to the first sheet of college ruled paper. Ben Franklin’s knowing smirk pierced me. I closed the book and sat back, eyes closed, thinking. Surely somebody’s missing this…

I shook my head and refocused on the book in my hands, front and back cover in each hand, spine facing the ground. And that’s when I saw the pages. Or rather how many pages.

About an inch and a half thick, from cover to cover. Just to make sure, I opened the notebook once again, this time flipping past the first page. Ben Franklin. Flip. Gold symbol. Flip. Blue ribbon. Flip. One hundred dollars. Thumb pressed against the pages, I make my way through the whole book. There has to be hundreds. Hundreds of one hundreds. That makes thousands. How many thousands? I’m back at the first page.

One, two, three, four…

Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…

Eighty-four, eighty-five…

Ninety-eighty, ninety-nine, one hundred…

I’m only halfway through.

I do some quick math in my head, one hundred times one hundred; that’s one, plus four zeros. Ten thousand dollars, times two…

Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand dollars. Six digits worth of money held in place between alligator leather by string and glue and tape and paper.

The contents of this book are yours to possess…

My ears are ringing and I’m worried my head is about to inflate and take me into the heavens when I hear footsteps to my left. I hurriedly tuck the small-in-stature-but-big-in-value tome between my thighs and adjust my coat. And then comes Simion.

“Oh, h-hello!” he stammers. He must not have seen me sitting here. Or maybe he did see me panic and wonders what I’ve got hiding between my legs.

“Hi, Simian,” I nervously blurt back, “how’s it going?”

He’s opened a pack of cigarettes and peers into them, seemingly searching for the perfect rollup. “It’s goin, all right. Slow as always. This season I’m always struggling to-“ he’s found his perfect contender and tucks it neatly between his lips- “to make ends meet, ya know?” Simian’s lighter comes out, clicks open, and bites at the end of the cigarette. It takes a few seconds to catch. The lighter disappears back into his pocket.

“I can only imagine.” I can’t actually imagine. I barely afford my own bills, and owning a grocery store means having to keep items stocked at all times. If I owned my own supermarket, I’d be the laughingstock of the town.

Simion grunts in response and puffs on his smoke, staring across the street at the dilapidated gas station. He seems to be deep in thought, or maybe just numb from thought.

I stare at the ground, hoping he’ll finish up quickly so I can be off with my notebook. Well, my notebook now.

“Ya know, your mother was a very respected woman in this town.”

I snap to attention, surprised at his words. It has been over ten years since she passed. Over a decade that I’ve come to Simion’s Supermarket on my own. He’d never spoken to me so directly. Yet he still stared at the shop across the way. I wasn’t sure what to say back to him. Thankfully, he continued.

“She was always so kind. She blessed us all. When your neighbors were going through a rough patch, she bought them groceries. Helped me out and them. Her passing…” He stopped and turned to me, cigarette at his side now, his arms lowered like the energy had seeped out of him. “It was too soon. That doggone cancer took her too soon.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

Suddenly I felt very small. His words swirled around me like a blizzard, a few snowflakes of conversation reaching my brain. He was right, she was an amazing mother, neighbor, and friend- caring, doting, selfless. Pure in every sense of the word.

And then there was me. My mother’s only living proof of her existence. And what a selfish, pessimistic example I was. Suddenly, the little black book felt abnormally present, tucked between my legs; though it lay hidden, it seemed to be screaming out its very being.

For better or worse- to curse or to bless…

I looked up at Simian, ashamed tears in my eyes. “I miss her.”

“Me too.” Though he flashed a smile, his eyes betrayed his sadness. He gave me a small nod as if to pardon himself and dropped his spent cigarette to the ground, grinding it to sputtering ashes with his heel. He turned and quietly repeated himself, “I didn’t mean to bring her up,” before ducking around the corner and back into his store.

The little tome stared up at me and dared me to get up, leave, and never tell anyone. But Simian’s words had touched me. I opened the covers to the first page. I knew what the right thing to do was.

A bell chimed as I entered the grocery store, and Simian- standing alone at a register- turned, a smile already forming on his face. “Good afternoon, welcome to Simian’s Groc- Oh. Come in from the cold?” His smile turned from economically optimistic to cheerfully warm.

I ducked my head in response to his question and approached him. Opening my coat pocket, I pulled out a stack of bills I’d taken from the little notebook and held them out to him. He stood there staring at my outstretched hand, confusion and shock written on his face.

“What’s this for?!” Simian asked, lightly taking them from me. I hadn’t counted them, but the sizable heap had to be cupped in both of his large, worn hands; it was easily a couple thousand dollars.

I didn’t know how I could explain, how I should convince him to just take it. He wouldn’t believe me, would think it was some sort of sick prank. “My mom would want you to have it,” I stammered lamely, already retreating away from him and on my way out the door.

“Wait. Wait!” But I was gone.

Out the front door, across the street, and into the ghost town of a gas station, where I entered and bent over, panting. The black book peeked out of my pocket like the remaining Benjamin Franklins wanted a glimpse at the rack of stale candy, yellowed boxes of generic medicine, and cheap trinkets.

Use wisely, use sparingly, or use in a flash.

Pass it on, keep it all, or throw in the trash.

“I’ll be there in just a minute!” the elderly man in the back calls out to me, but I’m already removing tape from the one-hundred-dollar bills; they’re neatly stacked together and placed on the countertop by the time the owner’s wife reaches the cash register.

I wave at her from the entrance as she gawks at the mound. “My mother appreciated your business and would want you to have it,” I yell to her as I backpedal out of the store and onto the next business.

And the next.

And the next.

And so on, until I’m finally home.

There’s only $100 left. I have only a quarter tank of gas in my car. I have $42 in my bank account and nine days until my next check.

Whether born high of class or born unto low,

You shall always reap that which you sow.

I take the last one hundred dollars on the last page of the notebook and I flip back to the first sheet, where I retape it. Simian’s words had inspired me, along with the memories of my mother. She would want me to be a selfless friend, a helping neighbor.

It would take me years, but little by little, I could rebuild the little black book.

And then I could plant it for another to find, and they’d have the opportunity to pass it on.

The contents of this book are yours to possess.