Frozen Assets

“So you’re really not coming home?” his mother asked. “Your brother and I are going to watch the Times Square Ball Drop on TV.”

“Mom, please stop referring to the dog as my brother.”

“Well, at least Gus is spending New Year’s with me, which is more than I can say for my actual son.”

“I already told you I’m driving straight through to Tahoe.”

“Fine. But if the storm closes Highway 80, don’t drive. It’s too dangerous.”

That was the last thing Tyler’s mom said before he mumbled something about having to be at work early in the morning. It was a lie, of course, like most things he told his mother. He was really on his way to a New Year’s Eve send-off party for his friends who were about to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world.

A once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world without Tyler.

If he couldn’t be there for the trip, then he would at least experience peripheral fanfare at the party. Tyler was envious; and it was this envy that compelled him to take an alternate route during a snowstorm and end up stranded on a rural road for two days with no supplies and no cell service.

The snow was finally dissipating, and the sky seemed to crack open, revealing a golden yolk behind the clouds. With visibility improving, they’d have a helicopter in the air to search for him soon. He recalled many instances where his mother rescued stranded drivers with her volunteer Search and Rescue team. However, even with that in mind, Tyler couldn’t ignore the cold settling into his bones. His hands felt far away from him, as if they were someone else’s hands moving independently of him. Tyler didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. Soon, he’d be back home sitting by the radiator, dwelling on much greater indignities. Like how his friends were on a once-in-a-lifetime trip without him.

It was a mistake to follow his phone GPS down an unfamiliar road in a snowstorm. Every self-respecting mountain-dweller knew that. But he wasn’t really a mountain dweller anymore, certainly not by to his mother’s standards. She referred to him as a “flatlander,” the most odious insult to hurl at a native Sierra Nevadan. She claimed she used it “affectionately,” but considering her many other criticisms, Tyler had his doubts.

“You lack motivation,” his mother said during their latest argument at Christmas. “You have everything going for you, but you refuse to make anything of yourself. You just expect me to bail you out of your poor choices.”

“What’re you talking about?” Tyler said, “I don’t ask you for anything.”

“Oh yeah? What about your student loans? You’re almost thirty and I still pay them. I hate to say it, but you’re selfish, Tyler.”

“You offered to pay them, it’s not like I forced you to. Was it also my fault the economy went to hell as soon as I graduated?”

“No, of course not, but you’re the one who wanted a law degree and then did nothing with it.”

“There are plenty of other careers that benefit from a J.D.”

“Then pick one! Honestly, I blame myself. I should’ve encouraged you to learn a trade so you could’ve had a stable job out of high school and not a mountain of debt. We might as well have lit the money on fire for all the good it’s doing you.”

“Dad wanted me to go to college.”

“Well, your dad didn’t care enough to make that happen, did he?”

He could tell by the look on her face that she regretted her comment the moment it left her lips. They stared down at their plates until the tension propelled them to opposite sides of the house where they remained until Christmas was over.

Was he a bad son for leaving her alone on New Year’s Eve? Maybe. But he had his reasons.

The sun would set soon, and Tyler hadn’t heard or seen a single helicopter. Had he placed too much faith in his friends? He told them he was coming to the party, so why hadn’t they reported him missing? Tyler wanted to believe he had nothing to worry about, but the more he reflected on his friends’ past behavior and maturity (or lack thereof), the more his confidence waned.

He could hear his mother chastising him: “How can someone so smart be so stupid?”

Tyler used his key to saw a hole in the passenger’s seat, intending to burn the fabric and foam for warmth. Even if it didn’t last long, it would stave off frostbite and, to a lesser degree, full-blown existential crisis.

Before long, the truck bed was full of chunks of foam and tattered upholstery. He was removing the last pieces of foam from the passenger’s seat when he felt something hard beneath his fingers. He wrestled with the lining and extracted a smooth, black book. The elastic band that once kept the book closed dangled loosely around the covers. It reminded Tyler of the notebooks his father used to keep in his back pocket. And since this truck had only known two other owners – Tyler’s father and Tyler’s grandfather – it had to belong to one of them. If the black book belonged to his father, nothing good could come from reading his private thoughts, knowing what his mental state was like near the end of his life.

Tyler stared at the black book, unable to open it. The book’s presence prompted several questions, none of which Tyler necessarily wanted answered. Who hid it? Why did they hide it? What confidential information did it contain? And who were they hiding it from?

He had to know, even if he didn’t like what he found.

Tyler cracked open the cover and flipped through the first few pages. The handwriting was indeed his father’s, and the discovery filled him with both elation and apprehension. There was so much he wanted to know about his father, so much he regretted never bothering to learn. Although Tyler knew what happened wasn’t his fault, he never stopped wondering whether there was something he could’ve done to prevent it.

After thumbing through the entries, it was clear he would never know. The book was simply a ledger with dollar amounts written in the margin, followed by a date and vague description. Tyler could only assume this was his father’s system for tracking client payments. The last entry was dated about a week before his death.

$175 5/21/08 Jones

Tyler closed the book. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find, but he was still disappointed that he didn’t find it.

He was about to toss the book with the rest of the fire fodder, but something caught his eye on the spine. It was a worn sticker labeled “Ty’s College.” He stared at this label, contemplated its meaning, then looked down at the carved out passenger seat. Could it be?

Tyler thrust his hand into the seat and swiped back and forth, searching. The sky was fading to purple and the temperature was dropping, but he didn’t care. If something else was hidden down there, he had to find it.

He didn’t believe it when he unearthed a plump paper bag. And he definitely didn’t believe it when he found stacks of cash inside. Tyler added the subtotals from the pages of the black book and calculated $20,000, give or take, which appeared to match the amount in the paper bag. This money was for him. It had to be.

My God, the things he could do with $20,000.

For starters, he could join his friends on their once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world. He’d just have to give his two-week notice, sublet his apartment, hop on a plane, and Voila! Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity saved. But what about his father? He clearly squirreled this money away so Tyler could go to college. Would it dishonor his father’s memory to spend the money on anything besides paying down his student loans?

And there was still that pesky complication: he may not live long enough to use the money.

The thrill of discovering $20,000 had briefly masked Tyler’s mounting physical discomfort, but now it was creeping back, numbing his extremities, burning his skin. And the money soothed none of these pains.

It was funny how the perceived value of something depended entirely on context.

He heard a rumbling from the East; the unmistakable beating of helicopter propellers. It was coming closer and growing louder – he could feel it humming in his chest.

Tyler leapt out of the truck and peered into the sky. The helicopter was moving parallel to Tyler’s road, maybe 30 miles north of his location – too far for them to see him waving his arms over his head. He had to act fast.

He threw the foam and fabric into the fire pit and fished the lighter out of his pocket. He held the flame under a piece of foam, then a piece of fabric, but they only smoldered at the edge and quickly went out as soon as he withdrew the lighter.

The helicopter was already halfway across the sky.

Without thinking, Tyler grabbed the black book, the paper bag, and the $20,000 and tossed it all into the fire pit. The fire burned hot and bright long enough for the helicopter to cross the sky and disappear behind the trees. Tyler climbed on the hood of the truck and waited for the helicopter to circle back.

But it didn’t.

He listened to the propellers whirl out of earshot and felt the humming in his chest subside. And in a matter of minutes, the fire whimpered away, leaving behind $20,000 worth of ash.

Tyler collapsed to his knees.

What kind of person found a gift from their late father and immediately started spending it in their mind without even taking a moment to feel gratitude? If he were a good person, he would have spent the money on something noble. If he were a good son, he would have given the money to his mother.

But he wasn’t a good son, was he? He would’ve spent the money on himself.

Of course, all this was theoretical now, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter whether he was good or bad, because it wouldn’t change whether he would or wouldn’t freeze to death.

Tyler lied on the windshield and watched the clouds drift by. He closed his eyes, waiting for sleep or hypothermia to take him — whichever came first, he didn’t really care.

But wait…

Was he already hallucinating, or did he just hear a dog bark?

He sat up in time to see a dark shape bounding down the road toward the truck with its tongue lolling out of its mouth.

“Gus?”

His mother’s dog plopped his front paws on the bumper to sniff Tyler’s feet. His mother appeared a moment later, gliding over the dog’s tracks in cross-country skis. “Good boy, Gus! You found your brother!”

Tyler struggled to form a coherent thought, much less a coherent sentence: “How – where – how’d you know?”

His mother smiled and said, “I just asked myself, ‘What would a flatlander do?’ and it occurred to me that Siri probably gave an alternate route when the 80 closed, and that you were probably boneheaded enough to follow it. So I mapped it myself and here I am.”

There was so much Tyler wanted to say, but all he could muster was. “Oh.”

“So,” she said, “Now what?”

Tyler glanced at the fire pit and said, “Let’s go home.”