The Confession

“I’m not sure you are in the right office, Mr. Gallagher,” Alimah said, closing the door. “In fact, I am not really sure what brings you here today.”

James placed the bet receipt on her desk. “Twenty thousand dollars brings me here, Ms. Keji.” He reached into the pocket of his parka and withdrew a black notebook. “And I won because of this.”

As Alimah examined the receipt thoroughly beneath the glare of the desk lamp, James noted the sharp angle of her cheekbones, her jaw. He imagined that if he travelled thirty years into the future, little about her would change.

Setting the receipt aside, Alimah reached for the black book, opened it and read the inscription. She flipped the page, then the next, then asked absently, “Do you prefer Jim?”

He was staring at the book in her hands. “Sorry—what?”

“The note is addressed to Jim, but you introduced yourself as James.”

James tried to turn his grimace into a smile. “No. Just James. Ever since I was a kid.” He shuffled until he was sitting at the edge of his seat. “That’s part of why I’m here. I’m not a hundred percent sure I haven’t wound up with someone else’s property.”

She closed the book and placed it neatly on the blotter before her. “What makes you think that?”

Shifting uneasily, James said, “That notebook. I guess someone could have left it in my mailbox, but then there was that thing at the bus stop.”

“Tell me about that.”

There was a crease at the knee of his jeans. He tried smoothing it, but it was stubborn. “Sure. I finished my shift at 2 a.m., went out to the bus stop on Rexdale—”

“You’re a bartender here?” she interrupted.

“Yes. Been here at Woodbine nine years now.”

She motioned for him to continue and brought out a yellow notepad. “And you live nearby?”

He frowned slightly, looking at his hands. “Not far. I share a place just past Martin Grove. It’s an easy commute, usually.”

She did not look up. Her pen moved smoothly across the notepad.

James cleared his throat. “So I’m waiting at my usual stop. It’s freezing and I’m praying for the bus to hurry up. Then I see this guy on the sidewalk on the far side of the street. Like, across the, uh, barrier.” He gestured with fumbling hands.

“Across the median?”

“Yeah. I mean yes. He’s wearing a parka just like mine so it catches my eye. Suddenly he goes down hard. His feet kick up in the air and I think, oh no!”

Alimah’s pen paused, hovering above the notepad.

James hurried on. “I check for my bus, nothing in sight. So I shuffle across, nearly wiping out just getting over the snowbank, and the guy is just balled up on the sidewalk. He’s rocking back and forth, cradling the back of his head. I want to reach for my phone but honestly it’s all I can do just to stay on my feet—the sidewalk was sheer ice.”

“Was he injured?”

“I can’t tell. He’s got his hood up, a toque halfway over his eyes, and he’s mumbling, mumbling. So I say, ‘Hey buddy, you okay? Hit your head?’ But when I get down next to him I realize he’s crying, saying, ‘I ruined everything, I ruined everything.’”

Alimah glanced up from her notepad. “Did you think he was inebriated?”

“Well, I wondered that too. But he seemed sober. Except for the crying. Took a solid two minutes to get him to say he wasn’t hurt. Physically, anyway.” James stared out the window at the grey February afternoon. “I gotta say, the old me would have been thinking, ‘C’mon man, don’t drag me into your problems.’ But there was something about the way the guy was beating himself up that just tugged at my heartstrings, you know?”

The pen’s motion faltered again. Alimah nodded without looking up. “That’s very kind of you.”

“No, really. Something about the way he kept saying, ‘I ruined everything, I ruined everything,’ it made me think about how this other guy in a poor-man’s parka is really hurting, you know? So I said ‘Forgive yourself and keep moving. You gotta make it mean something or the years ahead will just be more of the same.’”

James turned his attention back from the window. “Or something like that.” He snorted ruefully. “Probably the wisest words to ever come out of this old trap of mine.”

Alimah smiled. “Indeed, Mr. Gallagher, but how does this relate to today?”

“Oh. Right. Well, I help the guy over to the stop. When the bus comes I’m so tired and cold that I just find a seat and close my eyes. When I opened them again, I was alone. I don’t know if he got off before me, or maybe he never got on. I don’t know.”

James pressed on under the lawyer’s steady gaze. “I get home, grab the mail, empty my pockets on the table, go to bed. Get up this morning, make some coffee, and that’s when I see that book in with the mail. So I don’t know if it was in my pocket or the mailbox or what. But I see that inscription and folded in with it is a fifty dollar bill, and it’s got a bunch of notes on some horse races. Before I can really think about it, I get a call. One of my work friends needs to talk about something going on with them, but they’re doing a double shift and we can only talk when they go on break. So I head down here and I’m just walking around waiting for my friend to go on break when I realize I still have the book and cash in my pocket. And, well…” Gesturing, James held his hands palms-up so she could see how empty they were.

“And the next thing you know, you’ve won twenty thousand dollars?”

“Yeah! The races are in Florida and the bets are all chained together, but the odds of winning! I mean, they’ve gotta be like two lightning strikes and a Lotto Max jackpot happening the same day! There’s no way a casino employee walks away with this kind of win without a full investigation. So I’m here at my union lawyer’s office to ask for your help getting ahead of this.”

“About that, you may be right, Mr. Gallagher. How often do you play the horses?” Alimah returned to the notepad.

“Never. I had to ask the guy at the kiosk to work out the bets for me. I thought I had just won a hundred bucks or something but he said he needed a manager’s signature to cash me out. When he told me the number I almost called him a liar. So I took the bet receipt back and came straight here.”

“I see. Are you scheduled to work today?”

“No. Just came in to see that friend.”

Her skeptical look again. “And you decided to hang around for however many hours it took for five horse races in Florida to post results?”

Scratching his temple, James came to a decision and searched for the right words. “My friend and I are in a program.” He waited a beat. “He was having a rough day, so I was making myself available for his break times.”

“Admirable.” she nodded appreciatively.

“Gotta pay it forward. Can’t pay it back.”

The pen rested on the notepad. “Give me a moment, won’t you?” Alimah rose and opened the office door, then spoke with someone passing in the hall. James thought he heard his name.

She returned to her seat but did not take up the pen. Instead, she let her elbows rest on the desktop and pressed her hands together as if in prayer. “You have no idea where this book came from?”

“No, I—”

Someone knocked on the door, then a janitor poked his head inside without waiting for a response. He glanced at James, hesitated, then turned to Alimah. “You call for me, Ms. Keji?”

“Hi, Jay. This is James Gallagher. Did I hear you say earlier that last night you helped a gentleman who had fallen on the ice?”

“Oh, yeah. Wow, is that you, man? How’s your head?”

James sat upright, staring, his brows knitted. The man in the doorway was about the right size, the right build, but his mouth had an extra thirty years of frowning behind it.

“What, me? No, I helped a guy last night.”

“Mmm, no. You fell on the ice, I came over from the bus stop—”

Alimah held up the black book. “Jay, is this yours?” She held the pages open with one hand, extending it towards the janitor.

He leaned in further, squinting as he read the pages she flipped for him, then backed away and shook his head. “Nope. Not mine. Pretty sure those are racing bets though.”

Alimah rose again and ushered the older man out the door. “Thank you, Jay. That’s all I needed.” The man glanced at James once more before trundling away.

“I’m telling you, Ms. Keji, I wasn’t the one who fell.”

She held up a hand and James felt the superfluity of his objection. He forced himself to relax.

“Mr. Gallagher, does anyone call you Jim rather than James? Your parents? Maybe your wife?”

“I’m not married anymore,” James answered flatly, rubbing his hands on his thighs.

“It is not my intention to pry, Mr. Gallagher. I only mean to ask if she called you Jim.”

He looked at the door as if it might open again, then stared out the window. “No. She always knew me as James. When she left, I joined the program. That’s what I was trying to tell the guy who fell. You can fail but you have to make it mean something.” He was mostly talking to himself now. His voice had become faint, barely above a mumble.

“Mr. Gallagher?” Alimah called softly. “Was there anyone else who might refer to you as Jim?”

“No.” His fingers became claws gripping his legs. “My father went by Jim. I’ve been James since the day he left my mom.”

Long moments ticked by in silence. Alimah busied herself with reviewing the bet receipt and the black notebook, avoiding looking in James’s direction as he fought trembling lips and a long, hitching sigh.

“Mr. Gallagher, I would like to tell you two things. First, the casino will most definitely open an investigation before allowing you to cash your ticket. I recommend you sign it immediately and allow me to make copies for my records. However, unless you have some secret ties to organized crime in the state of Florida, I’m sure we can clear this issue up in under a week.”

James drew himself upright in his chair. “Yeah. Yes.” His breath hitched just once. “Thank you. And the second thing?”

Alimah smiled a second time, her eyes softening. “I think you should keep this book by your bedside and read the inscription at least once every day.” She offered it to him with both hands, turning the book around so he could read the words written there.

Keep moving, Jim.