Making Amends

Carlos opened his locker, placed his things on the bench, and hurriedly toweled himself dry and got dressed. Crap, I’m going to be late for work again. I hope the bus comes on time. He quickly put on his shoes, grabbed his backpack, and headed out of the gym. By some stroke of luck, the bus arrived after two minutes. He took a seat towards the middle, happy that the bus was oddly half-empty this morning. He didn’t feel like reading or writing today, so he stared out the window and watched the city pass by while his eyes got heavy. I need a new job. Life shouldn’t be like this. He looked at his phone and was pleased to see that he’d likely be on time today. He decided to get a few pages of reading done, so he unzipped his bag to pull out his book. It was not there. Neither were any of his things. He zipped the bag back up, thinking that he was half asleep or dreaming. He shook his head and took a deep breath. He opened the bag again and saw the same stacks of money. He looked around the bus to see if anyone was watching. No one was looking in his direction. Am I rich?

The bus pulled to his stop. He quickly stepped out and walked to the office. His watch said 8:29. Perfect. He took a seat at his desk and started reading his email. He couldn’t concentrate. Every 15 minutes he would think about the contents of his backpack. He needed to figure out what was going on. At around 10:30 he told his boss that he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to take a Sick day. His overbearing manager wasn’t pleased, but let Carlos go home.

Carlos was scared to walk around with so much money, but he made it through the bus ride home, tightly clutching the bag to his chest. When he got to his apartment, he immediately dumped the bag’s contents onto the dining table. It was more money than he imagined could fit in the backpack. Banded stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills and a little black book lay on the table. He opened the book and saw several handwritten names with dollar amounts and little messages. At first, he thought it belonged to some bookie, but then read messages like “Sorry for everything” and “I didn’t mean to.” Weird.

There were twenty banded stacks of money, so Carlos counted one, which amounted to $1,000. He quickly flipped through all the stacks to make sure they were all one-hundred-dollar bills. $20,000. I have $20,000! He jumped up and down excitedly and began dancing, but suddenly stopped. Wait, this belongs to someone. I can’t keep this. But I can quit my job and find a new one. But this isn’t mine. Dammit! How did I get this bag? Maybe it belongs to the guy getting dressed next to me in the locker room...

He looked inside the bag to see if he could find a name somewhere. Stitched on a label read “D.C. Draper.” Carlos was angry that he had the wrong bag. It would be nice to be unconcerned with money, even momentarily. He knew he needed to find the bag’s owner and return the money. He shoved the money back in the bag and hid it under his bed; then, he left for the gym. When he arrived, he mentioned to the receptionist that he must have taken someone else’s bag home and asked if there was someone with the last name Draper who attended the gym. They confirmed that a Dorian Draper was a member of the gym, but that was the only detail they could give. They offered to take the bag and give it to its correct owner, but Carlos was not going to give them a bag of twenty thousand dollars.

Carlos decided that he would come back tomorrow at the same time as he did that morning in hopes of running into Dorian Draper, so he went home, spent his evening as he normally did with dinner and TV and then went to sleep early. The next morning, he went back to the gym and hung around in the locker room after class.

“Hey guys, is there a Dorian here?”

One man said that Dorian usually comes to this class every weekday, but he wasn’t here today. When Carlos tried to get more details about Dorian, it seemed that was all they knew. Great. Now what?

On the bus ride to work, Carlos scoured the internet for variations of Dorian C. Draper in Chicago. There were a couple prospects, but he didn’t want to purchase a background check report. Maybe I can just keep the money. It’s not like I stole it. He let out a loud, audible sigh. He spent half of his workday trying to find information about this guy. He didn’t find much of anything. He messaged three Dorian Drapers on Facebook, but none of them were the right person.

When he got home from work that evening, he checked to make sure the backpack was still under the bed. Safe and sound. He picked up the little black book and paged through it again, trying to make sense of it. Most of the pages were blank, and those that weren’t said very little. Carlos determined that the money in the bag was supposed to go to these individuals, but he wasn’t quite sure. He started to feel really badly about having this money, and wondered what Dorian was thinking. I hope he isn’t in some sort of trouble.

Later that night, Carlos put on the News and they talked about a local man getting a heart transplant that morning, but unfortunately, did not survive. His name was Dorian Draper. “What!” Carlos quickly searched the internet for Dorian Draper and “heart transplant” and discovered that he was the one. Carlos had his bag. He read article after article about Dorian and his surgery. He also read the comments, of which there were plenty in the local newspapers. Some of them were really ugly. It seems that Dorian pissed a lot of people off. That explains the book of names.

Okay... I have a bag of $20,000, the guy who the money belongs to is dead, so I can’t give it back. It’s mine… right? It’s mine! I have $20,000!

Carlos slept easily that night, excited to put in his two weeks' notice the next day. The next day came and he went to work happily. Halfway through the day, he felt uneasy about quitting his job. Something just didn’t feel right. I can’t keep the money. It’s not mine. I could donate it. I should donate it. Agh, why me?

He went home after work, and immediately opened the book of names. I’ll find these people. I’ll give them their money. Carlos resolved to find each person and give them the amount scribbled next to their name. He started by looking at the comments on the news articles and Facebook posts about Dorian. He found a Carrie who had incredibly harsh words to say. Yikes. Carlos found her Facebook profile and decided to message her, “Hey, I noticed your comment on this article about Dorian, and I recently met him at my gym, and I was just wondering what kind of person he was. I mean, your comment says that he was pretty bad, but I have something of his and I don’t know who to give it to. Maybe I can give it to you?”

An hour later she replied, “I don’t want anything from him. He was an awful human being. I’m sorry you recently met him, but I guess that doesn’t matter any way. He’s gone. Good riddance.”

Damn. What did this guy do?

Carlos replied, “Well, it’s money that I think belongs to you. He has your name written down with $6,000 next to it. Can I just meet you somewhere and give you the money?”

“Are you serious?” Carrie asked.

“Yes, super serious. This money doesn’t belong to me.”

“Okay, I guess… meet me at 6pm tomorrow at Osmium Coffee?”

“Okay, great.”

Throughout the entire next day, Carlos was so antsy he couldn’t wait until the workday ended. He felt nervous carrying $6,000 with him, but he wouldn't have time to go home before the coffee shop, and he certainly didn’t want to be late. He arrived at the coffee shop at 5:50pm and ordered a latte. He sat in the back, in a dark corner, a few people sitting nearby. He messaged Carrie to tell her that he was waiting towards the back of the coffee shop. He could barely sit still. He kept checking his phone for the time. It was 6:05pm. A few minutes later, a woman walked up to him. “Carlos?”

“Yes, hi!” They shook hands and she took a seat across from him.

Carlos was anxious to gain some understanding. “So, what did Dorian do to you?”

“Wow, right to it. Okay. Well...he harassed me and caused physical and emotional damage to me for years. His last deed was crashing his car into my house, destroying part of the house and some belongings. He was upset with me when I broke up with him. You can see why I broke things off. That wasn’t atypical behavior. He was truly terrible. I guess the heart he was going to get decided Dorian wasn’t good enough for it.” Carrie snickered.

“Wow…I’m sorry. That must have been tough. I’m really sorry. So, why does he want to give you $6,000?”

“The damage that he caused to my house amounted to $6,000. I guess that’s why. As if the damage he caused could ever have a monetary value. How do you know him?”

Carlos wasn’t sure if he should tell Carrie about the bag of money, but he felt that she was a decent person, so took a chance. It wasn’t his money to begin with so there was nothing to lose. “Funny thing actually…we must have the same bag, and when I left the gym, I grabbed the bag that I thought was mine, but when I opened it after I left, I discovered a bunch of money and a book with people’s names in it. I basically determined that the names were of people he meant to give the money to. So here I am…here to give you the $6,000 from Dorian.”

Carrie laughed. And then she laughed some more. She stopped when she saw Carlos looking at her confused. “You’re serious,” she said.

Carlos showed her the $6,000 and the black book. Carrie was speechless. She looked at Carlos and asked, “Why didn’t you just keep it?”

Carlos told her, “I don’t know. It seemed wrong to keep it. It’s not mine. And if Dorian was trying to give the money to people, maybe they needed it more than me. And, I don’t know…I guess I feel bad for him. Sure, I guess he was awful, but maybe in his last moments he wanted to make a change, be different. Maybe he saw his heart transplant as a way of being reborn and living right. I don’t know. It sounds dumb, but I figured I should help him for some reason.”

“Go figure, a man with a heart hellbent on aiding a heartless man.” Carrie looked seriously at Carlos. “Thank you. I could really use this money right now. You have no idea.”

“I’m glad I could help. Do you think you could help me find the rest of these people on the list? There are 6 more. Maybe you know some of them.”

Carrie paused, took a sip of her coffee, smiled, and said, “Sure. We can find them together.”