Seventeen Dollars And A Pack of Smokes Later...

If I knew then what I know now about the contents in that little black book, I would still sell it for seventeen bucks. Seventeen dollars was a lot of money to me back then. And it’s still a lot of money to me now. Hell, a man like me could live for up to two weeks on money like that. It’s just a matter of knowing how to stretch it, Aunt Patty used to say.

Right hand to the sky, though, I wouldn’t have lasted a day with what was inside that book. Nah-uh. That sorta juju corrupts the body, damages the mind, and–well–my liver’s had about as much corruption as it could take. Albeit my mind couldn’t get anymore damaged, so I guess I’da been alright on that front.

It was a warm October noon when I found it. I was making my usual runs: hitting the dumpsters behind Third Base Beer N’ Go and then Khan’s Market and then Brenda’s Sub Shop. Always good pickins there.

. . . not so much on that day though. Some lunatic weasel, a newcomer –"Two-Foot Toby” (which is a stupid thing to call yourself since everyone has two feet, but beats me)–hit my turf early in the morning and my gardens were all dried up. I call my dumpsters gardens. We all do.

I decided to hop the fence and hit the gardens over at Hacienda del Sol, a private condo-complex for the rich hooplety-do’s who live downtown. Real snobs, those people. Never got a nickel, dime, or quarter to spare.

Their gardens are always full of gold, though. Real gold sometimes, too. I found a diamond ring there the day Hussein was captured. But that was back then. Nowadays, there’s that twelve foot fence with the bird spikes–which the owner put up after “Four Finger Frankie'' fell asleep in one and was found at the wastedump all cut to pieces. Oh yeah, and that Johnny Commando try-hard security guard droning around the front door all the time.

Anyway, that day I was feeling adventurous as hell. I took a couple plastic bins from behind Khan’s by the ice machine, stacked em up real nice, and jumped right over. Beat the Christmas outta my ankles, that landing did. I ain’t the spring mongoose I used to be in ninety-eight. No, sir. But I ain’t no Jimmy Carter either, if you catch my drift.

The garden was wide open. It’s blue jaws reeking of putrid tikka masala and celery smoothies or whatever those fancy people were eating in those days. Ol’ Johnny Commando was yapping it up with some Junior Commando trainee. I dove right into that sea of garbage like an albatross in the Galapagos.

My, oh my. I’ll be damned if there was anything in there worth the risk! Nothing but crusty to-go boxes, wine bottles, Town & Country magazines, candle containers, and enough feminine pampers to open a bio lab or kickstart a Red Cross blood drive.

Before I bounced outta that dump–I mean, the place was a dump, really–that’s when it caught my eye. A little black book inside of an Amazon box, labeled “IMPORTANT” in silver sharpie. Classic black leather. Only one page, the first one, had any writing on it. And other than a curious dry white-stain on the cover, it was in good condition.

So I figured, what the frick, right? I could get at least a dollar for it somewhere and buy an Old English or something, you know? Hell. I got an eye for that sorta thing.

I get up to jump back over the fence, which is easier to get out of. There’s a plumbing work van that just sits there all the time. I got on top and prayed to Freddy Mercury I had enough WD-40 in my joints to take the landing.

No dice. No cigar. I jacked up my ankle pretty badly on the pavement.

That puppy got swollen real good real fast. Seeing stars, trying not to curse at the wind, I hobble my ass over to Johnny Commando, who’s still side-neckin it with that little chubby Squirt-In-Training.

“Say, Johnny, can I sit here? Messed my ankle pretty bad just now,” I said.

“How many times I gotta tell you my name isn’t Johnny?”

“Then what is it?”

Johnny pointed at his nametag. It said EARL. No way in hell I’m calling a grown man Earl. Too close to twirl which isn’t a very manly thing to do, if you ask me.

“Alright, man,” I said. I call you man if I don’t know your name or don’t care to.

Anyhow, I’m sittin on the bench with my puppy up to get the blood circulating and such. I couldn’t tell you the capital of El Paso but, by Davy Crocket’s locker, I know a thing or two about blood circulation.

So I got the notebook on my lap and I read the first page. Curious little booger, that first page. It said:

JAMIEGOTTWINZ5318008

wLMu+@@V4wYh&9x$

Buncha nonsense. Real dumb, ugly stuff. Coulda been voodoo or witchcraft and I haven’t messed around with that stuff since I got my palm read by a gypsy in Jalisco, but that’s a story for another time.

The paper in this black book was nice and sturdy. The sorta thing Ralph Waldo Emerson woulda wet-dreamed about writing in, mighta did something nasty to get his hands on. Gotta be worth something, I think to myself.

“Hey, Jimbo,” I’m calling Johnny Jimbo now because I’ve known him too long to call him man, he doesn’t wanna be called Johnny, and I can’t for the Zeus of me call him Earl. “How much for this notebook? Real leather. Brand new.”

Jimbo says, “I wouldn’t even give the lint in my left pocket for that thing.” Squirt-In-Training mighta thought that remark to be the peak of comedy the way he howled at it.

“Welp. Suit yourselfs . . .”

I doze off and one hour goes by. I could have narcolepsy. Never been diagnosed but it’s possible. Anyway, this gentleman–a little rat-faced guy who looks like Matt Damon in The Informant!–taps on my shoulder.

Now, chances are I had pink-eye because my eyelids were sealed shut. Tough to say on a day like that. But it spooked the devil right outta me. I wiped my face and said to the guy on instinct, “Whatever it is I didn’t do it.”

Rat-face says, “What? No. The notebook. Where’d you find that?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?”

I may not be the sharpest tack in the toy chest but it’ll be a cold day in Juneau before I can’t spot a swindler. “What’s in it for me?” I asked, rubbing my fingers together.

Clearly, the matter was important enough to that Mouse of Men that he handed me a Sacagewea gold dollar coin. Hadn't seen one of those since Clinton was blowing his sax on national television.

He flips through the notebook. Smiles like a demon at the first page and asks, “How much do you want for it?”

“How much you got?”

Seventeen dollars, including the Sacagewea he’d already given me.

“Sold to the highest bidder,” my mouth said. Sucker, my brain said.

The year was 2013. Apparently I had sold Rat-face a notebook containing the username and password to some digital currency nonsense–whatever that means–valued at twenty-thousand odd-dollars.

I know I may look crazy, I may sound dumb, I may even smell stupid–who am I kidding? I absolutely stink (I’m man enough to admit that much)–but no way señor are you trickin me into believing in fake money. Seriously, c’mon now!

Rat-face was pretty hot about it, though. I mean, really boiling up about the whole thing.

This is the story as told to me by him: His neighbor had caught her husband fleecing the maid.

The wife had a half-day at work or something like that or the other. When she saw them naked on the couch she ran to the closet, grabbed his IMPORTANT box, emptied the bathroom trash can into it, ran downstairs (winded by the time she reached the first floor), flung it into the dump, and, oozing lava from her lips, yelled, “You bastard!”

In the madness of her return, Rat-face overheard the woman boast about the crime. “Ha! Now you’ll have to go diving in the trash for your little bitchcoins! Kiss my ass! You too!”

Moments later I’m swimming in that very garden looking for a penny, pizza crusts, copper pipes; anything, really. Rat-face watched the whole shebang behind his peeked blinds with a cheshire smile.

He was on his way to scour the city for me. But, “As fate would have it,” he said, that’s when he saw me and my globe-swollen ankle snoozin on the bench.

About that mysterious internet money, you ask? Hell, don’t ask me. For reasons beyond the twisting and cranking of my mental faculties that honeypot grew to about two and half million dollars during the span of those five years. (So they say. I don’t believe em one bit.)

During those years Rat-face was embroiled in a legal battle with his neighbor–who by way of Jimbo Slice, the bodyguard, discovered that Rat-face had landed his puny stinkin paws on that little black book. (Can always count on that Jimbo to never keep his trap shut.)

Be that as it may, since nobody–not the judge, not the lawyers, not the president–knew what the hell was going on, the case was dismissed. And that, my friends, was that.

Rat-face moved the hell out of dodge shortly after. Before he left for good he handed me a little black book, the same one from before minus the first page. Still even had the white-stain on the cover and everything. The new first page--the old second one--said:

DEEZCASHEWS07734

5!8Pfn=QNTwY24aH

But I didn’t wanna get sued–on account I can’t afford no legal counsel–so I asked if I could bum a smoke instead. You bet your ass he let me have one. Hell, he let me have the whole pack. He even lit it for me. Gave me the lighter too. A real nice Zippo one, which I sold for a buck. Not a bad deal, considering everything and all.