Wind fall

Twenty grand might not seem like a lot of money to some people, but to me it was a fortune. I’ve never in my entire life seen that much money in one place. Hell I don’t think I’ve had twenty grand if you totaled up all the money I’ve ever had up until now.

Now most people say that they grew up poor but didn’t know it. That’s a load of bull. I grew up poor and I damn well knew it. You know you’re poor when you’re getting hand me down jeans from your sisters. Not that it was bad enough I had to wear girl’s jeans but my third sister bedazzled the hell out of them because they looked “boring”. I couldn’t get a date in high school even if I was the last boy in that school.

I left school shortly after I turned seventeen, and struck out on my own. My oldest sister, Anne, let me stay in her double wide while her man was in the slammer. It had everything you could want - fake wood paneling everywhere and wall to wall stained matted down green shag carpet. She let me sleep on her lumpy old flowery couch that sagged in the middle. It reeked of cigarette smoke, everything in that trailer stunk of smoke. Mostly because all my sister did was smoke and yell at her kids. Six of the loudest snot nosed brats you’ve ever seen. Made me vow to never have kids, no how.

A friend from school got me a job with a demolition company, no experience needed. They were just looking for someone smart enough to know which end of a hammer to use. I sat up the night before trying to peel the last of the bedazzled jewels from my jeans. It really did make them look much better, the jeans were so old and faded and the jewels had been on for so long that it looked like I had polka dot pants now. Anne looked down at my pile of polka dotted clothes and sighed. She tossed me some jeans that belonged to her live in boyfriend. She said that I could have them until he got out of the slammer. She also got me a pair of work boots; when I asked her how she got them, she said she hawked he old man’s pager for them since he ain’t going to be needing it anytime soon. I’m not sure why she did this for me - we hardly spoke to each growing up. It was the single nicest thing anyone in my family ever did for me either before or since.

It was pretty easy work, just smash what you were told to smash. Cut were they told you to cut and don’t let nothing fall on your head. But mostly I just hauled garbage and debris out and put it in the dumpsters. I liked it; it was hard work, but it was easy to do and really hard to mess up. Which is good because some of the guys I worked with were barely smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time. I kept mostly to myself and just did what I was told to do. Which was fairly easy as most of the crew kept to themselves anyway. I did find out, though, that just about everyone that worked there had done time - some more than once.

We’d get payed once a month, because as the foreman said, if he paid us any more he would never have a crew. After a few months I got enough money together to buy a car It was a piece of crap, rust - blue four door, but it was transportation, and then me and some of the guys I worked with rented a house. It was far from new and really small so we had to bunk up and it had a weird musty smell, but it got me off of my sister’s couch. It was a good fit since none of went to the bar and drank. Greg had been sober for two years at that point and Jose was just closing in on twelve. Giana and her girlfriend Elle just didn’t drink, I never asked why. As for me after watching my mom damn near drink herself to death and my sisters following her path was enough for me. The girls took the biggest bedroom on the top floor down the hall Greg and Jose jammed two mattress in the room. I got the only room left in the basement. The basement was made out of cinderblocks and it had more cracks than I could count. There was always water somewhere and lots of bugs. One bulb in the middle of the basement on a pull chain was it for light. But it wasn’t my sisters double wide and I was grateful for that.

Jose turned out to be a pretty damn good cook. Elle worked as roofer and a framer so she was the only one of us that could fix the multiple problems with the house. I even managed to get a girlfriend. Brit was a waitress at Woo’s, and we’d go there every Friday for their buffet. I’d like to say that I swept her off her feet but actually she asked me out. When Giana found out she said that made me Brit’s little bitch. I didn’t care she was amazing, I’ve never felt the things I did when I was with her. Brit had the most beautiful long brown hair that fell just above her waist. She would snuggle up to me on the couch when we would watch a movie I just loved running my fingers through her hair; it felt like silk and smelled like coconut. With both of us having roommates, it was hard to find privacy but we managed. For the first time I could remember I was happy.

But nothing good ever seems to last. It all started one hot and dry Monday afternoon. The day started the same as every other work day with the three of us crammed into the car driving to site. We were smashing, tearing, and just generally destroying what need to be wrecked. The boss man come up to us and said since this job was winding down a bunch of us would be moving to an office building downtown for the next few months. Pretty standard stuff. We grabbed our gear hopped into Ol’ Blue and headed down to the new site. It was an old building and I mean old. The whole thing was made of brick and timbers. The streets were too narrow to get any kind heavy equipment down there and for some reason the city wouldn’t let us use explosives. She was going to be an old school job.

The foreman was a bald runt of man called Red. I only knew him by reputation. Red made his crews work - no excuses. There were even rumours that he once pulled a gun on someone who backed talked him one too many times. Greg said that he heard that Red carried a straight razor in his boot. Needless to say, none of us were real happy working for him. Red took us up to the top floor and showed us around. There was a bunch of different offices, a lunch, room and some storage closets. Pretty standard stuff. We were told to get rid of the cabinets and any furniture, and then Red marked which walls that could be taken down without bringing the roof down on us.

The desks and cabinets were old and dusty, but incredibly well built. They fought us the whole time. In the bottom of one of the cabinets was a rusty metal box. Me and the guys had a rule if any of us found something valuable we’d hawk it and split the money. Some would call it stealing, but it’s not like the people didn’t have time to grab their crap on the way out when whatever it was caused them to leave. Besides, the amount of dust on the box meant it had been there for a long time. I grabbed it and the old latch popped open surprisingly easy. Inside was a black leather book, with a zipper all the way around, kinda like the one I saw on my grandma’s old Bible. I opened it up, and inside, wrapped in some twine were stacks of hundred dollar bills.

There had to be close to twenty grand in there. That’d be five grand each, when we’d split it up. I started putting the bills into piles and I stopped. This is more money than I’d ever held in my life. No one saw me grab it. Nobody knows I have it. I could just pocket the cash and no one would be the wiser. I could buy a ring for Brit, and have enough left over that we could get our own place.

Twenty grand might not seem like a lot of money to some people, but to me it was a fortune. I’ve never in my entire life seen that much money in one place. Hell I don’t think I’ve had twenty grand if you totaled up all the money I’ve ever had up until now.

I heard the crash of some tools then some voices, I couldn’t make out. I just assumed it was everyone back from lunch. I quickly shove the cash back into the book zip it up and threw it in my lunch kit.

“Oi’do ya think ya kinna make any more noise you lousy git,” said the first man

“Shut it. Nobody’s here I watched ‘em all leave for lunch. We got lots of time,” replied a second man.

“You’d better not be taking the piss or ya won’t be making no more noise.”

“Relax. My guy will be here. There’s no way he’s not getting his stuff.”

Shiiii….I didn’t know those voices. Crap no one else is supposed to be on site. My heart just sank. What the hell do they want?

“You guys got the stuff?” a third voice broke in. Wait I knew that voice. Was that. No it couldn’t be. That sounds like Greg. I carefully inched myself up to look over the cabinet. It was Greg. What the hell.

“Right here,” said the second man as he pulled an orange pill bottle from his pocket and shook it. “Two months’ worth like we said.”

I couldn’t really see Greg all that well but he seemed to be sweating and I think he was rubbing his shoulder.

“Let’s get the cash and get the hell outta here,” said the first man. He was constantly looking around, and his right hand was always inside his coat. I wouldn’t say he looked nervous, but definitely on edge. I tried to strain my neck up to get a better look. As I stretched to see better the cabinet let go and I fell in crumpled pile of dust and splinters.

“Cops!” someone yelled, and the shots started.

I felt something hot hit me in the chest, then it got hard to breathe.

I just got to, just got to get up, oh crap - I can’t catch my breath. Damn it, it hurts.

I lay back down, my mind starts to drift, and I see Brit the ring, the house we’ll live in and our kids.

Our kids.