Wobbly Wheels

Hannah could not believe her good luck when she found a shopping cart without wobbly wheels.

It is important to have a smooth operating cart to navigate turns and avoid obstacles without the cart making unexpected jerky movements due to the silly wheels – especially when your cart is full, which can then become very heavy and is hard enough to manage at the best of times.

In her line of “work”, having a well functioning cart was a definite plus. She quickly transferred all her items from the old cart to the new cart and carried on her way.

As she pushed the cart down K Street toward the downtown park area, she was happy that her new-found cart did not get stuck in the ruts on the pavement or in the gravel beside some of the rubbish bins. What a find that was this morning! She was also thinking that as it is just after 1 p.m., the garbage cans should be full of water bottles and pop cans as the lunch-time crowd will be safely back at work, having finished eating their lunches outside in the sunshine in the downtown park and having obediently discarded their water bottles, juice boxes and pop cans in the recycling bins (as the signs instruct).

The first area she checked had both recycling bins and garbage bins. She always checked both – just in case some silly person threw their recyclables in the garbage instead of the recycling bins. No matter, she would be recycling everything anyway. Hannah thought she provided the community a public service by ensuring that all recyclable items were correctly identified and returned to the numerous recycling depots in town.

She was right! The first area yielded 5 water bottles and 8 cans which she placed in the top of the shopping cart. That is $0.65 cents she calculated!

As she travelled onward – in looking for recycling bins and garbage cans to search, she wondered if other people like herself actually planned their collection route as she did? By the end of the day she would always end up very close to the bottle recycling depot and hopefully with a cart full of “returnables”, she can collect her days “wages” and therefore have an empty cart in preparation for “work” the next day. Usually she will have “earned” enough money to buy herself a nice hamburger or taco for supper along with a cup of coffee.

As she headed toward the bottle depot, proudly pushing her new shopping cart without wobbly wheels, it is almost 3 o’clock and she is checking another garbage can. She reaches into the bin to grab a couple of pop cans, and just as she’s rummaging around in garbage to check for other cans further down, her hand brushes across a little book. The book is attached to a used pop can by an elastic band! Hannah lifts out the book and looks at it curiously. It is not a regular paperback book with a cover page and a title. It is a little black book about 3” x 6” with an elastic band around it and the pop can. Oh well she thinks, I will take this and have a look at it later after I have been to the bottle depot and collected my wages.

As night fell and after having collected her “wages” of $14.45 for her day’s work she thought that it was not a great day, but certainly she had earned enough to have a bite to eat and a cup of coffee before she headed back to the bridge underpass to set up her night-time things. Her “night-time things” she always kept on the bottom shelf of the cart. They consisted of an old sleeping bag, a big piece of cardboard to put under the sleeping bag, a plastic bag with her clothes (such as they are) and an old hairbrush she had found one day. Her prize possessions she kept in her backpack which she wore on the front of her body, so that no-one could sneak up behind her and steal anything out of it because the zipper did not work so well, and the flap was usually open.

As Hannah set up her special sleeping place under the bridge, sorted her bedding out, using the bag of clothes as a pillow and made sure the cart was tied to her ankle by a piece of string, she remembered the little black book.

She rummaged in her backpack (or front-pack as she thought of it), found the little black book and looked at it again. She used the flashlight she kept only for emergencies (batteries are awfully expensive), looked again at the book and took off the elastic band which was holding the book together.

It is quite a thick little book she thought as she opened the cover. On the inside cover, was beautiful paisley paper and in in the top right-hand corner was written “Property of Miles L. Johnstone” and below it a date about 6 years ago. She then turned to the next page.

OH GOD! What is this, where did this come from and why am I holding it? Hannah thinks to herself, and quickly looks around to see if anyone is watching her or who else is sleeping close to her. Obviously, she is not the only person to sleep under the bridge high up between the sloping abutment and underneath the bridge deck – there is quite a handy shelf at the top where about 6 or sometimes as many of 10 other people stay at night.

She gasps and looks again at this little black book and decides it might be better if she looks at it under the cover of her sleeping bag (just as she did when she was reading a book as a kid and her parents had already turned off the bedroom light).

Hannah could not believe her eyes. Between the first and second pages was a brown $100 bill! What on earth? As she turned more and more pages, in between every page was a brown $100 bill.

Must be fake she thinks. Someone just playing a trick or getting rid of “evidence” more like. Hannah was so surprised she really did not know what to think, but hundreds of swirling thoughts went through her head in those first minutes of looking through the little black book. No words were written anywhere in the little black book other than the name on the inside cover.

Well, that is it she thought! I can’t stay here for the night; someone might rob me! Obviously, she did not stop to think that SHE was the only one who knew about all this money or that she had it!

At 8:30 p.m. she packed up her night-time items, packed up the empty shopping cart, put her “front-pack” on with the little black book hidden inside her clothes.

She started to walk back towards the downtown area pushing her new cart without any wobbly wheels thinking about her new and unwanted dilemma – what should she do?

As she passed the police station, she thought she should turn in the book to the police. Then she decided against that – they would either not believe her story or think that some how she had stolen this book and all the money it contained and arrest her.

Hannah has always been an honest person, but more than that a proud person. She often thought if circumstances had been different and she had not lost her job and subsequently her apartment due to COVID-19 restrictions, she would not be in the position she finds herself. However, having said this, she knows that “homeless” people are viewed in a different light by almost everyone.

Hannah is thinking about this as she is walking along with her cart and finally stops mid stride and decides No! She will go to the police and turn in the little black book… much as she would like to keep it and all the money it contains; she knows her conscience will not be kind to her if she does.

Much to Hannah’s surprise, the police are genuinely nice to her. They listen respectfully to her story amazing though it seems, and after having to tell the same story over and over again the Police even offer her a free meal. The police tell Hannah that they will try to find the owner of the book Miles L. Johnstone if that is indeed what he is.

As Hannah leaves the police station three hours later, she wonders why she did not ask if there would be a reward or anything. Oh well, she thinks as she heads back to the bridge and her night-time place, at least I did the right thing, and I can sleep without guilt or worry of being robbed.

Five weeks later, Hannah is busy at “work” on a Tuesday morning gathering recyclables for return to the bottle depot, when she hears the “whoop-whoop” of a police siren. As she turns around to see what is going on, she notices a police car pull to the curb and two police officers jump out and are heading directly toward her. Instantly she panics, even though she knows she has done nothing wrong.

Hannah is very distressed to find out that the police have been looking for her for two weeks!

The two officers then inform Hannah that they found the owner of the little black book. Well, not exactly the owner of the book, but his lawyer. It turns out that Miles L. Johnstone had died recently. Apparently, his lawyer was most interested to hear that the little black book had been found and more interested still in who had found it.

Miles L. Johnstone was a philanthropist and had left instructions in his will that upon his death, the little black book along with the money it contained, and a used pop can were to be “thrown away” into a garbage can downtown.

His instructions were clear. Whoever found the little black book could keep the book and money it contained. His reasoning being that if anyone were prepared to dig through garbage cans in the downtown area searching for recyclable items, then surely, they could use a helping hand?

Additionally, if the person who found the book picked up bottles and cans to take to the recycling depot, then they were in effect helping to keep the city landfill free of recyclable items and single use plastics, thereby helping to save the planet from discarded plastics / metals! Recycling was a world-wide issue near and dear to Miles. L. Johnstone’s heart.

It appears Hannah’s previous thoughts are correct! Her daily “work” IS considered a community service and as a result she was now in possession of approximately $20,000!

Months later, Hannah was working at her new job as a janitor at the local middle school. Seeing all the water bottles, pop cans, paper and cardboard being properly recycled throughout the school, she thought about the little black book and the strange circumstances under which she managed to get herself back on her feet, find a nice apartment, start a new job and most of all the peculiar and extraordinary kindness of an old man she had never met.