Head down the cellar for the jeans in the dryer, bottomless, showered and dried. What’s this—a fiver? A five-dollar bill? How nifty to start off the day. Folding in piles, his long ones and mine, some cutoffs, two shirts and a twenty. A twenty? Bonanza! Jackpot in jeans! Checking all pockets for more. Greedy, unsated, stick my head in the dryer, feel with my fingers in contacts and curves. Smugly I bring all the stacks up the stairs, the stacks and the stash from the dryer. But then…
Who gets to keep it? The money, I mean. Whose had it been? The odds are even; four articles each. A better Solomon wisdom I need. But then…
I am a poor picture framer, work hard with my hands, give free of my heart; he makes the big bucks. I keep it.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Finders keepers.