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Your Money Or Your Life
The dead end of the siding proved a rude awakening for Dick. He tumbled from his nest of burlap bags and rolled halfway down the dark interior of the Denver and Rio Grande box car, coming to an abrupt halt against a wooden crate of hubcaps for the new Edsels.
“Well, bless my stars!” he muttered with a low whistle, pulling his top hat back over his matted orange-and-gray hair and plucking some straw from his copper-colored beard. “With engineers like this, it’s no wonder people’d ruther drive theirselves.” He searched through the pile of burlap in the corner till he found his brandy bottle, which, to his chagrin, was empty.
Dick Baumgartner thought of himself as a traveler, a minimalist, a showman, but society considered him a drifter, a hobo, a bum. He felt like the last of a dying breed, that select few that still traveled gratis the rails of America. Not that all the bums had vanished. But nowadays most bums owned cars.
Dick could feel the fading of his generation. Louisville Lou now spent his days fixing toasters in the Detroit Goodwill. “Pockets” McCann, last Dick heard, was sweating out the DTs somewhere in Florida, having fallen victim to the kindnesses of long-lost relatives. A cold snap last spring had caught Morty the Mole sleeping on Larimer Street in Denver and he froze to death. Dick felt lost himself. He’d hopped the freight in North Platte, Nebraska, during the night, and the brandy and burlap had made for good sleeping since, so he didn’t know where he was.
He knew he couldn’t stay in his cozy nest for long, though. He could hear the crunch of boots coming his way across the cinders of the rail yard. He quietly slid open the door on the opposite side of the boxcar and slipped to the ground. The watchman shouted at him but he skillfully darted among the box cars until he blended into the shadows of the station.
He recognized the red brick station house as that of his hometown, Colorado Springs. He had grown up just across the tracks and the creek in the small, unpretentious neighborhood still known as Old Colorado City. His parents, who had diverted a small trickle of money into their pockets from the flood of gold coming down from the Cripple Creek mines, had been financially and emotionally ruined in the Crash of ’29.
Dick still remembered his father taking him downtown for the Memorial Day parade one long ago year. His father had spent so much time at the bank haggling over a quarter of a percentage-point of interest that they had missed the whole parade. One of Dick’s few brushes with real work had been with the WPA during the Depression shoring up the banks of Monument Creek with heavy slabs of flagstone for twenty cents an hour. He’d avoided banks of all kinds ever since.
In the late 1800s, Colorado Springs had fancied itself “Little London,” a sophisticated alternative to the wide-open rowdiness of the rest of gold-fevered Colorado. Even now, the opulent hotels, the grand Wood Avenue mansions, and the other luxuries only money could buy were almost, but not quite, enough to make him reconsider some of the choices he had made in his life. But tonight all he wanted from his home town was a meal and a place to sleep for a few hours until the watchman went home.
With a heavy heart and a pounding head he plodded across the street and through the little park to the back of the looming bastille of the Antlers Hotel to root through the trash cans in search of dinner. His dinner attire consisted of checked cook’s pants considerably too large, a faded pink sweatshirt, dilapidated army boots, and a frayed tuxedo jacket lined with newspapers to ward off the chill of the December air, all topped off by his signature piece, a theadbare, black silk top hat.
Dinner consisted of a piece of roast beef that only tasted a little bit like cigarette ashes, some tough asparagus stems with a hint of hollandaise, a stale dinner roll with a pocketful more for later, and the one real find: half a Cuban cigar, a bit damp, but damp with what tasted like cognac.
Sated and smoke-ringed, he walked around the back of the hotel and up the small hill to crowded Cascade Avenue, which was garlanded with evergreen roping and spangled with all the lights and glitter of Christmas. He sighed when he remembered that it was Christmas Eve, freighted as the holiday was with his memories of material and emotional shortfalls.
“Whining never got you nothin’,” he said to himself with another sigh. “Best get to work.”
For years his cohorts had called him “Whistling Dick” for his method of coaxing change from hoi polloi. He settled into his usual spot in the alley next to the marble-fronted Chief Theater on Pikes Peak Avenue, upended his hat in front of him, and broke into a rousing, whistled rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” replete with grace notes and accompanied by the best shuffle his boots would allow. This was followed by his traditional selection for the season, the Begger’s Rhyme, with which the children usually sang along:
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat,
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat;
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you!
Before long he’d attracted a small crowd of last minute shoppers. One young father had even given his tow-headed boy a half-dollar to plunk into the hat. But the illicit show also caught the attention of the law, personified by Officer Riley.
Dick already was acquainted with Officer Riley’s imposing bulk and no-nonsense, arms-akimbo stance. He’d always been treated fairly, if brusquely, by him, and he liked Riley’s quick brown eyes that missed little but that hid little.
Riley cleared his throat and Dick broke off his rousing closing number, “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” wherein he hummed the melody and whistled the piccolo part simultaneously, a crowd pleaser that often sent folding money fluttering into his hat.
Officer Riley was not amused. “Home for the holidays, eh, Dick?” he asked as the small crowd dispersed.
Dick put the meager change from his hat into his pocket and put the hat back on his head. “It wouldn’t seem like home without you, Officer Riley.”
“At the risk of seeming inhospitable, you’d better hustle up a place to spend the night pretty quick,” Riley told him, twirling his nightstick. “Word has it that the new mayor’s office isn’t going to tolerate transients cutting into the profits of the tax-paying merchants.”
“If you’da let me finish ‘Stars and Stripes,’ I coulda found a flop easy, you know.”
“Sorry, Dick,” Riley said sympathetically as he walked him back toward the Antlers, where damsels and swashbucklers and wizards gathered for the annual Charity Costume Ball. “I’m supposed to be taking you in as it is. You better make yourself scarce. I get off in an hour and the next cop won’t know you.”
“Spending Christmas Eve with the wife and kiddies, are you?” Dick asked amiably.
“Not till later,” Riley said. “As soon as I’m off-duty, me and the rest of the Policeman’s Band are coming back down here to raise some money for the Boys’ Club.”
“That’s nice.”
“You got a lot of talent, Dick. If you’d just toe the line a little better, we could use a good piccolo player.”
“You know I ain’t got the money for a pitch pipe, much the less a piccolo,” Dick said morosely.
Riley stopped just beyond the Antlers. “That much money’ll get you thirty days whistlin’ in the county jail.”
“Not the poor farm?”
“County jail,” Riley said sternly.
“And a merry Christmas to you, Officer Riley,” Dick said with a bow, and he turned on his heels.
He trudged south a couple of blocks to Colorado Avenue, reviewing his dismal prospects. With only change in his pocket, his best bet for warmth tonight was in a brandy bottle on a shelf in Dale’s Liquors, across the bridge. That meant walking by the Cotton Club, near which Morty the Mole had been rolled and left unconcious last summer by one of that nightclub’s less savory patrons, a big black man named Leroy who carried a cane and faked a limp to throw off suspicion. Whistling was the farthest thing from Dick’s mind.
But as luck would have it, Leroy was nowhere to be seen, Dale’s had Christian Brothers on sale, and Ike had decided to build an interstate highway system. That last item meant that Colorado Avenue was only open to foot traffic and the scaffolding erected to build the overpass provided plenty of nooks and crannies into which Dick could settle out of the wind for the night.
Dick had just scrunched himself up against the lumber of the concrete forms when a man shuffled by who looked worse off than he. Dick considered himself something of an authority on the down-and-out, and he knew better than to judge this middle-aged man by his clothes, which were worn but from gardening and such. The man’s gray hair looked freshly trimmed, his face seemed clean shaven, and intelligence and breeding suffused his features. But his posture and gait were the picture of despair. He ambled slowly to the top of the slight rise of the bridge and stopped to stare down to the dark waters of Monument Creek, as though trying to guage the drop. He took a white piece of paper from his pocket, looked at it, sighed, and put it back.
After a slash of brandy, Dick said to himself, “There’s a guy’s had his fill of the slings and narrows. Looks like his only worry is that it’s not enough of a drop off of that bridge to end his worries.”
He no sooner said it than the man put his foot onto the rail of the bridge and leaned a little further over.
Concerned, Dick began to pull himself out of his lethargy and back to his feet when a big black man with a cane started limping across the bridge from the other side. Dick froze when he realized this must be the dreaded Leroy. Torn between his desire to help the man on the bridge and his fear of what Leroy might do to him if he interfered, he decided to hang back in the shadows to watch what happened.
Leroy cut an imposing figure, a head taller than Dick and built like a Clydesdale. He wore a black watch cap and a heavy gray overcoat into the pocket of which he put his paw of a hand. He approached the man on the bridge and said, in a deep, threatening growl, “Your money or your life.”
The man jumped and whirled to see Leroy’s massive bulk looking down at him, the big fist curled menacingly in his pocket. He turned back to look down at the creek.
When he got no response, Leroy demanded, “Well?”
“I’m thinking,” the man said, sounding like Jack Benny.
Leroy evidentally didn’t get this response too often. “What do you mean, you’re thinking? Come on, I said hand it over.” He took the pistol out of his jacket pocket, something he seemed reluctant to do.
“You mean, if I give you my money, you won’t kill me?” the man asked.
“Something like that.”
“Then I refuse to give it to you.”
“What are you talking about? You want me to kill you?”
“Something like that.”
“Hey, come on, mister, I don’t want to kill you, I just want your money.” Leroy glanced both ways across the quiet bridge nervously but didn’t see Dick in the shadows, who was still wavering between his fear and his desire to help.
“Oh, it’s not the money. You can have that if you want it. I just want to make sure you kill me first. I don’t think this bridge is high enough to do the job.”
This statement furrowed Leroy’s heavy brow. “Listen, buddy, I ain’t no murderer. Now just gimme your wallet.” He reached toward his intended victim, who backed away.
“What do you mean, you’re not a murderer? What do you carry a gun for then?”
Leroy looked down at his gun. “This just makes sure people cooperate, is all. Come on now. Don’t give me no trouble. It’s Christmas Eve. Just gimme your wallet and I’ll leave you alone.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Huh-uh. Nope. You offered.”
“Offered?” Leroy was definitely off his game now, and he scratched his head through the watch cap. “Offered what?”
“You said, ‘Your money or your life.’ Well, I want you to take my life.”
“But I just want the money! Jesus!”
“You can have that too.” The man seemed struck by a sudden inspiration. “That’s it! I’ll pay you for it!”
“For what?” Leroy was getting suspicious now.
“To kill me, of course.”
It was Leroy’s turn to back away. “Hey, like I said, I’m not a murderer.”
“Yeah, but you could be, right? I mean, if the price was right? Here, let me show you something.” The man took the white piece of paper from his pocket.
“What’s that?” Leroy squinted at it in disdain.
“It’s a cashier’s check. It’s worth two thousand dollars.”
“Gimme it.”
The man pulled it back from Leroy’s lunge. “Not so fast. For one thing, it’s worthless until I sign it. And before I do that, you have to agree to kill me.”
Leroy tried again. “Like I said, I don’t want to kill nobody. They’d send me to the chair for that.”
“Who’s going to know? There’s nobody around. I’m sure not going to tell anybody. Just throw the gun away somewhere.” He could tell this tack wasn’t working too well, so he shifted a bit. “Think what you could do with two thousand dollars. A new car. Maybe diamonds for your girl.”
“I can’t kill you,” Leroy said sullenly.
“Sure you can! It’d be easy! Just point the gun at me and pull the trigger. Come on! Do it now, before you start to think about it. See? I’ve got a pen here, I’m ready to sign the check.”
“I said, I can’t kill you!” Leroy said emphatically, looking down at the creek below.
“Surely you don’t have scruples?”
“I don’t have bullets.”
The man looked taken aback. “No bullets? You carry a gun but no bullets?”
“I never needed them before,” Leroy said, sensing his reputation was being impugned.
The man stared at him a few moments, and then began to laugh, a laugh that began in genuine mirth but ended in bitterness. “Well, that’s the way my day’s been going.” He leaned his elbows on the rail, and looked at the cashier’s check in his hand. “I guess it’s back to jumping, then. Unless—” He looked up at Leroy. “Unless you could do it some other way.”
The big man shook his head, despairing of the check.
“There it is, I guess.” He looked wistfully down at the shallow, black water. “But if you’d had bullets, would you have?”
Leroy shook his head again. “I’ve never killed nobody.”
“Neither have I,” the man admitted. “In fact, as far as I know, I’ve never killed anything. I even swerve to miss squirrels on the road. I almost killed myself once saving the life of a squirrel.”
“How come you want to kill yourself, anyway?” Leroy asked, leaning on the rail too.
“Why do you want to rob people?”
“I dunno,” he replied pensively. “Mama’d tell me I was stupid and selfish and sinful if she found out. She’d think I was wasting my life.”
“I guess those reasons suit me as well. At least that’s what Blanche would have said.” He glanced over at the sad, dark face. “What’s your name?”
“Leroy.”
The other extended his hand and said, “Leroy, you’ve been trying to rob George Myers, master architect and civic planner. I designed this bridge, you know.”
Leroy hooked his cane onto the railing and switched the empty gun to his left hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Myers.”
George laughed again. “An empty gun and a civil tongue. Leroy, you are a rare bird. Well, sir, how would you like that two thousand dollars anyway?” He put the check on the railing to endorse it.
Leroy’s hand stayed him. “I dunno. It don’t seem right.”
“What is this? A thief who won’t take my money? Surely you could use a couple of thousand dollars.”
“No, it just don’t seem right, somehow. Taking money from a dead man.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet, after all. Come on, take it and leave me alone. It’s my Christmas present to you.”
“No, I don’t need your money.”
“You did a few minutes ago. Go on, take it. If I manage to hit the creek, it’ll get wet and be no good to anyone.”
Leroy was shaking his head. “No, I don’t want it.”
“Give it to Mama, then. She’d put it to good use, wouldn’t she? What’s your Mama’s name?”
“Clydie.”
“Clydie?” George asked, surprised. “Not Clydie Palmer?”
“Yeah, that’s so,” Leroy said, surprised also. “How did you know?”
“Miss Clydie was our housekeeper years ago, after Blanche’s miscarriage. That’s right, she did mention having a little boy.” George looked at Leroy from this new perspective. “But I never would have guessed that a good, God-fearing woman like Miss Clydie would raise a thief.”
“Hey, Mama’s an angel,” Leroy said defensively.
“I never doubted it. Take the money for Miss Clydie’s sake then. It won’t do me any good. Just think for a minute of all the things she could do with it.”
“I know what she’d do with it.” Leroy’s head dropped.
“What’s that?”
“She’d give it to Reverend Martin to rebuild the church.”
“What happened to the church?”
“I burned it down.”
George turned up his collar to the chilly breeze that had come up and stared at the ice rimming the creek. “You burned down Miss Clydie’s church and you won’t take my money?”
Leroy looked over at him imploringly. “Hey, I didn’t mean to! I guess I’m just no good is all.”
“Nobody’s perfect, Leroy. How did it happen?”
“I tipped over a candle in the basement.”
“Were you an altar boy or something?”
“Naw, I was just down there with a friend reading.”
“Sounds innocent enough.”
“National Geographic,” Leroy explained.
“Oh,” George said. He thought about two little black boys looking at those pictures and then said it again: “Oh.”
“Yeah. Kid stuff, you know?”
“Well, it seems to me that two thousand dollars toward a rebuilt church would constitute a considerable atonement.”
“I dunno,” Leroy said. “Seems like it ought to be my money that pays for it, and that don’t seem like my money. How come you’re so hep to give it away, anyways?”
“Maybe it’s just the spirit of the season. I got the money from my son, and I think it’d be better for you to have it than just to let it be washed down the creek.”
“That’s a pretty fine Christmas present, if you ask me. Your son must be rich.”
“Not exactly,” George said bitterly. “Stevie died of rheumatic fever in October, just two weeks after he turned eight, and today I got this check from my insurance company. I didn’t even know about that clause of the policy.” He stared bleakly at the dark waters below. “Some consolation, huh? Two thousand dollars for my son’s life.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Genuine sympathy suffused Leroy’s heavy features. “It must have been awful hard on the missus.”
“The Good Lord spared her the pain,” George said sadly. “I lost her to cancer last year.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Leroy said, waving the gun around impotently. “Now I see why jumping off a bridge sounds so good. And here I am trying to rob you! I oughta be jumping with you.”
“That wouldn’t solve anything for either of us, friend.”
Dick, having listened to this whole conversation, decided that Leroy was no longer a threat to him or to George. As they stood side by side staring down into the icy creek, he wandered out from the shadows, shivering too hard to whistle more than a couple of notes. The unexpected sound startled the other two from their lonesome reverie.
“Evenin’, gents,” Dick said.
“Hullo,” Leroy said gruffly, stuffing the revolver back into his jacket pocket.
George just stared at the dilapidated figure.
“If the wind’d quit, it’d be a tolerable Christmas Eve,” Dick went on conversationally.
“Yes, but the wind does blow,” George said.
“Yep, it sure does.” Dick had followed their examples, leaning his elbows on the rail and looking at the dark water below. He spit quietly and watched it fall. “Blows into every corner up in that overpass.”
“That overpass?” George asked. “What were you doing up there?”
“Thinking mostly.”
“Thinking about what?” Leroy asked suspiciously.
“At first I was just thinking about whistling and drinking, maybe a little sleeping too.” He looked at George. “Then I thought about trying to talk someone out of jumping off a bridge.” He turned to Leroy. “Then I thought about trying to prevent a hold-up.” He looked back down at the creek. “But now it looks like it’s too late to do anything about any of it, including the sleeping.”
“You can’t sleep up there anyway,” George said.
“That’s true enough. A man’d find it purty tough work sleeping up there with all the jabbering going on down here.”
“Sorry if we disturbed you,” Leroy said sarcastically.
“Now I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. Some are born eavesdroppers and others have eavesdropping thrust upon them.”
“Get to the point, buddy,” Leroy said impatiently.
“From what I gather, either George here keeps his check and takes a header from the bridge, or else he gives it to Leroy to help rebuild Miss Clydie’s church.”
“This is none of your business,” Leroy said.
“True enough. But let me offer a third possibility.”
Leroy snorted. “What? Give you the money? You’d take it and get drunk.”
“Two thousand dollars?” Dick exclaimed. “Sir, you underestimate me. I’d take it and stay drunk.”
George laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Leroy asked.
George shook his head. “I guess I pictured myself jumping from the bridge through the snow like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. I appreciate your concern, mister, but I hate to say it: you make Clarence, Angel Second Class, look pretty good. This isn’t going right at all.”
“Hey, you’re not still thinking about jumping, are you?” Leroy asked.
“No, I guess not. I’d probably just botch it up. What about you? You won’t take the money?”
Leroy shook his head. “No, I guess not. It just don’t seem right.”
“Still, it’d make a great start on Miss Clydie’s church.”
“Naw, that oughta be my money.”
“I’ll make you a deal, Leroy. I’m an architect, as I said. If you can quit robbing people, I’ll rebuild Miss Clydie’s church for you and design it myself. That’d be just the thing to keep me going for awhile.”
Leroy still looked doubtful. “I dunno. I mean, it sounds fine, but like I said, I’m just no good, I guess.”
“Hey, you’re not a murderer. We just found that out. And tonight you weren’t even a thief. It seems to me you’re making progress already.”
Leroy thought about it. “I dunno. Maybe.”
“Your Mama’d be mighty proud of you.”
“Yeah, and my Mama’d pray for you in that church every Sunday and every Wednesday too. You can’t go wasting my Mama’s prayers by jumping off bridges, you know.”
“I won’t waste your Mama’s prayers. Then it’s a deal?” George asked, proffering his hand, which Leroy enfolded in his.
“It’s a deal, Mr. Myers.”
“What about you, Clarence, Angel Second Class?” George went on, turning to Dick. “Do you still think I should give you the money?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” Dick’s legs were not too steady, but his voice didn’t quaver.
“And you’d just use it to get drunk? Or is there a chance you’d be able to get your life back on track again?”
“I don’t really know,” Dick replied honestly.
When he had approached them Dick had intended to try to get the money just to go on a bender, but now he wasn’t so sure. Two thousand dollars was a small fortune to him. He could buy some real clothes, get a room, maybe find a job. Officer Riley’s remark about needing a piccolo player suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched. He certainly would have piccolo money.
“Maybe there is something better than just getting drunk all the time,” he went on. “Though I can’t think of it at the moment. I promised myself I’d finish this bottle and I’m a man of my word.”
George laughed. “Well, at least he’s honest, Leroy. And God only knows if we’ll be as true to our words as he.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Dick said, pulling out his bottle.
“See?” George said. “Trustworthy as a rock. And, yes. I’ll drink to that, too,” he added, taking the bottle that Dick had offered. “Come on, Leroy, join us in a drink.”
Leroy looked at the bottle and at the grimy face of its owner doubtfully, but then relented, saying, “Well, okay. Merry Christmas, gentlemen!”
Dick cringed a bit as he saw the precious liquor flow into the big man.
“You know what I want?” George said, suddenly enthusiastic. “I want you fellows to come to my house tomorrow and help me celebrate Christmas. Would you do that for me?”
Leroy put Dick’s mind at ease by handing him back the bottle. To George he said, “Sure, why not?”
“We’ll talk about Miss Clydie’s church. She’s Baptist, isn’t she?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll make it white then.” He clapped his hand on Dick’s shoulder. “And you, Angel Third Class, what shall we do with you?”
Dick took another slash of brandy.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” George went on. “Not only will I give you that money, I’ll give you a new start on life. What do you say to that?”
Dick just shrugged.
George put an arm around the shoulder of each and steered them east, off the bridge. “You know what I see, Leroy? I see a little church with high windows and oak pews and a delicate steeple with real bells. Miss Clydie’ll love it. And she’ll love you for it too. You can even help build it, can’t you?”
“Not if I gotta get a regular job,” Leroy said.
“This will be a regular job. Clarence here can help, if he’s so inclined. What do you say? You could work, couldn’t you, Clarence?”
Dick looked skeptical.
“It wouldn’t be hard,” George assured him. “You’d get the hang of it in no time. In fact, I’ll tell you what,” he said, stopping at the end of the bridge and taking out the check. “I’ll endorse this for you right now, as a reward for even thinking about helping out a stranger in trouble. You’d be surprised how many people nowadays would just look the other way.” He signed it on the rail and handed it to Dick. “Merry Christmas.”
Dick took it gingerly, put it into the tuxedo jacket, and then bowed elaborately. “Mr. Myers, this is by far the most generous Christmas gift I’ve ever got. I promise you I’ll put it to good use. Maybe I’ll even take you up on that offer. Whereabouts do you live?”
“Have you got a place to stay?” George asked. “Because I’ve got nothing but a great big empty house waiting for me.”
“Well, sir, I didn’t have nowhere to go before, but I know a place where I can rent a room for a spell, now that I got a grubstake.”
“How about you, Leroy?”
“If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Myers, I think I’ll visit my Mama tonight,” Leroy said.
“As well you should, my good man, as well you should. Well, here, each of you take my business card, and I’ll look forward to seeing you both tomorrow, say, around two?”
For a moment the three men, wise or otherwise, gathered beneath the street lamp, shaking hands, then they turned eastward to walk together awhile before their paths diverged.
As George and Leroy discussed Miss Clydie’s health and stern ways, Dick marveled at his fate. In his pocket was more money than he’d seen in his adult life. It boggled his mind. No more bowing and scraping to people for hand-outs that were merely extra to them. No more curses from night watchmen and cops. No more degrading sympathy from soup kitchen cooks and society matrons.
He could rent a room for a year at the old Centennial Hotel on Kiowa Street and still have enough for clothes and shoes and decent meals. Even if church-building wasn’t his destiny, he certainly could find some sort of work. If nothing else, maybe take Officer Riley up on his piccolo offer.
Just think: with an address and a job and a shave, maybe he could attract some sweet young girl who could forgive his checkered past and watch over him. They could get a house, buy a car, start a family.
He walked with George and Leroy almost to the Santa Fe station on the east side of downtown. Absorbed in their conversation, they didn’t notice when Dick quietly slipped away.
For a while he wandered aimlessly past the houses bright with decorations, then, lost in thought, his feet turned back toward downtown.
Life certainly would be different. He would have to get used to being in one place all the time. He would have to dress right and talk right. There would be schedules, obligations, bills. The wife would make demands. The kids would get cranky. He would have to show up for work every day. Maybe Morty the Mole, frozen stiff in an alley, was the lucky one after all.
Dick’s feet were plodding along now, and he didn’t feel like whistling anymore. He felt like there was a huge weight on him. By the time he got to Busy Corner in the middle of town, back in the colorful lights and bustling crowds, he realized that it was George’s check that was weighing him down. If it had been $2000 in gold it wouldn’t have been more of a burden.
“Oh well, whinin’ never got you nothin’,” he said to himself and started glumly toward the Centennial.
A block north, on the corner of Tejon and Kiowa, a small bandstand had been set up and the familiar strains of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” filled the crowded street.
By the time Dick got there he realized that it was the Policeman’s Band, Officer Riley puffing his cheeks into a dented tuba. The music assaulted Dick’s musical sensibility. No two of the instruments were tuned to the same pitch and the police captain was forcing the sentimental tune into a forced march with his baton.
But when it dawned on Dick that in a year or two he could end up spending what little free time he had in a crummy band like this, he sat down on the curb and put his head into his hands in silent despair.
He was roused from his melancholy by the jab of a nightstick to his kidneys. He looked up to see a young policeman he didn’t know standing over him with a scowl.
“I’m on my way, officer,” Dick said mournfully.
“The only place you’re going is down to the station with me,” the cop said, hauling Dick upright by the collar of his tuxedo jacket. “The mayor gave us strict orders to get all the riff-raff off the streets tonight.”
“But… But…” Dick stammered as he tried to get his footing. “I was just going…”
“You were just going with me,” the cop said, pushing him along.
By now the band had come to the end of the song and the small crowd had turned toward the hubbub Dick and the cop were making. Officer Riley set down his tuba and came over.
“Officer Riley!” Dick exclaimed. “I was just trying to explain…”
Officer Riley looked at him sternly. “Dick, I tried to warn you.”
“Do you know this man?” the cop asked Riley.
“It’s okay, Pilcher, he’s harmless.”
“I don’t care,” Pilcher said stubbornly. “My orders were to bring in anyone who was without visible means of support.”
Riley looked at Dick and shrugged helplessly.
Dick played the only card he had, hoping it was trump. He took the cashier’s check from his pocket and handed it to Riley. Riley looked at the check, inspected the endorsement, glanced up at Dick, and looked at the check again.
“What’s that?” Pilcher asked suspiciously.
Riley searched Dick’s soul with his insightful brown eyes. “Yes, what is this, Dick?”
Dick’s mind raced, and then found inspiration. “Why, it’s Mr. Myers’s donation to the Boys’ Club.”
Riley looked puzzled. “Mr. Myers’s donation?”
“Sure, George asked me to give it to you,” Dick said, winking at Riley. “I saw him at the Charity Ball. I told you he’d match my contribution.”
Riley was stumped momentarily but then caught on.
“Pilcher,” he said, putting his arm around Dick’s shoulders, “I’m going to save you a world of trouble because you’re new to the force. Mr. Baumgartner here is a long time supporter of the Costume Charity Ball at the Antlers. Dick, I tried to warn you. That costume looks so real you almost got yourself thrown in the pokey.”
“Sorry about sitting on the curb like that,” Dick said sheepishly. “I guess I had just a tad too much brandy.”
“Well, the generosity you and Mr. Myers have shown is sure going to make those poor little boys happy this year, Dick,” Riley said, patting him on the back and putting the check in with the other donations.
“Nobody deserves a good Christmas more than they do,” Dick said jovially, glad to be rid of his burden.
Pilcher had stood there agog, but now he pulled himself together. “My goodness, Mr. Baumgartner, your costume sure did have me fooled! I sure apologize for the misunderstanding and any inconvenience I might have caused you.”
“Think nothing of it, my good man,” Dick said magnanimously. “We all make mistakes.”
Riley looked at him keenly. “Will you be spending the holidays with us this year, Mr. Baumgartner?”
“Sadly, no,” Dick replied, catching his drift. “In fact,” looking at a fictitious watch on his wrist, “I’ve got a train to catch.”
“Well, you have yourself a merry Christmas,” Riley said, shaking his hand vigorously. “Perhaps we’ll see you again next year.”
“Christmas wouldn’t be the same without you, Riley,” Dick said. He tipped his hat to them both and walked away.
A half-block toward the rail yard found Dick thanking his lucky stars, conferring his most solemn blessing on Officer Riley, and whistling, so joyfully that nearly every note was a grace note, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.”
The End