Small Town Heist
An issue in the glove box
Cindy sat at my kitchen table while her husband Jack stirred a pot of Thai Curry he whipped up in the kitchen. They arrived from Indiana the previous night, parked their hybrid SUV and pull-behind trailer beneath the Ponderosa trees on my land in a place I’ve deemed “Wagner’s Campsite.” They are dear friends. I’ve known them twenty-five years and witnessed the birth of their two stunning daughters, now attending college.
Cindy’s hair is the color of fresh, golden straw that sits above her shoulders in a bob cut. At 54, she wears short jogging shorts and has model legs. Athletic, slender, and strong, she looks like a tennis player or a woman who’s hiked mountains her entire life. Jack has dark ebony eyes and hair, now peppered with gray, and loves to talk of books, philosophy, and home building techniques. Cindy is a gifted photographer and glass artist. They own a modest home in middle America and visit family on the West Coast most summers. They are regular, everyday people.
I asked how the drive across the country was post-Covid.
“Good. Things seem to be opening up again. We’re self-contained with the trailer, so we don’t have to use public bathrooms. We just stop for gas, and that’s all. We brought enough food, so we don’t have to go into stores.”
It sounded like a great way to travel during a pandemic.
“Well…except for that one-stop in Missouri when we pulled off on an exit in a small town. Jack forgot something we needed, and the only store we could find was a Walmart.”
Cindy was sort of smirking, and I assumed it was due to boycotting Walmart unless it was utterly necessary. They are conscientious shoppers, careful where they put their money. Walmart doesn’t have a great track record with employees or sustainability.
“I didn’t go in with him because we noticed a lot of lived-in cars in the parking lot and some rough-looking people wandering around. So I decided to stay with the rig.”
I experienced plenty of towns and parking lots like that when I toured playing music. All the gear for making my living was matrix’d in my truck. It made it hard, and risky, to walk into a store and leave it. But sometimes you have no choice.
Leaning on her forearms, Cindy rested on the table. “I opened the car door and took a few steps, then noticed a $100 bill on the ground.”
My eyes widened. That never happened to me on tour.
Cindy’s voice carried a twinge of astonishment, “I looked around to see if anyone was walking toward me, looking for it. People were just milling around their cars, unconcerned, so I picked it up.”
A spoon clanked on a pot in the kitchen, and the scent of spicy coconut wafted through the room. My tummy growled. No amount of money can buy Jack’s curry - it’s the best.
“I walked towards the back of the trailer, really wanting to stretch my legs after sitting so long on the road and saw another bill. This one was a 50.”
She laughed softly, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief. “By this point, it seemed odd. I picked up the pace and on the other side of the trailer found a few more $100’s. Just laying there. All these $50’s and $100’s just scattered on the asphalt, and no one cared. No one was frantically searching or walking toward me. It was so bizarre.”
Jack walked to the table with a handful of bowls and spoons, “Hey, where do you keep your napkins?”
“Grab the blue ones in the drawer by the fridge.” I looked back at Cindy, “That is nuts! How many did you find?”
She smiled at me, “$575 worth of bills. It was a handful. I decided to scoop them up and shove them in the glove box until Jack came back from the store. Then we could decide what to do with them.”
I was silently thinking; I know what I’d do with them. But Cindy and Jack walk a straight line. They are trustworthy, up-front people and work hard to do the right thing. Whether it’s making sacrifices to put their girls through college, driving across the country every year to connect with long-distance family, or living frugally and carefully with resources - they are salt-of-the-earth, honest, upstanding people.
Jack came around the corner carrying a hot, steaming pot of the best homemade curry I’ve had. He sat down at the table next to Cindy and started pouring the spicy goodness over rice in our bowls. He looked at me, eyes wide, “When I came out of the store and walked up to the car, Cindy was pacing. She threw me a strange look and said, ‘We have an issue in the glove box,’ so I put the groceries down and opened the passenger door.”
Jack was grinning ear to ear, “I popped open the glove box and saw a pile of money in there. A lot of money. Then I said, Cindy, what the heck? What did you do?”
“I told him, Shut the glove box Jack, I’ll explain later. It’s not like I turned some trick while he was in buying bananas.”
I laughed, “Oh my god, what did you do?”
“I slammed it shut,” his teeth were showing through his wide grin.
Cindy chimed in, “We stood there for a few minutes talking about what to do next. Neither of us wanted to walk across the parking lot and carry it into Walmart, so we decided to leave and go find a police station.”
Jack was shaking his head, and Cindy continued, “We pulled out of the Walmart parking lot and heard sirens. I hollered at Jack, Oh my god, they’re coming for me. It was a set-up. Go! Let’s get out of here!”
I was stunned. Of all the people in the world I know, Cindy is the last one to run from the police.
“Jack gunned it, and we headed for the onramp to I-70, but a bunch of cop cars pulled onto the exit blocking it, red and blue lights blazing. Cops were coming from every direction, and I told Jack, Just keep driving.”
My curry was getting cold. I forgot it was sitting on the table in front of me. “What happened?”
Her voice slightly raised as she tried to keep from laughing, “We drove past the exit and saw a woman standing on the interstate surrounded by cops. They were busting her, not me. We figured she likely ran up the onramp from the Walmart parking lot after doing a drug deal or something, and they caught her. That’s why no one wanted to touch the money. They probably all saw the whole deal go down.”
Jack piped up, “I hit the next road out of town, and we ghosted.”
“Oh wow, you guys, are you kidding me?”
Cindy stared straight at me, leveling me with a look, like in a movie when the lead character knows a secret, and their innocence is lost.
“No, I’m not kidding you.”
She beamed a huge smile at me, “You know where that $575 is now?”
I smiled and shook my head feeling perplexed respect for my old friend.
“It’s in the mattress.”
☆
Like how the character dialogue propels this story, which ended on the page, but continues in my mind: Is there a moral reckoning ahead?
oh. my. word. and my kinda people. the cosmos works with you when you work with it, doesn't it, now? :-) <3<3<3