Paul Dvorak: King

“Now that you are King we have something wonderful to show you.”

Oh no...now what... “Oh?”

His graphic coalesces in the air between us. It sharpens into the image of an architectural monstrosity mash up of over stylistic gaudy features. I'm reminded of any tera desert casino complex.

“We going to Vegas?”

“Ha ha you are so funny! No this place is yours. It's being built for you.”

“For me?!” My own ghastly casino! Would I be 'house' then? Naturally the odds are always rigged. Do I get to keep the punters money?

“Who would you like to join you there your majesty? Your are the King now so anybody you ask for would have to go with you.”

“Oh! It's a party eh?” How many can I invite? What's the capacity of that place?

“Hundreds or thousands if you want. They will all be glad to go for the king.”

I love a huge party. “When is the party then? Has a date been set?”

“As soon as you are dead, my king.”

“Dead. This is the model of your tomb. Much room of course for the thousands who will die with you.”

“What! You're already building my tomb!?”

“Oh yes. No telling how long you'll last. We have to get started right away. In fact now even...could you please choose a color pallet for the entrance lobby and atrium? The artists have made a range of suggestions that won't clash with the sacrificial crypts of your family the ministers and close advisers.”

“Would that include you?” I gave him my special look of violent disapproval which after much mirror practice might kinda look more like I have abdominal pain. I just got be King only minutes ago and here they are planning my funeral!

“Oh yes! Here's the plan for my condo mausoleum with all my favorite stuff waiting for the afterlife.”

“What if I live another hundred years? All your furniture would be out of style, your domestic gadgets obsolete.”

This made him chuckle like he knew that wasn't going to happen. “Should you...” pause for eye contact, “survive long it would all be modernized. I would never enjoy an eternity of death without the latest appliance features and trendiest furnishings. Everyone buys new cloths when the King dies just in case they are asked to join you.”

How would it screw up their society to demand all the salesmen proceed me into death. These traditions have probably kept this economy going for centuries.New King gets to screw a few virgins, has a good meal, tombs done, everybody buys new stuff and on to the next king.

from the ANSWER

Funny. I don't see me here in the Rocket lounge. Real launch tanks of marstini don't lie.

What do you say when you get a call from yourself? The holo guy looked just like me. The ID said: 'Paul Dvorak unknown loc'. From the future? If this is me from the future why holocall? What are the charges like on a call I haven't made to myself yet? Since suit is paying I accept my crisper self image into the contact cone.

“Paul.”

“Paul.” Do I call myself 'Paul' like this thinking?

”You're me”

“I'm you?”

“From the future?”

“No.” “The past then?” “No.” “So...I've been cloned again?” Darn DNA scattered all over the place!

“Just shut up and listen to what I've got to say...”

“Who the hell are you? If you are me how come I don't know what I'm about to tell me?” Suit says the call comes from my sleeve holo company lami. How can I holo call myself? Does this cost me double? Looped up somehow? I would think me from the future would remember how drunk I am right now.

“Listen! There is no time! No time right now! “

“What time is it there? Here?” Suit says 14:25. Is this a call to someone else that's time lagged? Have I got a lagged line now? Pings me fat bandwidth...

“No! It's now everywhere! You are me now. I'm you and you're me. Now listen!”

“Why should I listen to me? I'm not a good judge of my character. I wouldn't believe anything I'd tell myself. I'm often right about being wrong. Like now cause I'm usually always right. If I'm me and so are you then you would know that I would never take any advice that I would give to anybody much less myself.”

“It's too late? Listen! Shut up and listen! It's too late now!”

“That's what I'm trying to tell me? That it's too late? Too late for what? Why didn't I tell me earlier?”

But I couldn't tell me anything more. I was gone with a sparkling 'blip'. Alone again in a bar full of drunks who weren't paying any attention.

“Paul.” Suit got something to say.

“Yes Carla?”

“What was that about?”

...so the smartest, richest pants in the whole solsys is asking me now for answers...

introducing  an excerpt from the first of a new Grant Parachor series:

THE DIAMOND ASTEROID

a Savage and Jones mystery

Becky Savage senior partner of the investigative firm Savage and Jones could smell trouble. She's always had a good nose for trouble. The tubular wall architecture here helped.

“Gosh that's a horrible smell!” The air flow was in her face. Smelly trouble directly ahead. “That Chevrolet!” She thought. The image of her co-partner Chevrolet Jones relaxing at Steel Beach on the other side of the moon stuck a manicured finger in her eye. “I get all the dirty work and she has all the fun!”

A tap of a tab. “Chevrolet. Chevrolet. What are you doing?”

Chevrolet Jones's accepted the call video only.

“Hi Becky. Pedicure. Then a wax and buff.” She was wrapped in towls.

“Check this atmospheric.”

“Yikes! Becky that must smell terrible!”

“Can you holo call me back and go in first?”

“Um what?...you're breaking up...sunspots...gama raysss...Becc”

“I got great pings here.” Becky knew Chevrolet could hear her. The diagnostics showed good coms both ways.

She could still have a decoy by projecting a recorded holo and send it ahead to get shot first. In skins available was one that matched Chevrolet. She gave it Chevrolets face. Looped a six meter sashay walk with a progressive stop/start sequence. Would the image pause be too close? Depends on the trouble.

Hood up, visor closed, air filters testing and scrubing Becky followed the projection warily into the gloomy tube.The curved walls were raw rock with a thin crust of dirty ice. The floor flatened to the limit of the curve for some vehicle.

The holo strode ahead with some fashion model attitude. At ten meters did a shoulder throw turn with the hip thrust of a styling program that knows it looks good. A millisecond flicker then it turned back toward the trouble to resume its loop.

Becky hugged as close to the wall as she could. She crouched like a gunfighter to present a smaller target. It here occurred to her that perhaps she should draw her weapon since she prolly looked like she was about to shoot somebody. A sleek flat black acu-zap appeared in her right hand. The sleeve drop neuro holsters held much more; devices small and expensive she secured anywhere not necessary to her stylish cutaway blast suit. They moved forward another sequence. The acu-zap target aquire scanning saw nothing ahead but round empty.

“ooo” She murmured. The sniffer lami at her collar spiked a reading that was still flashing numbers. Smelly trouble was coming right at her for sure. It seemed like the thick air had gotten under her suit. “Suit air on.” But if she had to run for long she knew it would overload the re-breather membranes and the suit would let the smell back.

The holographic Chevrolet Jones cat-walked the papparazi gauntlet to the pause turn reset.

“Becky.”

What now? thought Becky touching the tab that let the call thru.

“What Chevrolet? Are your coms okay now?”

“Becky wait!”

“Look I'm trying to sneak here. You're not making things easier.” She had to move to catch up with simulated Chevrolet whose last pause turn had to be getting close to the projectors limits.

“Abort! Abort! Get out of that tube tunnel now!”

Becky couldn't help but think: “She's always doing this...interrupting me with dire warnings. Here we go again...” She spoke on coms: “I took this job and you were too busy to help and now here I am sneaking up on trouble and you gotta call and butt in again!”

“It's no trick. I'm not sure you know what you're up against.”

Huh... she used the word 'trick'? Becky wondered ...are we in the 'trick' code mode? Time to move another ten meter chunk. That code word means coms are compromised. No doubt she has been zeroed by some targeting program. Her suit starts the emag spoofing routine to shift her biosignals closer to the holo.

“I know it really stinks. Hey. You could help by calling back on a holo line and go up with the other you to draw more fire.” The acu-zap made her trigger finger tickle, which means a target in range. Too far to tell what? Animal or deadly kill-bot in a very straight tunnel moving at four KPH. Dark Shadows camo starts its magic. Becky becomes a section of curved rock.The fashion model Chevrolet is put on pause standing with one beautifuly shoed foot raised to step back into the sequence looking saucily toward the unknown.

Another holographic Chevrolet twinkled into conversational mode in front of Becky. She appeared armed with several weapons systems.

“Turn around and step to the side please. They shoot at you I'll get hit.” Real Chevrolet, as usual safely hundreds of kilometers away. ”Can you see ahead of me?”

“You got to get a better cam lami. It's like looking through soup.”

“That's the air.”

Funny. I don't see me here in the Rocket lounge. Real launch tanks of marstini don't lie.

What do you say when you get a call from yourself? The holo guy looked just like me. The ID said Paul Dvorak unknown loc. From the future? If this is me from the future why holocall? What are the charges like on a call I haven't made to myself yet? Since suit is paying I accept my crisper self image into the contact cone.

“Paul.”

“Paul.” Do I call myself 'Paul' like this thinking?

”You're me”

“I'm you?”

“From the future?”

“No.” “The past then?” “No.” “So...I've been cloned again?” Darn DNA scattered all over the place!

“Just shut up and listen to what I've got to say...”

“Who the hell are you? If you are me how come I don't know what I'm about to tell me?” Suit says the call comes from my sleeve holo company lami. How can I holo call myself? Does this cost me double? Looped up somehow? I would think me from the future would remember how drunk I am right now.

“Listen! There is no time! No time right now! “

“What time is it there? Here?” Suit says 14:25. Is this a call to someone else that's time lagged? Have I got a lagged line now? Pings me fat bandwidth...

“No! It's now everywhere! You are me now. I'm you and you're me. Now listen!”

“Why should I listen to me? I'm not a good judge of my character. I wouldn't believe anything I'd tell myself. I'm often right about being wrong. Like now cause I'm usually always right. If I'm me and so are you then you would know that I would never take any advice that I would give to anybody much less myself.”

“It's too late? Listen! Shut up and listen! It's too late now!”

“That's what I'm trying to tell me? That it's too late? Too late for what? Why didn't I tell me earlier?”

But I couldn't tell me anything more. I was gone with a sparkling 'blip'. Alone again in a bar full of drunks who weren't paying any attention.

“Paul.” Suit got something to say.

“Yes Carla?”

“What was that about?”

...so the smartest, richest pants in the whole solsys is asking me now for answers...

excerpts from

The ANSWER

Radical border nationalism, along with borders as barriers, fell to history with the advent of the cheap flying car. What do you do ? Shoot them all down? As impractical as it is evil. No. The idea sunk in that shooting down the thousands of flying cars now darting everywhere was no way to make money. Charge them for crossing, for parking when they get where they go, for anything anybody could think of. Dead laser blast crash victims don't accrue much up-billing.

Border guards became obsolete, merely ceremonial. To the delight of the local wildlife, fences came down, traffic analysis towers went up. Regionalism became more of an aspect of the citizen divided by the unique regional quirks that make a place attract tourists with money. Certainly everybody gets their credit allotments from the Government calculated by the local regional tax and resource revenues that can be converted anytime into monets or local currency. The wealthier the citizens homeland the larger their cut of the credit. And the more skimmed from all the paids to fly from some here's to most there's, the more attractive the region. The more folks fly over or to and the bigger the border charges, tax's, fee's, ect; and when divided up into the credit the more for everybody.

Soon there were no more actual poor people. Tourists coming to see the poor people made them rich. Rich people continued to get richer. No more fears of poor people from elsewhere sneaking in and stealing jobs. Everybody from somewhere else at your particular here means more money for you to be richer. Almost everybody is proud of where they live and acept their share. Of course you don't have to be selling trinkets to be part of the benefit of all these people spending money to hang out with you in your hood. You still benefit in the local split, even if you hate them for coming around. They all leave eventually anyway. Who doesn't want to go someplace else sometime. I wish I was there now. They have to go back to keep their own local split. Or they could stay if they want. With money you can have what you want, even citizenship of someplace else.

It was all part of the themeparkization of every myriad local culture, which sometimes ment tour vehicles full of strange people in ridiculous clothes crowding the shops. This is what civilization is anyway, from the beginning: market day. And the local market is everyone, everything, everywhere. And that's how cheap flying cars ended violent nationalism

Cheap flying car tech was suppressed for decades by the rubber tire industry till they sold the flying car builders on rubber flying car bottoms.

preview of  FINDERS

 FINDERS

The principle premise is that there are certain individuals who throughout their lives always find what they need in the least or the most. It is a serendipitous existence. A finder does not search or hunt or even actively look for what is provided by the finding. “One man gathers what another man spills” says the song. If a person knows to see then they can see that what they need and more is right before them. A finder is an optimistic opportunist. Not a thief. No crime necessary. While a ground score in a public place is fair game to a finder a good finder knows enough of karma to leave alone someone else’s property. If a find is attributable to an identifiable owner then it must go to the owner. That finder golden rule provides rewards for the future; the more you give up the more you pass by the more you find. The finder thus becomes neutral by desire in motivation. The benefit is in the finding not the gain. A finders desires cannot be in the ends of treasures but in the power of the synchronicity of the finding. At the point of synchronicity real change takes place in the recognition of reality. To see what’s going on is the finders goal. To see what’s left behind or overlooked or forgotten is the finders mission. The profit of being a finder is in seeing the nature of materiality (two words are here joined: matter-reality). Knowing this frees the finder to see what’s there to find.

A finder must chase at reality revealed in sync. Sometimes chasing one “thing” the finder can reveal that the chaser is the chased. Without the chasing the chaser would never know to find. So a finder must first know how to chase reality and first know how to hide from greed and first know how to run (not run on feet). These are the four firsts of finding. Only three firsts are ever listed as the fourth first must first be found.

Second you must see (not necessarily with eyes). This is the only second thing to do because it is always better to see for a second, to take a second look and try in that second second look to see what can be found. First impressions are very deceiving and colored by expectation and symbolism. So a finder takes a second and takes a second look and maybe a third (a second second); though that is not the third thing, which is: “nothing”. There is no third thing. A void third rules: “there is no third law of finding” except the “threefold law of nothing” namely “nothing is really yours”, “nothing is really free”, a finder keeps “nothing” that is somebody else’s.

Some finders leave things for others to find, to see who finds “it”, this finder see’s: “did the finder of ‘it’ follow a finders chase? Is this a true finder find?”

Some finders find “things” and leave “it” to see who finds “it” next. To find requires a finder. To see with the rules of finding creates a finder.

This does not imply that to have a finder find means that there must be a loser. Even a loser can be a finder, usually you soon find that you’ve lost something. To lose is to find. Lots of people find that they can lose. And every time they lose they create another potential finder.

A finder thus must be aware. A finder must look and see. A finder must see every moment as a chance to find.

A searcher is not always a finder. Indeed many who search are not by nature finders. Searchers and finders are organized by circumstance. The world is covered with unrequited searchers and seekers that either can’t or don’t see reality clearly enough to find. Others are finders and just don’t know it and when they need fulfillment comes their way by nature. They have the ability to make the most of what to others may seem nothing; which is directly related to the threefold law of nothing: “nothing can often be all that a finder can see” and of course nothing is still something, sort of. To see something where others see nothing is an aspect of true finding often exhibited by artists and inventers, though they might not be by nature true finders.

The nature of our materialistic reality makes want and desire the engines of finding, not the want of the finder or the desire of the loser. A finder should not be out to make losers, that is not a finder that is a winner and winners by nature often become mean and venal in their desire to win; they desire to manipulate synchronicity to their triumph and ultimate inevitable downfall frequently in ways unrelated to the competition. The true finder must be aware of desire, of the finders own desires wants and needs, and have a distinct appreciation of the losers loses. Desire must be acknowledged but on purpose often denied. Denial of desire can free a finder to see. The suffering brought on by the denial of desire is the source of the energy to find.

Much of the world is fraught with suffering caused by the involuntary denial of desire, of want unmet. Suffering is the nature of existence. Any happiness created by the satisfaction of desires is transitory, it is immediately followed by more suffering. Those who are wealthy, who have all their immediate needs met still find ways to suffer. Desire of food and physical comfort met with wealth frees up the mind to suffer in many ways, mostly emotional. A true finder knows this and chooses how to suffer in order to free up the energy to see and find.

Me

The Great Roscoe

Jersey Sue

Fade Away Pete

Repete

Sheila True

Boiler Bill

Ten John

Amazing Mandrake

The Great Phil

Boxcar

Little Louie

THE GREAT ROSCOE

I met the Great Roscoe just after I walked away from the sack at the side of the trail. Well, in Central Park the trail is more like a roadway, wide and paved, marked by lanes with arrows painted onto the surface. The sack had lain just alongside the paved way near a footpath worn into the grass by people cutting the corner around a series of large bushes. The base of the Bushes had been trimmed high to keep the drunks and druggies from using them for privacy. There on the margin of the grass made by the shade of the bushes was the sack. It was an Hebrew National hotdog sack, probably from the stand near the bridge. I’d kicked it lightly as I passed it taking the shortcut. My habit in the city is to look where I walk especially in the park and I had kicked it with intent. The sack had a peculiarly solid feel to my foot. It felt not like I had expected so I reached down to this garbage this refuse and picked it up and looked into it.

Inside was a note with a bundle folded in a Hebrew National hot dog wrapper stained with a residue of mustard. “Finder you know what you need take what it takes leave what you can so someone else may find.”

This unusual note left me uncomfortable and very self conscious. I looked around furtively. I thought of how I must look picking through the litter, through old hot dog sacks, to the joggers who passed, the Spanish teenagers gathered near a garbage can laughing, the tourists walking hand in hand. I poked at the rectangular bundle. It was stacked with many hundred dollar bills. All new.

Wow! I thought: Wow! I’d found a lot of money left in plain sight in a public place, camouflaged as trash. I looked around again. What is this? Some kind of test? Am I being watched? What if I kept it all? What should I do?

It was a large amount. Maybe a couple a thousand dollars or more. Probably more. A dangerous amount. People in Central Park get killed for much less.

Who was this meant for, the drunks that pick at the trash for food, the sweepers?

I clutched the bag tightly and scanned the park. No one seemed to pay me any attention. A man walking towards me on the paved path looked up at me. We made eye contact, briefly, and then he looked away, our subtle nonverbal signal of city persons check for threat, and proceeded along.

The grass nearby was dry and freshly mowed where the ground sloped gently upward away from the junction of the trails. I went there, about twenty feet away and sat down and placed the bag between my legs. I opened the edge of the wrapped bills, still keeping them in the sack, then started counting them by their edges. They were hundred dollar bills all of them. When I got to thirty I got kinda scared. I never carry that much money! Was it all mine? Should I obey the note? I read it again. I scanned the park. No one looked my way.

I thought about how this a most interesting unintended dilemma. The language of the note struck me as very unusual. It invites me to take what is needed. Fair enough. Should I take it all? I certainly could use it all; but that’s not need. How much do I need? Should I honor the notes intentions? Is there some curse involved? My thoughts were racing. My heart was pounding. I was sweating. I wanted to get away. Some one was watching me, I was sure of it. This whole weird situation made me very nervous. A few minutes ago I had no real fear of robbery now I had something to lose, a sack of money. A lot of money.

The note and it’s request made me think about who I am. Who am I? What kind of person? A person who could keep all the money?

It says “leave what you can…” Can I do that? Could I leave money in the sack? Is that the point, to make me think about myself? Do I really need this? This sort of test? That’s what this is I thought. An uninvited test!? A morality test? A test of my conscience?

Well, I thought, hmm.. I do need some money. Who doesn’t? I had ten dollars in my pocket. I had debts, sure, but they’ll get paid anyway. I had a pretty good job, income, prospects. How much of this windfall should I keep? Just a hundred? Leave the rest? Share? Donate to charity? If I left it would it just get thrown into the trash? Found by drunks? Some one must be watching? Otherwise what’s the point of setting the dilemma? Should I keep the whole sack and donate it to some charity? Thousands! Are a lot to leave as trash in a park! Should I honor the wish’s of the note?

More people passed. Old people. Needy looking. Young people, energetic, dangerous. Joggers and skaters and bicyclists and a couple of cops walking slowly. Should I tell the cops? They would take the sack of money and the note and treat them cursorily, I’m sure. I would probably not get to keep any of it; of course the trash on the ground in the park is the property of the city, I’d be told. What if the cops had found it? They would keep it, no doubt, split it, and no one would know. A cop would never leave any money in the sack, or redeposit it on the grass for someone else to find. No way a cop would leave money for some drunk or druggie to find.

What a rare person it took to do this, to leave so much for fate or chance, to write the note and start the cycle of moralistic implications. Am I the first to find this treasure trash? I think so since it was so well wrapped, the note so fresh.

This is when I decided. I pulled at the stack of bills and four came free. I folded them and crumpled them in my hand to disguise them as I stuffed them into my front pants pocket. They were crisp and new. I could smell it; that strange fresh inky cloth scent. Four!? I thought: Only four out of so many! Is four enough? Is that sufficient reward for returning so much to the ground? Thousands. And I would… I decided. Leave it. It was time to end this distraction. I wrapped the bundle of money back into its mottled paper cover and replaced the note above it in the sack and stood. I would drop the sack where I found it and make my day four hundred dollars happier, and respect the wishes of the note, and leave and not look back or care where the rest of the money went. If someone else could do this I could also. This would probably be my only chance to ever do something like this. It was on it’s own path of fate guided by the note and chance and the morals and choices of the next finder.

I watched the people passing so at a point when all receded, no one looking, for littering is a crime, I dropped the sack with a plop at the place I had found it.

The most direct route left the park by the museum. There stood a hot dog cart it’s umbrella cocked, no line, Hebrew National. I bought one with my lone ten dollar bill and garnished it with relish and onions and mustard and ketchup. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. The hot dog tasted great. I sat on a bike rack and looked at the city and felt very good about what I’d done. No regrets is my motto. What a weird city! Weird people! Who would do such a thing as leave money in a park like that?

“Hey man…”

“What? Huh?”

“Hey man.” A tall dark guy dressed in a bright blue track suit clutching a hot dog stand sack stood there in front of me.

“Hey.”

“Good dog?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw what you did. You left the sack.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well. It wasn’t littering. Exactly. Did you look into it?”

“I know what’s in the sack.” He said slowly his eyes holding mine. They were clear and sharp and deep brown set in a square handsome intelligent looking face. “You left it. You didn’t take it.”

“Do you want it back?” I didn’t feel threatened by him at all. He could have it back without a fight. “I took some.”

“I saw.”

“I didn’t see you there.” He was somewhat older then me though I couldn’t tell how much. He looked healthy, in good shape, seemed to glow with a secret satisfaction.

“I saw. I see you are a very special person.”

I couldn’t finish the hot dog. My hands trembled. I felt like I’d been caught in a crime. I felt like a guilty child. “You left the money there? Why?” I asked to get onto the other side of my emotions. He sat on bike rack near me, the bag of money casually held in his hand as if garbage.

“I did so I could find you.”

“What do you mean? Do you want it back?”

“How much did you take?”

“Four. Ah…four hundred.”

“That’s all?! Four!” He was astonished.

There was a bit of a pause here as people passed nearby.

“How much is in there? Why did you leave it?”

“I did it for you or someone to find. Eight thousand.”

I could only grunt. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wasn’t sure what would happen next.

He stuck out his hand. “My names Roscoe. They call me the Great Roscoe.” He introduced himself theatrically. He stood and got bigger as he said this. We shook hands. He was strong and sure and I met his grip firmly.

“I’m John.”

“John, four letters?”

“Yeah. Ah…” What was he about? I hadn’t seen him there. He’d retrieved the money then followed me here! Why?

“John you’re a very special person. You can tell them you were found by the Great Roscoe. The Great Roscoe found John with only four bills.” He laughed deeply but not loud. “Yes John you’re a special person. A finder. A true finder I think. And I found you. You left the found money to continue and didn’t look back. It’s yours to keep as the note says. You are a wonderful work of art that I’m the first to see. And I know that I’ll find you or you’ll find me again sometime.”

And with that he turned and walked away towards the crosswalk and having timed it perfectly made the light and was soon lost among the crowd.

I tell the story of my finding the money and my encounter with the Great Roscoe to my girlfriend Anne and my friends. They shake their heads, they wondered with me what it meant. An odd event. How cryptic, how strange.

“Well, you got four hundred bucks outta it!”

“Nothing like that ever happens to me.”

“I’d a kept it all.”

“You’re charmed. Lucky. Always been.”

The episode was soon forgotten by all though I still looked in faces everywhere for the Great Roscoe. I didn’t understand what he’d meant by “a finder”. Why so much money? Why the trap? A trap, that’s what I decided it was, a trap. A trap and test. Now I worked to find him first, see him first, trap him back with my recognition.

“They call me the Great Roscoe.” He’d said. Who called him that? Who was “they”? Why was he “Great”? Because he left money in parks? And so when ever I passed a park I looked for him, for sacks of money. Then after awhile I forgot exactly what he looked like. That’s when I started to see him everywhere and was never sure and never asked anyone if they were him. Once in a bar I heard someone call out: “Roscoe!” Loud. It made me jump, made my heart race and I turned and it was not could not have been the Great Roscoe of the Central Park money.

Months passed. Life fogs accurate memory. Events become stories become less told less thought of. I lived life as it happened and made my way as best I could. In this later I found myself on a rainy afternoon in an unfamiliar part of the city. I’d gone to meet a friend to hear some news of other friends long not seen. At the apartment of my friend I buzzed the security intercom. No one was home. There was no note. I waited in an apartment building vestibule between two glass doors as it darkened outside and the rain began to fall. Thinking of my friend I remembered that this situation made perfect sense, He was the type to make appointments and then forget them. I never forget anything, this is sometimes my bane. I remember what people say and expect the same of them often only to be, like this, disappointed to suffer later their denials. So I stuffed a quick note into the appropriate mailbox slot and left.

It was a short walk to the subway. I took a way different then the way I’d come by, a more direct route then when I’d searched for the address. I headed that way and soon saw the lights of a coffee house across the street. I needed a hot cup of coffee I hoped might cheer me up after missing my friend. The flashing neon light in the corner of the window announced it as “The Last Cup Café” or “…Lost Cup…” I couldn’t tell, it flickered weakly in the rainy night and I went quickly through the door. It was dim inside, warm, no one turned to me as the strip of bells on the door jingled brightly. A typical city coffee house, a counter with cash register next to a glass cabinet full of pastries, a bar with stools, a few tables, a place not large very cozy. As I ordered my drink to go I noticed the rain outside pick up into a torrent, so I sat at the bar, then looked over the room. Other the myself, the barista girl and a small group of people at two tables pushed together the small café seemed empty.

“Now that we’re all here we should begin.” A little laughter. A short woman in a heavy overcoat stood at the double table to a tapping of a spoon on her cup. They quieted there soft conversation. “Tonight’s best find presented by the Great Roscoe…” They applauded softly.

It was like I’d been hit with an electric shock. The Great Roscoe here!

“Thank you.” I recognized his deep voice even after so long ago so brief an encounter. I turned on my barstool more toward them. He stood with his back to me. “I’m very pleased to be here my friends to introduce to you a true finder, who I am proud to say I discovered myself, and who I am very glad to see has found us tonight.” He turned and with a sweep of his arm faced me. “John! A true finder!” They all looked my way and again applauded softly. I almost dropped my latte.

A chair was slid over from another table and I was invited to sit with them. Introductions went all around. They were “Jersey Sue” a middle aged woman with a butch haircut died blue, “Fade Away Pete” an old guy out west gambler type, and RePete his son a guy with thick glasses wearing an old dark grey suit, “Sheila True” an aging Long Island princess, “Boiler Bill” a small stocky man with a bulldog face in a huge unzipped parka, “Ten John” who answered with ‘Hella’ in thick Jersey accent through a smile with more then a few bad teeth and had a handshake that was like gripping a small lumpy baseball mitt, “The Amazing Mandrake” who with his goatee I took to be a magician, and last another “Great” the “Great Phil” wide smile wide man.

It got quiet as everyone sipped their drinks. They seemed to revel in the introductions. They were all looking intently at me.

“So John…” Ten John broke the silence, “Tell us how you found us tonight.”

“Well…um…” this was weird I thought, I felt uncomfortable with all this attention. I rotated my paper cup and stared down at it and gathered my thoughts, “I was just walking by outside…” I glanced at the door, “To the subway…and since it was rainy I thought a coffee would be good…so I just came in…I didn’t think that…” My thoughts fled my mind as I searched for something to say.

My audience all appeared delighted.

“Pure chance!”

“You’re not setting us up… Roscoe?”

“No man. Would I do that?” There was laughs and from someone a long drawn out “yeah!”

“Just picked the last cup outta the blue did he?” Heads shook in moderate disbelief.

“I knew I’d see him again.”

“The Great Roscoe can always spot a true finder!” He got a hearty pat on the back from Fade Away Pete.

            “Yer da best Roscoe!”

            “Ah … em…What’s going on here? I mean …what do you mean… I mean about me…ah?”

            “Oh.” “Ah.” “He’s a novice of course.” Jersey Sue’s voice is so high pitched and sweet it made me smile. The group sensed my discomfort and broke into several little side conversations around me.

            Ten John who was next to me at the table spoke to me directly taking my attention just to him. “We’re just a bunch of friends that get together to shoot the breeze ya know once in awhile see. We all got a little something in common.” I drank coffee glad to be out of the spotlight.

            The conversations around me were general and personal, “How’s your sister?” “So, what’s up?” kind of stuff, much like before my big introduction.

           “See kid we’re all naturals. Like you. Not all found by Roscoe a course. It’s a big world, there’s lotsa finders.”

           “What do you mean finders?”

           “Well that’s a complicated question.” He said with a chuckle.

           Sheila True, seated on my other side, laid her hand gently on my forearm.

          “You see kid you got a talent. You might not know it. Roscoe’s never been wrong about finding finders. It shows up now and then but until you’re found by another finder you can’t really tell.”

          “He needs educate’n."

          “Sheila’l teach ya more den ya want to know!” She hit RePete on the shoulder hard with the back of her hand.

         “Look we’re not religious or nothing, we’re just regular people that realized special things happen sometimes.” She said in low tones in her high pitched voice. Her eyes were watching the others, who didn’t seem to be listening particularly to us as there was at least six conversations going on at once all around.

         Two more people walked in and came over. Seats changed as Roscoe and Bill and Mandrake  split off the group to get coffee or go to the restroom.

         “Finders, John,” Ten John sought my attention, “have a talent for finding, for sometimes being in the right place at the right time. And we get together like this once in awhile to make each other jealous about what we found lately.”

          “Roscoe’s the topper tonight by having you walk right in!” Sheila and Ten John nod to each other.

          Sitting down across the table from me, the new faces are introduced to me as “Boxcar and Little Louie”. Little Louie is anything but little looking to be at least 350 pounds, 6 foot 4 at least; and Boxcar is a small guy in an oversize tailored London Fog style rain coat with a lawyers three piece suit beneath.

         “So where do you live John.” Sheila squeezed my arm like she was trying to be my new girlfriend. Not my type by many decades.

         “Oh down the lower east side.”

         “Cool!” She cooed. “Oh yeah? Where? What building?”

         “I’m in an apartment on Delany, Delany Court.”

         “No!? You don’t say? That’s where I live! What floor?” The Great Roscoe was right behind me now grinning.

         “Twelve.”

         “I’m on the ninth. Three floors.”

         “How long?”

        “’Bout a year.” I said. It had been two years since I’d found the money.

        “I’ve lived there over five now.”

        “Kid you and Roscoe are in sync!”

        “Same building too! Jeez! You are setting us up aren’t you Roscoe!?’

        “Man I’ve only seen John here twice in my life. Right? Tonight makes it two. Eh?”

        I could only nod. Probably six hundred people live on those forty floors. We might’ve missed each other on the elevator often. Roscoe had all there attention again so he told the story of how we met at Central Park. I heard the version of his point of view in a slang jargon that I couldn’t always decipher. He said he “floated the stream”, he’d been listening to the music of the sync hoping to “spot the harmony”, he’d “fed” some to the nothing”, and met me for only “four outta eighty.” Sheila squeezed my arm more and said marveling “You only took four hundred out of so much. You didn’t take it all! You let the rest float! You are a natural!”

        They all had stories to tell. Stories got told over other stories. Sometimes everyone got all quiet and listened to one story unfold. Sheila had found fifty dollars and a sack of fresh tomatoes on the subway just yesterday. Fade Away Pete had found an old girlfriend working in a restaurant and she promised him free eats. Ten John had found his reading glasses and his spare set of bridgework dentures. Repete found a poem on a piece of paper blowing down the street that deeply moved him so much when he read it that he is going to publish it in the zine he puts out bimonthly.

        The Great Phil launched into a long story how he found a car for fifty bucks at the towed car auction. He was the lone bidder. Fifty more for a key to be made. It was a rare 70s era Cadillac that ran perfect. He sold it a week later for ten thousand. To top that off he’d found a three carrot diamond ring down a seat cushion. He passed it around to show it off.

        I forgot myself in all the stories, the fresh ones of things that just happened and the old stories that started “Oh yeah once…”. That’s what they were about it seemed, trading stories of the things they found. All good luck and laughs. Until Boiler Bill mentioned how he had found his brother dead in the Lazy Boy chair of a heart attack. The atmosphere got heavy then. We all saddened. Sheila announced that “Lisa Lips is dead too…” and the stories turned to remembrances of Lisa and her great and small finds.

        People started to leave. It was getting late. I thought I’d better go too. Sheila gave me a sitting hug and a kiss on the cheek. Roscoe said: “See you around neighbor.” I left with a general “Nice to meet you all. Bye now.” to everyone.

       Outside the rain had stopped. The streets were wet. I continued my journey to the subway entrance with a glance back at the Last Cup. I could help thinking “How weird… how very weird…”

        You see people all the time in the city. People are everywhere of course. Sometimes they blur together. Still I have this tendency to pick out of the masses familiar faces. Out of the thousands of faces I see I will occasionally, once in awhile, spot a face I’ve seen before. Beyond seeing a friend somewhere unexpectedly, which happens often enough, there are instances when I will think “I’ve seen that guy before,” or “She’s the girl I saw at the store the other day”. Soon I can tell the locals in my neighborhood from the commuters and definitely from the tourists. Tourists are easy to recognize. They stand apart in their newness. The tourist subtle giveaway signs are numerous, it’s their clothes, or hairstyle, or the way they look around at the city with too open eyes, the way they stereotype the neighborhood in their expectations and see the place through overly open eyes that only to their tourist perspective. The locals look like they belong here. They dress for the place. They look down at the sidewalk as they walk. They eat at the cheap places. The locals learn the best values of the neighborhood are often in places that tourists won’t visit. Not to avoid tourists at all, no, it’s that a tourist would look at a place a local might like and the tourist would think “What a dive! I’m not going in that dump!” A tourist usually, most tourists anyway, seek comfort and safety and casual luxury. A local knows where to go at two in the morning to buy something necessary, knows where to get a good cheap breakfast. The local knows where to avoid.

        Commuters, people that work in the city and who live elsewhere, are soon gone. The places that serve them close early and never open up on weekends. A commuter is easy to spot because they want to be elsewhere, and probably wouldn’t even come to this neighborhood except to work and leave promptly at the end of the work day. The city encourages this by having fewer public transportation choices available as the night wears on. The commuter must leave for home early in the main migratory herd or be stranded in this strange neighborhood of unfamiliar locals. The commuters are easy to spot because they travel towards public transportation in uneven groups at specific times. The groups usually consists of hurrying people who do not acknowledge each other. Few talk or are together with someone else. When your home is a city district full of commuting workers it is easy to spot those whose home is elsewhere, they are the ones all coming out of the subway or descending buses together in the morning and later leaving on reverse routes in the afternoon or early evening.

        I figure it takes at least a year or so to really learn your way around a new place; three years to make good friends and learn the locals and catch onto most of the dangerous places. You gotta invest at least three years into your neighborhood to make it work. After five years you can begin to feel like you really live there, like you are part of the place. After five years you can really say you live there when people ask. That gives you the right to notice with comfortable disdain any newcomers or tourists or commuters. I’ve lived here only five years of my life. My work has given me the freedom to stay. I’m lucky I guess. I’ve got a good apartment in a great building in a neighborhood that’s not too dangerous close to all the things I could need and I’m in love with a beautiful woman.

Things have gotten better for me since I met Anne. I had left my briefcase with my computer on the train. I realized it right away; there wasn’t much time to get back on the train. So I quickly, before the doors could close, entered a car further back certain that the computer was gone, already picked up by someone, lost to the city. The train took off with a lurch. Going through the connecting door I saw that a woman sat where I had been.

        “Excuse me… I… ah… left…” She looked gorgeous. The type of woman that made me reluctant to approach from just the supermodel beauty, of the thought that I would be rejected. She looked up at me with a mischievous grin.

       “Looking for something?” And she indicated the case that rested next to her. I was stunned. I got lucky in many ways that day.

        We’ve been together ever since. I used to live in a crappy place in a terrible section. Things got better right away. She helped me find my home and we moved in together. A great job that allowed me to work from anywhere came soon. It was a turning point in my life that affected every aspect of my world.

        All went well beyond belief until the day she disappeared.