The Bulging Wallet
Created | Updated Jun 27, 2010
I left the house early, intent on catching the 07:17. I was about to skip around a discarded mattress on the pavement, humming along to the iPod, when I saw, in the gutter, a wallet. I paused, saw it was fat, and picked it up. Opening it revealed assorted credit cards and several notes folded oddly. What to do? I slipped it in my pocket and rushed on to the station, arriving, as I like to, at my spot on the platform exactly as the train came to a stop. I squeezed on, and forgot about the wallet.
I only pass through Stratford once a week, and was changing trains that evening, contemplating the progress of the new Shopping City from the platform, when I remembered the wallet. I examined it more carefully, looking for a name and address. I certainly wasn't looking forward to the palaver of handing it in at the police station. There were ELEVEN credit and debit cards! Each with a different name. And notes, neatly folded separately into quarters. Eighty pounds! I was puzzled, not to say alarmed. Why were the cards in different names? Was it a thief's collection? And, they were assorted nationalities. I boarded the train absent-mindedly and was still wondering what the wallet was all about as we sped through my stop. Damn, wrong train, I now had to go way into the wilds of Essex and return. But that at least left me more time time for thought.
If not an actual thief, it could be some sort of gang-master, confiscating cards of his workers, no doubt busily engaged at the Olympics site. Hang on; these are mostly women's names. Maybe some wicked landlord is renting out rooms, and keeping these cards as security. A prostitution racket? A credit card factory? I cannot think, for the life of me, of any benign reason for this wallet's existence. It worries at me, on my extended route home. Shall I just leave it on the train, and let someone else have the worry? Perhaps I could keep the cash, and chuck the wallet in a bin.
And how did it get there, in the gutter?
I boarded the train back, but decided to get off at the station before mine and walk from there. In case a gang of credit card fraudsters were waiting for me. I wished I hadn't picked it up. With relief, I entered an old cemetery, a secret way home that I like to use occasionally. I like to take the loop through the older Victorian graves. Grandees on guard. Here at least, time stands still. I slowed and took out the wallet again. In the back, among the folded notes was a slip of paper. I looked at it. A series of initials that matched the names on the credit cards each with a four digit number. The pin codes for the cards! Things were getting much worse. I should just throw it amongst the ivy-covered graves. A police helicopter thudded overhead. Was it looking for me?
I needed to speak to someone who knew about crime, who might know what it was all about.
Emerging from the cemetery, I was soon in sight of my house. There didn't seem to be any gangs waiting for me. No assassin lurking behind a tree. A youth sauntered towards me, black hoodie, baggy jeans. Normally I would half-expect to be mugged, which would remove, at least, the problem of what to do with the wretched wallet. Unfortunately, this was my next-door neighbour's son, whose only acquaintance with mugs, I suspected, were those hanging in his mum's kitchen.
"YoBroDudeMrPHowsAboutIPimpsYourRideForYerOnlyaTenner"
"Hi Mohammad", I replied "How are you?"
"CoolManAnIzaCalledMoNow."
"Ah.", I said, used to his frequent changes of name over the years. "So, do I address you as 'YoBroMo' or 'YoMoBro'?"
"YoosSoUncoolMan!"
"Talking of uncool..." the question was unstoppable. I tried, but couldn't. "... How do you manage to keep those jeans up, Mo?" The swagger changed.
"It's an eternal struggle between faith, hope and gravity." He replied, used to the question.
"So, your Dad tells me you're off to Uni. What are you studying?"
"Chemical Engineering." He replied, sullen. "Justcos I use a word wiv more than one syllable you gotta talk bout Uni."
"Mo", I replied as gently as I could "I've known you since you were a baby. I'm just interested in what you're up to. How about after prayers, Friday. Five quid, inside and out."
"Nowayman. Gotta be sevenfifty!"
"Deal". Which was about as 'street' as I could get.
And as we, silly old English guy and cool Asian lad, touched fists LA gangsta style, one of those buses that ferries old folk around drew up, just along from my house. The driver, Maurice (known as Mo) got out, wandered to the pavement side and started looking in the gutter. I knew him of old. He and Dennis, my previous neighbour on the other side, used to sit outside the house grumbling about the state of the world. Dennis, in the end, had done something about it, sold up and returned to their native Jamaica. A 'black-flighter'. But, this looked like the end of my dilemma.
"Hi, Mo" I called out, attracting both their attentions. "Lost something?"
"Hello there, Mr P", he replied, gravel voiced. "I lost my shopping wallet, and I had an idea it may have fallen from my pocket when I dropped off Mrs Nicolaides last night."
I held it high. "This it?"
"Thank the good lord." His relief was immense. "I thought I'd lost it. It's got all my ladies' money in for when I do their shopping."
"I looked", I said, "I thought you were some master criminal! Since when has shopping been part of the job?"
"It's not. But, you know... you just try and help." He came towards me. "Hey, thanks man!"
I handed him the wallet. "Whoa! No hugging. Mo's watching. It'll be all over the 'hood, man." (I was showing off now, equanimity restored.)
"Mo!" commanded Mo. "Look the other way!" And he gave me a great bear hug.
Fiction by Pheroneous II Archive
