SOME ASH KICKED UP from the cigarette as it spun across a grease stain on the sidewalk. I was of the mind to step on it, but I hesitated. An old man rounding the corner was watching me with a disapproving eye and nasty sneer with yellow teeth. The old man's lips flexed some words, but I couldn't hear a thing. I knew it wasn't nice.

The rope in the old man's left hand was taut. The dog at the end was in sad shape, some little thing, breed. Several feet separated him and the little creature. He walked too fast for the dog. The reason for this—the dog walked too slowly. The reason for that—it only had two working legs. Its front legs, like crutches, plodded ahead dragging a makeshift wagon, a wooden board attached to four rubber wheels. The crippled mutt's back legs were propped underneath its body and tied to the board. The contraption made a grinding sound. The wheels seemed tight, but the dog did not pant. It did not wag its tail. It did not sniff around. It didn't even look at me, no happy-to-see-you eyes. Just a straining neck held tight in the rope. It was tough to look away, but I did.

I turned my attention to the cigarette butt I had flicked onto the ground. The old man and his crippled dog would likely be stepping on it in the near future, even at their crawl of a pace. I had misjudged how done the cigarette really was; it still smoked. A few orange embers burned at the end, so I smashed it, twisting the tip of my shoe into the ground. Taking my foot away, I saw the butt flattened and the ash fanned. I wanted to look back up at the old man to give him a smile or maybe a nod. I wanted him to know that I got him. I got it.

I didn't. By chance, as I raised my glance, something green caught the corner of my eye, some paper-like thing protruding from the cement filling where a red brick wall met the sidewalk. The brick wall was the backside of an old deli. The piece of green was battered and dark, and it looked like a leaf, but it was late fall and the leaves were all dead. I thought it more likely a dollar bill, but only half of it was visible. Curious, I sidestepped over to the wall as if I was letting the old man and his dog pass. They were still a few feet away, both limping slowly. I did a casual lean against the brick wall, shot a glance up, tongued my cheek, and then slowly cocked my head down toward the base of the building. It was not a dollar bill. It was a hundred dollar bill. I had a moment of indigestion. My stomach was just as surprised as my eyes. I quickly lit another cigarette to settle it. The old man grumbled, at the dog or me I didn't know.

What I did know was I couldn't look at the money for too long. As I dropped my lighter back into my front pocket my eyes drifted. Next to the dog plodded a pair of off-white shoes. They were Velcro and dirty. The Velcro straps weren't very tight anymore. The ends curled up crooked. Small brown spots contrasted with the white. I kept my lean against the wall, a cigarette hanging off the bottom of my lip, cool like James Dean. What wasn't cool was the line of smoke that blew straight up into my left eye. It glassed up and stung. I had to rub it. The old man noticed me then, of course. He didn't smile and neither did his dog. They kept on pacing down the block slowly.

I could have drawn you a picture starting at the shoes, then to his black socks, then his pants—polyester and brown—and then the jacket. The guy wore a beat up Members Only, a light blue windbreaker. The Members Only patch hung loosely over the breast pocket. A strong wind could have blown it off. Black strands of thread loosely held the patch, just enough to keep it from dancing to the ground. The old man's face wasn't special. The usual wrinkles, extra chins, hanging skin, white hair. He was probably in his seventies or eighties ... who could tell?

He didn't notice that I judged every small movement he made: the involuntary twitch of his shoulder, the wet batting eyelashes, the teeth gnawing away at his chapped bottom lip. When he finally started to pass me, I got a whiff of him. He had a smell, the cured meat smell that all old men have, and it was strong. It lingered even after he passed me by. It took a strong cold wind to blow by before it faded.

When they finally passed, I knelt down. The hundred dollar bill only displayed half of Ben Franklin's face. The rest of it was buried between the bottom brick of the building and the sidewalk. It was cemented in with the last layer of brick. The bill sprouted out from the bottom center of the wall in plain sight—maybe a miracle that it was even there. I rubbed it between my thumb and index finger. The paper felt both rough and brittle. The fibers of the bill were so weather-beaten that the feel was like a smooth suede. The right side of Ben Franklin's fat face peeked out at me. The eye seemed to have caught me in the crosshairs. The other half of his face, hidden by the cement, winked at me. The serial number was clear. It started with a C, in the middle was a series of insignificant numbers, and it ended with an A. The cursive name of the Secretary of the Treasury was hard to make out: HENRY MORGENTHAU, JR. The bill had to be old. I'd never heard of that guy before, but I'd not exactly been one of the world's foremost authorities on the US Treasury. I didn't even know the current one.

My fingers smoothed across the cement around the bill. It seemed loose enough. I scraped a finger against it, and a small sandy bit caught under my nail. I cussed then chewed the finger to break the lump free.

The street was vacant, no one on the sidewalk, no cars on the streets and no homeless in the alley. The only sign of life, if you want to call it that, was the old man and his dog. They made their way down the block. My eyes studied the old man's back. I watched for them to turn the corner, and they did, but just before they were gone, I saw the old man catch a glimpse of me kneeling beside the wall.

Alone, my stomach continued to twist at the thought of the money. I wet my lips. Caught in a trance on the piece of dark green happiness protruding from the wall, I gave it a tug. This whole thing was a gentle business. My thumb and index finger centered in the middle of the exposed edge. I didn't tug too hard, didn't want to rip the bill. It wouldn't give. I bit my top lip with my bottom jaw and breathed through it. This was my serious job face, best used when I had to fix something with a reserved delicacy. I took hold of both corners of the bill for a little more leverage, and gave another tug. There was a slight give. The bill slid maybe a quarter of an inch then stopped. He wasn't winking anymore.

Ben Franklin stared at me with two open eyes. I wiped my hands onto my pants then got hold of the corners of the bill again and pulled. This time—nothing. The bill held firm, so I gave it another tug. Again, nothing. Next was a sustained pull; I held it for half a minute. The muscles and veins in my hands protruded and strained, due more to the tight grasp than to the pull. It didn't move, but I wasn't tugging too hard.

A rough-looking guy rounded the block. He wore a scuffed-up, chocolate-colored leather jacket, and what looked like a few days growth of beard. His hands shoved into the jacket's pockets pulling it tight around him. My hands dropped from the bill to my feet. For the benefit of the man's glance, I fumbled loose a couple loops then knotted them again. He smelled sour, like he used gin as shaving lotion. I heard the sound of a cracking jaw and looked up to see his chin sliding from side to side. The side of my leg pressed firmly against the protruding bill. I didn't think he'd seen it, but I couldn't be sure. He disappeared around the corner much quicker than the old man and the dog, and he didn't look back.

I rubbed the soft suede of the bill between my fingers once again. Loose and flexible, there was nothing crisp about it. I didn't want to tug it too hard. If I tore it in half that'd be the end of the whole deal. So, I folded the exposed portion of the bill once over to reinforce the strength of the paper. I pulled again and sustained it—nothing. I tried scraping at the exposed cement around the bill again. Little bits and pieces gave way under my nails but not enough.

In a moment of frustration I checked my watch. It was almost three o'clock. I was going to be late for work, the second shift at a local high school. Just a janitor, I couldn't be late. The city council had passed some habitual late thing, some rule for all non-academic staff. More than three in a month and that would be a writeup, more than four—termination. I already had two this month, and the month wasn't half over. A hundred bucks is a lot of money, but a livelihood is hard to come by when you're thirty-six with a receding hair line, 48-inch waist, and two failed semesters of college, ending with no degree and a minor in philosophy.

I found a small piece of wood and some old newspaper in the alley. I wrapped the papers around the wood into a big ball. The wood served as a nice anchor. I wedged the oblong ball against the hundred dollar bill. It didn't look too out of place. The streets looked like shit: old newspapers, cardboard boxes and other crap littered the whole block, so I had a relative feeling of safety. I spit out the dying butt of my last cigarette, then searched my coat for the pack. The pack was light and squished together, only three cigarettes left. Lighting a cigarette, I searched the street for onlookers, and seeing none, I left, a trail of smoke following behind.

All that night I couldn't stop speculating on what had brought the money to being stuck in the wall. In the teachers' lounge, while I changed the trash, it occurred to me that it could be from some long ago heist. The bill could be a marker, an X to mark the spot for some prohibition gangster. As I vacuumed the floor in the teachers' lounge, I figured there could be more just beneath that brick. In the main office, as I changed each separate trash can, I thought it could be some joke. As I vacuumed, I thought the other half of the bill might not even be there. In each room the scenario changed. It was the only thing I could think about. All I knew by the end of my shift was I wanted to find out. I wanted it, I needed it, and with each room the greed got stronger. But I couldn't go at night. I didn't trust that neighborhood in the dark. I don't take chances like that. The bus was the only safe way home. In my mind the money was already spent, but one hundred bucks wasn't worth walking with a limp the rest of my life. I figured on bringing a screwdriver or a putty knife with me the next day. At the very least, I was going to pry that bill free.


THE NEXT DAY, I left for work about a half hour early. Nerves made me walk fast, and I was heavy on the cigarettes the whole way, went through about four. As I approached the spot, I heard the familiar sound of grinding rubber wheels against the sidewalk. I had just stepped beside the wall when the stiff legs of the pooch poked around the corner. There it was, that pathetic creature, its front legs stabbed out ahead of its body, pulling the wagon. This time I noticed the scuffing sound the dog's claws made on the smooth concrete of the sidewalk. Tap, drag, tap, drag, tap, drag ... That, along with the rattles, scrapes, and squeals of the cart reminded me of those rinky-dink wooden locomotives poor kids play with in old movies.

I shook my head and muttered a fuckin' A. The cigarette in my mouth dangled as I coughed out the slur. My knees were sore, so I was slow getting to my feet. The old man stepped around the corner wearing the same raggedy blue Members Only jacket. The cold air was heavy and hard. He should have been wearing a thicker coat. It was deep fall bordering on winter. Early Novembers in these parts get pretty harsh, and in the city, with the lake so close, the winds kick up the cold another notch. Breezes always catch harder around the tall buildings and sky scrapers. At times in the winter there is no place colder than this city, no place.

The old man caught me as I rose to my feet. He gave me a short-lived scowl then looked away. He grumbled to himself a bit longer than he did the first time I saw him, then shook his head. I leaned back against the wall and nodded at the old guy as he walked by. He did not nod back. The nose of the dog, though, did twitch as if recognizing my scent. The old man yanked at the dog's rope. Its head snapped back. I looked down toward my watch, but I spoke to the old man, "Cute pup." He picked up his pace, and the dog suffered for it. I felt bad as I watched the slack disappear and the rope tighten around the dog's neck. I had a dog when I was kid. My dog was a big fella. They both had the same color though, a kind of tarnished gold. Stanley had been dead over twenty years. He lived about eight years before the summer he went deaf and blind. We had to put him down—a classic golden retriever. I held him while they stuck the needle in. That's something you don't soon forget.

See, I like big dogs, and still do. Most people don't realize that if you have a big dog once, that's all you'll ever want. That's not to say I would turn away a little dog—put it out into the street— but it's not the same. I would have loved to have another big guy, but I'm not some irresponsible college kid, pet-owning novice. See, I believe raising a dog is like raising a kid. You don't own a dog, per say. You're its guardian. You got to feed it. You got to love it. You got to play with it. You got to train it, and yes, I guess sometimes, you got to strap its crippled back legs to a cart to take it for a walk. I just don't have enough time nowadays.

The pace, while quick for them, wasn't that quick at all. I had time to kneel down as the dog passed. I tried to talk to the dog, even though I could barely look at the thing. "Hey there fella." I know how to talk to dogs. Keep your voice low and sweet. The dog did not respond at first. "Hey there fella," I gave it to him again. This time the dog arched its head in my direction. The left eye was lazy, and the right eye twitched. The dog opened its mouth just slightly. A tooth that should have been straight, at least I imagined that it had been straight and white at one time, was now yellow and cocked at an odd angle, nearly pointing at me. His gums were a puffy dark purple with hardly any teeth left in them. This pathetic gesture, I guessed, was the dog saying hello.

It too was short lived. The old man jerked at the rope, and again the dog snapped its head forward to struggle on. Before they turned the corner, the old man bent over and petted the dog on the head. The more I thought about it, the more I started to notice that the old guy's dog actually did look a lot like mine, a miniature version maybe. I eventually realized that all dogs start to look the same when you don't have one. That was it. Besides, my boy was a golden retriever, and the old man's dog—I couldn't tell you what that was.

I continued to lean against the wall until I finished my cigarette, then tossed the butt onto the ground, stepping it out right away. Feeling around in the pocket of my coat, I pulled out a small flathead screwdriver and a putty knife with a two-inch blade. I laid the tools out on the sidewalk side by side, a doctor’s scalpel and scissors. I rubbed my hands together and then onto my pants to dry them.

Only small bits of cement came off at first, but soon I hit a tender layer and was making good progress. The route taken was an indirect one. I didn't dare chisel too close to the hundred dollar bill. If it was deep in there and if I tore it, it would be near impossible to get the rest out without pliers, and I didn't own a pliers that small. I knew this because I looked the night before.

Eventually my progress stalled and the small chunks that dropped away became dust. The layer was a particularly strong dried piece of filler. To make any more headway the screwdriver would have to be jammed hard into the cement. Tires screeched around a corner and I had to pick myself up and dust off. I lighted another cigarette while the car drove by. The music shook out the windows, a thumping beat. Some kid was behind the wheel. His eyes were on me. I nodded, and as the car passed, the kid saluted me. The car was a black mid-eighties Buick Century, nice and loud just like the music. The boat may have disappeared around a corner, but the noise took a moment. Along with the stereo rhythms, the muffler seemed to drag, making a hollow grinding sound. I took a long pull off my cigarette, turned back to the wall, then glanced at my screwdriver. The flat end looked like it had been rounded out like a butter knife.

I stuffed the screwdriver and putty knife back into my pocket, then I found the balled up paper and placed it back in front of the hundred dollar bill. The bill would have to remain cemented into the wall. One more day I thought. It was really deep in there. I should have gotten it out sooner. I should have taken the day off, but I didn't. I was being tentative, stupid, and so far lucky. I knelt down and forced a pinky into the chiseled opening between the bricks. My finger went about halfway into the hole. It brushed the side of the bill. I licked my lips and said my mantra out loud, "One more day." Next day was Friday, and it was going to be a nice weekend.

That night, while I swept the gym floor, my mind wandered. As I swept up the confetti left over from the pep rally, I dreamt up all I could buy with the extra hundred dollars, a new jacket or a DVD player, finally, or new shoes ... so many options. I was so excited to get the money out of the wall that I even stole, or requisitioned, a chisel from the toolbox in the basement of the school.

I can't say I was down as of late, but I sure did feel like it. Bringing in low 20s from the school district can make you feel like that. The take home left just enough extras for cigarettes and a couple nights out at the bar. I hadn't got more than a two-percent raise in years. Funny thing, the trade-off was for the health insurance, but they were trying to take that away too. There was also talk they would layoff the custodians and replace them with a low-bid contract from some local cleaning service. Those guys pay part-time workers minimum wage and provide no benefits. It would be good for the county, but not for me. The county was slowly doing to me what I was slowly doing to the cement around the hundred dollar bill.

The next day, I got up and left about three hours early, wholly determined to get at Ben Franklin. His smile troubled me. I brought with myself a fifty. I'd decided on what I wanted to buy. I needed about one hundred and fifty to buy it. I figured only about a half hour more was needed to break the bill free. I could buy it on my way and show it off at work. I walked fast, dragging hard on my cigarette.


IN THE STREET, about a half block away from the spot, I saw what looked like my makeshift ball of newspapers being run over by a silver Lexus. The cigarette dropped from my lips as I ran to the wall. I didn't bother to step it out. The newspapers were gone. Every muscle in my body went limp. To keep from collapsing, I ground my fist into the red brick wall.

There was a scattering of dust, cement, and little specks of red brick on the sidewalk below the spot. I didn't remain standing long. I was tired. On my knees, I swept both my hands back and forth across the ground, through the dust and cement, writing my name, B-O-B. I couldn't guess who got to the wall. I supposed it may have been that drunk, or the old man, or hell, anybody with a sharp eye. My stomach tightened again as I stared at the wall. Something similar to hope overcame me.

I jammed my chisel into the cement around the brick. I went at this for a whole hour and didn't stop. People walked by giving me odd stares, cars drove by slowing down to observe me hacking away at the wall, but no one said anything. The deli owner didn't even come out to tell me to bug off. Well, if he did, I wouldn't have noticed him anyway. My focus was on removing that brick from the wall. Maybe there was something more behind it. A chance worth an effort.

When the brick finally came loose, I wrenched it from the wall, salivating. The moisture soaked the butt of my cigarette. Behind the open spot on the wall there was darkness. I stuck a hand in the rectangular hole and felt my fingers around the edges. Dusty cement residue powdered my fingers. My whole fist fit into the opening, but my knuckles scraped against the solid back of the darkness. It was shallow and empty. I swung the brick onto the ground. I half hoped it would break in two, but it stayed solid, with the exception of a few small red shards that shot off around the sidewalk. I sat with my back against the wall and finished my cigarette, then started another.

The creaking and scraping of rubber wheels against the cement sidewalk came within earshot. The old man's face, which had been a rosy red when he turned the corner, suddenly became a clammy white. His mouth let out an exhale, a visible cloud that carried for nearly two feet in front of him. I went at him.

"That was my hundred dollars! That's my coat, you son of a bitch! That was my coat!" I rushed into that old man's face. I caught him by the collar of his Members Only jacket. The thin fabric bunched up in my clenched fists. "That was my money. I found it!" My glance quickly turned toward that rectangular hole in the wall. His eyes followed mine. The old man had been speechless. He just breathed hard.

"Get off of me!" His eyes filled with tears and blood vessels. "Please, get your hands off of me!" He looked around the street. There was no one for him to appeal to. He dropped his gaze to the dog and mine quickly followed. The dog looked up at the action, making a yelping noise. Its body trembled while its working legs teetered about like thin, unsteady posts. "Please stop." The old man's voice turned thin and raspy.

The dog glared up at me still barking. It pushed off those wobbly front legs trying to jump at me. The wagon knocked up and down on the sidewalk. There was no threat. The inch it hopped above the ground was just sad. Unmistakable fear resided behind the dog's black watery eyes. My grip loosened at the sight of it. I let go of the old man's coat.

He stepped around me and tugged on his rope. The dog's head jerked away. He dragged the dog behind him as he began to rush off. I grabbed at his shoulder spinning him back to face me. His body felt limp. My grip tight, I held him still. His eyes avoided mine. I fumbled my wallet out of my back pocket. I slid the fifty-dollar bill out of the fold. His strained glare stayed down at the dog, until I placed the crisp bill into his open palm. I closed it. The old man stared at his fist. He said nothing. There was no indignant glare, no I don't need your money protest. He just twisted his old body away from me, straightened up, and kept moving. There was a little bit of jog in his step, first time I'd seen that. The dog followed—continuing to bark and struggle—catching one last glimpse of me, before following behind the old man. The crippled mutt wheeled behind the old man, letting out a low spasm of yelps and growls. This continued for a moment or two before trailing off into the distance between us.

"I'm sorry," I said. The ground in front of me was full of scuff marks. I raised my voice and tried again. "I'm sorry." The old man did not look back. He made no gesture to indicate he heard my words and neither did his pet. "I'm sorry," I spoke again, but it was too weak. The breath didn't even form into a cold haze in front of my mouth. The old man and the dog disappeared around the corner.


ON A THURSDAY, A COUPLE WEEKS LATER, I was passing the spot when I heard them. I hadn't seen the old man or his dog in a while. They must have been avoiding me. The old man came around the corner first. He looked different. He looked warm. The old man had on him a nice new winter coat. It didn't look expensive, but I knew that he'd recently bought it, just by looking at it. It had that clean shine about it. The colors, blue and gray, were the brightest blues and grays I'd ever seen. He caught a glimpse of me. His grip tightened around the leash in his hands. It was not that cheap twine rope I had seen him hold before. It was a new black leash attached to a new black collar.

The dog was different too. It had an extra quality of sadness to it, brought out simply by the addition of a black knit sweater. The sweater fit snuggly around the dog's upper body. The word CHAMP was stenciled into it in large white letters that spread across nearly the entire back of the garment. There was not so much as a glance of acknowledgment from him or the dog's twitching nose as they passed. The wheels of the cart just rattled and squeaked behind the soft shuffling of the old man's new pasty white loafers. I watched as first the old man rounded the corner, followed by Champ, whose tail was the last thing I saw. It rose stiffly in the air, and then gave a slight jiggle as it disappeared behind the brick edge of the corner building. I had priced every new detail about the guy and his dog as they crawled by. All in all, it was worth well more than fifty dollars.

I probably should have felt something about the money, and the old man, but I didn't. I felt something about the dog though. But it wasn't sorry anymore. It was just a kind of empty feeling.

With them out of sight and the street vacant once more, I knelt back down near the open spot in the wall. The red brick still lay by the hole. I picked it up. My thumb smoothed across the sides of the dusty stone, rubbing over patches of gray cement that still clung to it. The brick slid back into the slot nicely. It didn't sit exactly straight, but it was in, and from a few feet away, you couldn't tell the difference. I flicked my cigarette into the street, watched it burn out, then left.


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