Lost, found and lost

It's not everyday that you find fifty bucks lying out on the street, just like that. G looked to the left, and then to the right. No one in sight. He checked his watch: it was quarter past six in the AM. He thought about it. What was the honest thing to do, he considered. It's not as if he could take the money and give it to...the cops? What would they do, those corrupt bastards. They would tell big tales about what a good citizen he was, maybe write him a nice little report on citizen honesty or other such bullshit and pocket it as soon as he left their sight. No, the cops would be no good. It would be stupid to search for the owner also. Whoever had dropped it must have done it late at night, maybe returning from the bars. Drunk and zealous, he must have taken out his wallet to show off the wad of cash he had in their, and somehow misplaced a Grant then. What an asshole, he deserved to lose the fifty bucks.

The cleaning truck whirred slowly faraway. It would get busy soon, and someone else would come by the cash, and they wouldn't be as moral or ethical as him. They would see the greenback lying openly in the streets, pick it up, pocket it --heyy, free money! -- and be on their way, without even so much as a second thought on the ethics and morality of pocketing money you find in the streets. The city was not what it used to be, it had gotten richer but greedier, upscale but immoral. Yes, it was now less dangerous than it had ever been and the gangland era of the seventies and nineties was distant memory, but it didn't feel...the same. It was as if someone had put a makeup and a facemask on a stranger to make them look like your mother. There was resemblance and similar features, but you could tell something was off. Yes, the money would be gone just like that without so much as a peep of conscientious thought. If he took it, at least he, as an honest and hardworking man, an ethical citizen with deep moral values would make out a lesson for this. The fifty would have been lost by someone, but the society would have gained a lot more that much worth of civility.

He looked around to make sure no one was looking. A bus whizzed by. He waited a few minutes. He didn't want to be taken for a thief, or someone with low morals, like one of those newcomers. He was an upstanding citizen. He decided the best way to do it would be to take out his wallet, pretend it was missing something, and just pick up the cash from the street. He took out his wallet, and started miming. One two three four, he counted subconsciously. He counted his money, one, two three--fou--where's four. Where's four. Where's five!He grew nervous. He had taken a hundred and ten dollars from the lawn job the day before -- five bills of twenty and a tenner. All he had now was three twenty and a tenner. He was missing forty dollars. He tapped his right foot on the ground as he counted the four bills slower, one at a time and deliberate so that the notes were not sticking to each other. The original count had been right. He vaguely remembered showing folks at the bar next to Sullivan how much he had made over just a few hours, bragging how stupid the newcomers were with regards to pricing for services. He remembered getting distracted by the tv right about then, it was quite possible he may have dropped the two twenties on a table or on the floor. No doubt the servers assumed that to be their tip and went about their day.

In that case, the Grant belonged to him, no doubt. Fate had taken the fourty dollars the day before, and had decided to return it to him with interest for the trouble the next day. As clear as that, no cause for much thinking and moralizing. The simplest thoughts are often the most correct, he consoled himself. Excessive moralizing is the path to evil, for that way you could justify everything by pushing logic through the values of justice and karma. The Universe worked on a balance: you lose something somewhere, and you gain something else elsewhere. That is exactly what had happened, end of the story. End. Of. The. story.