The Treasure In The Ditch

Jimmy yelled to me from across the road.

I could see his hand waving in the air. He was directly across from me, heading down into the ditch on the other side. I was in my own ditch.

“Paaaage!”

We’d been walking in tandem along both ditches for some time now. We hadn’t spoken for awhile.

“You won’t believe this,” he yelled, continuing to wave his hand as he disappeared.

I climbed up the ditch on my side of the road and crossed the pavement. The spring sun was shining bright. I left a trail of water footprints on the black surface as I scurried across the yellow centre line. Jimmy had disappeared further down into his ditch amongst the shrubbery, and I was following his voice. He’d left his large garbage bag in the gravel at the side of the road. The black bag was open and two empty beer bottles had rolled out onto the grass.

We were ten years old. And we had just discovered a way to make money. While walking along the ditches of the main road that went to the Québec border, we realized we could collect empty beer bottles and cash them in. The ditches were full of them, tossed from cars travelling to and from the bars just over the border. We discovered a little goldmine for 10 year olds and we were all-in on the gold rush.

My Dad would supervise. He’d provide us with black garbage bags and point us in the direction we should travel. He’d remind us to watch for traffic on the road when climbing in and out of the ditches.

Then he’d send us on our way.

Every couple of hours or so he’d drive along the road to find us and check in. As we’d fill our bags, he’d put them in his pickup truck and take them home, ready to be cashed in.

Picking endless bottles from the winter’s car parties was a lucrative activity and we enjoyed every minute of it. There was a sense of freedom and adventure. Plus, our usual haul was around $10 to $15 each for an afternoon’s worth of picking. One time we made $20 each, which was a lot of money for kids back then.

I yelled to Jimmy. “Where are you?” He had crept down deep into the ditch.

“Over here”, he said, much more quietly, like he now had something to hide. I made my way down.

I spotted his bright red plaid jacket. I could see him sitting close to where the water was running along the bottom of the ditch, the sun shining on his black hair. He was hyper-focused and staring at something in his hand. He was sitting in the long grass which had been matted down from the winter’s ice and snow.

I slid down and sat beside him, digging the heels of my rubber boots into the dirt to keep me from sliding down further.

Jimmy turned and looked at me with wild eyes.

He’d found a wallet filled with cash.

“Holy crap,” I said looking at the colourful wad of bills he was holding in his hand. There were green ones, blue ones and purple ones. And they added up to a lot of money. More money than we had ever seen.

Jimmy was picking through the wallet and pulled out a driver’s license.

He froze.

We both looked closely at the guy who lost his wallet. The man stared back at us from the little card. He had brown hair and a big smile. Jimmy quickly stuffed him back in the wallet, worried the man would somehow see us sitting there in the ditch with his stuff.

And with all his money.

We both sat there in silence. I could hear the gentle sound of the spring water running in the ditch. There were returning songbirds celebrating in the distance, singing about the new season. I looked a my black rubber boots shining brightly in the sun, still wet from walking through my ditch on the other side.

Jimmy was deep in thought, as was I. Eventually I broke the silence.

“What should we do?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure if Jimmy heard me.

The wad of cash had him in a trance like he was Gollum staring at the ring.

He turned to me with wide and determined eyes. “Let’s just take the money and throw the wallet away”.

I immediately had a bad feeling about this, but I began to think about his suggestion. He looked at me for a bit and then turned away to once again stare at the cash.

And again we were silent. I watched him slowly handling the bills, studying them.

Eventually I offered a response. I said I didn’t think that was the right thing to do.

“No one will know”, he reassured me, quite confident in his chosen course of action. He held the wallet tightly in one hand and he slowly handed me the stack of bills.

“Here,” he said, hoping if I held the money I’d come around to his way of thinking.

He wanted me to be Gollum for a bit.

He was right. Holding it felt good. It felt like a lot of money. I pressed the bills with both my hands. I rubbed the tops of them with my thumbs.

It was so much money.

Again, silence.

Maybe it was my parents teaching, or maybe it was because of what I’d learned at Cub Scouts, but I felt the money should be returned to the man we had stuffed back in the wallet.

I let Jimmy know my position and slowly handed the money back to him.

“Look,” he said, getting desperate. “How about this.”

He took a breath and tried again.

“We’ll each take $20 and throw the rest of it away,” he spoke rapidly now and in short sentences. “We’ll throw it out there. No one will know. All out there. Into that field. Easy”. He pointed to the farmer’s field in front of us. He stood up quickly and held the wallet high above his head. He looked like a centre fielder about to throw a bomb into home plate. He had a desperate look on his face that was turning to slight panic. He stared at me in his frozen centre fielder position. I squinted at the wallet up there, against the afternoon sun.

Throw the rest of the money and wallet away. I grappled with what Jimmy was saying. And I realized he wasn’t thinking straight at all. I needed to talk him down.

He lowered his arm and sat back down in the grass.

The ditch negotiation seemed to go on forever. And much of that time was spent sitting there quietly, side by side, in awe of our treasure.

After some time, Jimmy finally conceded. We agreed that when we got home, we’d show our parents what we’d found. And they could call the man on the driver’s license.

It was decided. We’d return the loot.

When we got back to my house my parents completely agreed with our decision and congratulated us on our big find.

“You’re heroes!” they said, taking advantage of the teaching moment. “This poor man was probably desperately looking for his stuff. He’s going to be thrilled when he hears you found his wallet”.

Jimmy and I took the praise, but were not feeling the love. For better or worse, we were giving up our treasure. We felt bummed.

When the man arrived at the front door to collect, his girlfriend was with him. My Dad greeted them and handed over the wallet, speaking proudly of his son and friend. Jimmy and I stood behind my Dad, looking at the floor. The whole time I was questioning our decision and wondering if we did the right thing.

The young man was smiling at the sight of his wallet. As he stuffed it into his back pocket, his girlfriend spoke.

“Oh, he was drunk”, she said, shaking her head and giggling at my Dad. The young man continued to smile, but now with more embarrassment.

She continued. “We stopped along the road so he could take a leak. He must’ve dropped his wallet then”. Jimmy and I sheepishly looked at each other.

“We’ve been looking for it everywhere.” Then she turned to us and said, “Thank you so much, boys”. The man nodded and said thank you as well.

As they turned to leave, he said “Oh, one sec”, like he had forgotten something. He grabbed his wallet from his pocket, opened it and flipped through the cash. He pulled out two $10 bills, reached into the house and presented one bill each to Jimmy and me.

He said thank you again.

We were both stunned. I looked at Jimmy and his face was beaming with excitement. He was staring at the bill, his eyes wide.

“Thank you, sir”, we said in unison like it was rehearsed.

As the couple turned away, my Dad smiled and closed the door.