Top Drawer

The old wallet died characteristically as a hero.

Ice had walked the four rows down from his VIP seats at Citi-field in order to snap a shot of Aaron Judge. Taking a great photo is all about figuring out where to stand or in this case kneel.

As soon as Ice got into perfect position, not a moment sooner or later, Judge unleashed a ferocious swing. The sound of collision between bat and ball was startling. Ice, startled, snapped. The slight movement caused by the startling sound and the ferocity of the swing would cause a bit of a blur for sure.

The ball landed 450 feet later in the left field stands.

Ice dropped the camera to take a look. The stadium roared in awe as fans realized where the shot had landed. Ice recovered in time to get a picture of Judge getting ready to touch home plate.

Aaron pointed to the heavens in gratitude as the fans pointed towards left field and released a collective “Holy Shit”.

Ice retreated from the position that he had held for maybe twelve seconds.

As he returned to his seat, he whispered “I got it”.

Then automatically he reached for his wallet and realized “I don’t have it”

The wallet was missing.

In near panic, Ice sorted through the camera equipment that was now in his seat. He had gotten up in a hurry. He looked through the equipment and couldn’t see the wallet.

He looked behind the seat and there it was....covered in beer. The covering was the result of a fan jumping up and dropping his beer on the wallet.

Beer combined with 30 plus years of service had put an end to the wallet as a functioning billfold.

Ice was relieved to find the damp thing. Everything in it was soaked.

Ice carried the wounded wallet for the next two days but realized it was time to throw in the towel.

When he got home. He took everything out of the drowned billfold. He retrieved the replacement from where it had been waiting for thirty years in the top drawer to get into the game.  He left the pictures of Allan Ladd and Virginia Mayo in the new/old wallet. He added his driver’s license, his library card and his Wegman’s discount. 

Everything else remained in the old wallet. Ice placed the old wallet in the top drawer underneath a framed picture/poem that his parents had given him mny years ago.

The writing on the picture said;

“To Our First Born

We’ve always loved you best because you were our first miracle. You were the genesis of our marriage and the fulfillment of young love.

You sustained us through the hamburger years, the first apartment (furnished in Early Poverty) and our first mode of transportation (1946 feet) and the seven inch TV set that we paid on for 36 months.

You were new, had unused grandparents and enough clothes for triplets. You were the original model for a Mom and Dad who were trying to work the bugs out. You got the strained lamb, the open safety pins and the three hour naps.

You were the beginning.”

Underneath the writing was Cash in his white dinner jacket and bow tie smiling for this senior portrait. Next to the senior picture was a smaller picture of the family dog, a mutt named Lassie who could not have looked less like the Lassie on teevee.

Above the mutt

Love Always

Mom and Dad.

The last thing Ice noticed as he shut the drawer was that somehow the ticket for Bob Dylan at RIT had broken loose from the sacred discards.