Krell Loses his Wallet

Last month, my grandaughter Eva saw a woman right after the lady had been struck by a hit and run driver while  jogging on Washington Street in Duxbury. Soon, other people began to crowd around this traumatizing sight.

The woman had been killed, her crumpled body on full display.

Soon it was discovered that the woman didn't have her wallet with her when she started her fatal run so for several hours after the body had been removed, nobody had any idea who the victim was. She had no identity. A broken Jane Doe carted off in an ambulance.

This brings me to one of my greatest, secret fears; losing my wallet.

I am so afraid of losing my wallet that I never carry more than 20 bucks in my wallet at one time. I don't carry an ATM card or any credit cards because I'm scared to death of losing them. Whatever beer money I have, I carry in my pocket.

So, two nights ago, I lost my wallet.

I was staying with the Peets, Ovid and Julia. Everything was going perfectly. We were on our way to Birkdale Village for some music and ice cream. I got out of the shower and reached in my dresser to grab my wallet, fully expecting it to be there,

It wasn't there.

Next began the furious search around the  house to find the wallet. We had been all around Huntersville that day. We ate at a Lake Norman restaurant. We walked through the campus of Davidson University. We had a beer at our local Bistro, a place named Harvey's. I changed my clothes at least three times always feeling good about my wallet.

We checked all of those places too no avail. "Did anyone turn in a wallet today to lost and found." At the pool someone had in fact found a wallet and it was in lost and found. The lifeguard took me to it. It wasn't mine.

Mine was still gone.

My great fear had come true. I was in a state of panic. Everyone was concerned, not so much about the wallet...which had nothing in it....but rather my propensity to brood and throw a black cloud over the rest of the visit.

I sat in my bedroom hyperventilating, two clicks away from a full fledged panic attack. I took many deep breaths and made up my mind that the lost wallet wasn't going to ruin the rest of the evening. To my amazement, I found that compartment and we proceeded to Birkdale. The compartment was my usual escape, comparing singers and bands. Elvis or Sinatra etc.

We arrived in the village. We listened to some music and had some ice cream.

While we were people watching in the village, it occurred to me that every single person that we saw had THEIR wallet. I was the only man without a wallet. 

I had no identity.

I was nobody.

You know who else doesn't have a wallet.

Broken joggers 

Victims of serial killers

Kids under the age of 12.

Those whose pockets had been picked.

Jane and John Doe

A bad crowd to be in for a "responsible" man.

The overwhelming humiliation of irresponsibilty was calling and all I had to do was pick up the phone to ruin the night.

I didn't pick up but the phone kept ringing.

Moody Blues or Pink Floyd.

If somehow a cop or a store owner asked me if I had my "license", I would have to say that I didn't. If they asked me why, I'd have to say that I had lost my wallet.

We are so connected to our wallets that when we don't have them we begin to question our entire existence ,at least that's what the ringing phone was calling me to do.

Somehow the conversation drifed over to a discussion of the Sopranos.

I got a visual of Tony and asked myself "in this visual" does Tony have a wallet.

Of course Tony has his wallet. He's Tony Soprano. He ALWAYS has his wallet.

What kid of MAN, doesn't have his wallet.

RING, RING, RING went my unanswered inner phone.

We got through the night.

I congratulated myself, whoever I was, which I wouldn't be able to prove if anybody asked me, on my composure based on the way that I was handling an overwhelming secret fear.

My secret fear is that I am an irresponsible, immature, unfocused airhead, literally a loser.

We all have our secrets.

Now you know mine.

Without my wallet, I'm not Thornton Krell.

I'm John Doe

I don't exist.