Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
'Somebody found the cheque." It was my father on the phone.
It was 7:30 a.m., and I was just about to leave for the office. "What do you mean?" I asked in confusion.
"The cheque I wrote you for $3,000. Somebody found it." I had asked him for the money to start my business, and picked up the cheque from my parents just two days previously.
"That's not possible. It's in my knapsack."
"You might want to look," Dad said patiently.
I rushed down the narrow hallway of our small home. My knapsack was on the floor beside the shoe tray. I opened it and began rooting through the contents. Nothing. In desperation, I dumped the contents on the floor and began sorting. "It's gotta be here," I said under my breath.
My wife, Lynne, appeared in her housecoat with my young daughter. "What's wrong?"
"My Dad's on the phone. He said someone found the cheque."
I was searching through notebooks and opening side pockets. "He's right. It's gone!" I rushed back to the phone. "Dad, it's not here!"
"That's what I said. A man phoned me last night. He has the cheque."
"How did he find you?" I tried to sound nonchalant but I was spinning.
"My name's on the cheque, Pat," he said bluntly. "Got a pen? I'll give you the man's phone number."
Deflated, I waited until 9 a.m. to call the Good Samaritan. A woman answered the phone. "My husband found your cheque," she informed me in a gruff voice. "He's not here right now. Call back this afternoon."
I took the subway downtown, too preoccupied with this latest calamity to take much notice of my surroundings. I walked from the subway past the boarding houses, doughnut shops and shabby bars. I reflected on my recent round of troubles. Stress, sleep deprivation and money woes were taking their toll. I had to pull myself together but I couldn't shake the sense of foreboding.
I finally reached the man with the cheque by phone. I had scribbled the address where we would meet on a piece of paper and I clutched it like a compass as I looked for the building. It was on a rough and tumble side street. This intersection was host to some of the most violent crimes in the city. The building looked like a movie set: a low-rise boarding house, rundown and menacing. There was no doorman; just a couple of toughs huddled by the mailboxes smoking something illegal.
I went in on high alert. The apartment was on the third floor, a walk-up. The hallways were dimly lit, littered with shopping flyers and smelling of fried food. I half expected to be set upon by someone or something lurking in the shadows.
Apartment 307 was at the end of the windowless hall. As I knocked on the door, a big-sounding dog began to bark from inside the apartment.
"Wait a minute," said a muffled voice. I could hear someone walking toward the door. "Stay!" he commanded. I hoped I wasn't going to be mauled.
As the door opened I was surprised to see a familiar face. He was one of the "crackheads" I had seen from my office window. He was a small man with longish hair and a scraggly goatee. He was wearing a black Guns N' Roses T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. Behind him, looking at me with bloodshot eyes, was a scraggly mutt.
"You Patrick?" he asked.
"Yeah," I mumbled.
The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap wallet. He opened the wallet and withdrew my Dad's cheque.
"Here ya go," he said.
"Thanks. Where did you find it?"
"I picked it up on the street. I was on my way home from work. You should be more careful."
"Yeah. I know. I feel bad. What's your name?" I asked.
"Tony," he replied.
"Tony, thank you for returning the money. I'm starting a business and this was a loan …"
"Yeah, I know," he said interrupting. "Your father told me. He seems like a nice guy, a gentleman."
"He is both of those," I said. Suddenly it dawned on me that making that call came at a cost to him.
"You would have had to make a long-distance call to reach my father," I said. "Sorry to put you to that expense."
"It was the right thing to do," he replied looking momentary puzzled.
"You better cash that thing," Tony said as he closed the door.
Reeling, I made my way down the three flights of stairs as quickly as I could manage. I needed to get some air. I passed the two thugs at the doorway. On closer examination they weren't really thugs at all. They were young men, about 18 to 20 years old, wearing Toronto Maple Leaf ball caps and ubiquitous denim jackets. They were smoking all right, but I noticed it wasn't a joint. They were smoking cigarettes. One of the young men nodded in my direction. "How's it goin'?"
"I'm having a strange day," I offered.
My vision of the world had been upended, overturned by a simple act of humanity from someone I judged harshly. I was learning the hard way about the limiting effect of my fears, bias and projections.
I was also learning the question every good neighbour asks: "What's the right thing to do?"
Patrick O'Neill lives in Toronto.