A 14 year old plays explorer...and must pit friendship against newfound fortune
Like the pith helmet crowd in the movies of old, I had found it.
A veritable treasure of splendiferous wonders, and, in true movie fashion, in the place where I had least expected to.
My fingertips took in the texture of each nugget with the manly awe of a Stewart Granger, a Charlton Heston, a Sean Connery.
"There's tons more," fliply contributed their keeper, proceeding to the bowels of the site - the last drawer of his dresser - opening it, and pulling out jewel after jewel after jewel.
There would be no scene of me authenticating them; no enactment of the silent, tell-tale application of some obscure scientific practice. I knew that these were not the real McCoys. I could see the large, commandment-sized book from which they'd been cut out, carelessly lying upon his unmade bed.
"See?," he added, coloring my eyes with incredulity which each offered glimpse of Edward G. Robinson in Brother Orchid, Errol Flynn in The Dawn Patrol, Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra.
Despite my impulse to ask for the entire collection, I managed to contain myself, asking only for a souvenir or two for my own collection. To my complete surprise, I was refuted. I asked again, a little more insistently this time. A little more insistently, he refused me. Me! His best friend, the one he knew valued the movies above all else! How could he do this to me, he who cared little for the movies, let along those that predated us both.
I could feel the blood of Fred C. Dobbs boiling inside me. "I must have those posters!," I felt like screaming out, "Do you understand?!"
Instead, I settled for the friendship - a decision I have to confess was influenced by an uncomfortable prodding sensation just under my right rib cage. It was another friend - the three of us were inseparable - who by now had joined us. Cool it, his elbow was advising me, don't break up this wonderful thing we've got.
My priorities straightened, the posters were forgotten. Talk turned instead to the usual concerns of 14 year old boys: school, girls, girls.
By the time the occasion was over, I left without any memory of the precious posters...until the friend I left with, the third party, revealed the motive behind the prodding: nugget after nugget after nugget, carefully concealed inside his coat.
"Take 'em!", he offered, his head shaking with laughter. "He'll never miss 'em. He doesn't even have the slightest idea how many he's got."
He was right. I got the posters, and the friendship, which took up exactly where it left off by the following day, remained in tact.
I was a luckier explorer than those I had seen in the movies.
I ended up with two treasures.
