…a crazed Canadian tourist from Toronto who was looking for the lineup for the winning Maple Leafs game. He went up to random people outside the stadium, asking, “Where are the Leafs? They’re going to do it this year! Bobby Orr! Tim Horton! Wayne Gretzky! Rocket Richard! Where are they?” He was grabbing people’s lapels and getting in their faces and the situation was tiurning ugly when stadium security intervened.
Two husky security officers separated the tourist from the crowd and held him down while a third made a report. “Chief? You’re not gonna believe this. We got a guy here looking for a hockey game!” Pause. " Yes, he was disturbing the peace. Harassing people. We have him subdued." Pause. “Will do!”
The third officer turned to the others. “Let’s get him back to the station.” He addressed the struggling tourist…
“We’re arresting you for disorderly conduct. I’m going to read you your Miranda rights.” Then the cop proceeded to do so.
The tourist spent four days in jail and was released after calling a lawyer friend of his. He headed for the airport in St. Louis, waiting for his flight back to Halifax. He spent 77R in the airport bar, on two glasses of beer.
The bartender–who happened to be Jeanette Strong’s brother Nate–saw the wheresgeorge stamp on the bill. Curious about that, he exchanged 77R with another twenty in the till. When his shift was over he went home and called Jeanette, who had by this time returned home to Stamford.
“I got this twenty with a ‘wheresgeorge’ stamp on it, Jeanette,” he said. “Do you know what that is?”
She answered:
“Yes I do and it’s the biggest waste of time ever on the internet! I certainly hope my own brother is not one of those geeks who thinks it’s fun!” Jeanette thought all internet sites except her beloved Hello Kitty Quilting Blog were ridiculous. Nate, suddenly remembering why he hated his sister, logged onto wheresgeorge and discovered…
…77R’s history.
"Wow! he said. “This bill has been one heck of a traveler!”
Then he said, with a shrug, “Well, Jeanette, to each his own.”
Then–shades of Charlie Daniels in “Uneasy Rider”–Nate was driving on a highway on the outskirts of St. Louis when he sensed that left rear tire was about to go. And wouldn’t you know it–he stopped right in front of a place called the Dew Drop Inn. He was a little smarter, though, and called the Auto Club. He went inside the place, which was nearly empty, and…
while waiting for the tow truck to come tow his car, ordered a pickled egg and a boilermaker. The tow truck was slow in coming, so he ordered another boilermaker, paying for the egg and the drinks with 77R. He received his change, tipped the bartender and left as the tow truck finally arrived. The bartender, one Phartmore Gassington, gave 77R to the waitress when she cashed in her tips. The waitress, Ravene Humphowser, then left the Dew Drop Inn and went on down to the…
…deposited some cash, including 77R.
The teller said to his supervisor, “Hey, look at this bill. It looks like half the country has handled it.”
The supervisor, Carter Hall, put two tens in the till in place of 77R and took it home at the end of the day. He inspected the bill professionally and logged onto wheresgeorge himself, after a satisfactory isnpection of the bill under an ultraviolet light.
Hall was a jaded, been-there, done-that sort of fellow, and found little of interest in 77R’s listing on wheresgeorge.com. (Had he known that the bill had been into space aboard a highly classified DoD satellite, he might have felt differently). So he used 77R to pay his paperboy to renew his subscription to the local newspaper. The paperboy, George Newton, finished his route and then rode his bike home. Once there, he…
logged on to wheresgeorge to find out where all the bill had been. George then called his best friend Mack Boogerdigger and told him all about the bill. Mack, also a big wheresgeorge geek, wanted to see 77R so George took it with him to school the next day. The school bully, Crusher von Pantyliner, spied George showing 77R to Mack, grabbed it out of Mack’s hand and ran down to the…
He waited and waited, and no pusher came—but Crusher saw cop cars in the distance, on a nearby street.
Meanwhile, George screwed up his courage and went after the bully, pulling him down and rolling over and over, exchanging punches. He finally landed one on the bully’s nose, bloodying it. Crusher yelped, and the two of them stood up, and went into the nearby boys’ restroom where George wiped the blood off Crusher’s face with a paper towel. Then they just stood there.
“Man,” the bully moaned, “you’re really scrappy yourself!” and gave 77R back to George. The two went their separate ways.
After school, George went home and surfed the Internet for a while. Then the doorbell rang and Greorge’s mother called him down to the door. A half-familiar face was there–a girl named Terri Welkins.
She greeted him shyly. The two went back into the den to use the computer. George told Terri about 77R.
Terri, who was really after 77R so she could go to the mall and buy some of that lavender glittery eyeshadow she loved, cozied up to George and said, “You know, twenty dollars could buy me some of that lavender glittery eyeshadow everyone says looks so good on me.” George, who had a phobia about lavender glittery eyeshadow, recoiled in horror declaring…
…“Watashi wa nan desu ka? Genkoo?” which was bad Japanese for, “What do I look like, a bank?” He really didn’t like glittery eyeshadow; it reminded him all too forcibly of an incident when he was a child involving a very persuasive maiden aunt, a case of mistaken identity, and a stroll to kindergarten.
George shook himself and looked at Terry. Somnehow she no longer seemed like a person, but just a meat robot, making nonsensical sounds. He shook himself again. He had to stop watching anime and reading Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. He couldn’t connect to anyone except cartoons. And ninjas. He liked ninjas.
Terry was confused by George’s response. She became angry and shouted, “I thought you liked me!”
He was very cold, very tired and very hungry.
He had been begging at the mall all day without success, and it was getting dark.
He was ready to kill for a meal.
He saw the young man almost skipping along the sidewalk, fingering a twenty dollar bill.
That would buy a lot at chick fillet…
But George saw him, staring him down, and went over and asked, “What’s your problem, Buddy?”
The derelict made a grab for the bill, George yanked it away.
The derelict tried punching George. That was a mistake; George still remembered his encounter with the husky bully Crusher and there was no way this little old man would be any better off! George beat the stuffing out of the derelict, and continued skipping on into the mall. The store he went into was…
a Galactic Records, but close on his heels was Phil Jordavski, a mall cop who’d seen George beating up the homeless guy. Phil was no ordinary mall cop (he’d hated the recent movie comedies about his chosen career), but a retired DEA agent who was supplementing his pension with part-time security work.
“Sir, you’re under arrest,” he said to George. “Come with me, please.”
George turned from the rack of Kanye CDs to see the small, compact mall cop looking at him. He lazily said, “Fuck off, gramps. I’m busy.”
The next thing he knew, he was face-down on the floor, Phil’s knee in the small of his back as the cuffs went on. “You should show more respect for your elders, son,” Phil said conversationally before calling the local police for a pickup. Then he pulled the younger man almost effortlessly to his feet and frogmarched him, cursing and spitting, to the mall’s south entrance.
The police soon arrived, took George into custody and obtained a statement from the bruised and bleeding derelict. George was booked at the local station and his personal effects, including his wallet with 77R, were logged in.
…in the quiet holding cell, George’s eyes snapped open. Where was he? He’d been having the strangest dreams. All about a bully and a cop?
He looked around. This definitely wasn’t his stateroom on the starship. He appeared to be in a jail cell. There was a small barred window high in the wall. From a distance he could hear the muted sounds of an office. He felt around. All of his personal posessions were gone. What was he going to do? Then he remembered.
He gnashed his teeth together in the prearranged signal, and waited.
