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ADVENTURES, MISADVENTURES,
Under the basement stairs, I found a flat piece of metal, square with rounded corners. I was three or four years old. To my unrefined mind, it resembled a coin, bronze colored with words and shapes. For all I know now, it was a dog tag. I asked my brother Kenny—older by nine years—if it was money.
"Sure," he said. I sensed a touch of humor in him but deceived myself—unconsciously, of course—that he was simply happy at my good fortune.
“Can I buy something with it?” I chirped.
“Of course. It’s real,” he said, putting his seal on the counterfeit we enjoyed from different sides—he was telling a tale, and I wasn’t using my head.
He estimated the value at 15¢ —25¢ and took me to Resendes convenient store in South Braintree Square, me, as happy as a modern Antique Road Show beneficiary.
With a wink to the owner, apparently, he let me “buy” some candy. The owner had that entertained expression wrought of superior knowledge—at least that’s what the unarticulated child-voice in the back of my mind whispered. I ignored it, though, lest it burst the bubble on which floated my fortune .
The U.S. Secret Service still hasn’t caught up with me, so I assume the store owner was in the know and that I didn’t brake any counterfeiting laws.
(Otherwise, not to land in jail, I declare the following: it wasn’t me; this is a work of fiction; I was temporarily insane; I was a stooge of a compelling eight-year-old whose name I don't recall; and I want to talk to my lawyer.)
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the candy was, in fact, dandy.