I took my usual Sunday walk along Ocean Drive in South Miami Beach last Easter Sunday. People were enjoying the fine food and drink in the many outdoor restaurants and cafes along the drive.
"I'm hungry! Sit down and eat!" my stomach growled at me.
"Not until we're better situated, cash is too tight right now, so you settle down," I silently commanded my stomach as I sauntered along nonchalantly, as if I were as well off as the tourists.
The sight of a mouth-watering latina hostess beckoning pedestrians to sit down and eat distracted me from the food itself. I thought of the Miami Dade College president's advice to "Imagine Miami." Who needs an imagination with women like that around? I thought. While Mr. Padron is imagining things, I'd like to have my cake and eat it too!
The hostess gave me a smile and waved the menu in my face as I passed her by. Again I felt very lonely for dollars, for if I had them to spare I would have stopped right then and there, sat me down, fed my stomach and eyes, and further explored the contours of the terrain.
Maybe I should follow Mr. Padron's lead, I suggested to myself, and imagine finding a bundle of money on the street. Then I would have the run of the town. "After all, this is the Magic City!" I jested to myself. But the joke eventually wound up being on me.
Miami's streets are not paved with gold nor is their a fountain of youth in Florida. But finding money on the street is really no joke on South Beach. In fact, I found $12 in front of a sidewalk café on South Beach last October. I went inside and bought the cheapest sandwich on the list. It was $5, quite tasty, but there wasn't much to it. I gave the balance of $7 to an English tourist who had been robbed at Bayside. She promised to call me from the hotel when her husband showed up, and said they would repay me and take me out to dinner - I never heard from her again, but that was not the point of helping her out anyway. And there were the soldiers who found a few hundred million dollars in Iraq. So nothing is impossible. But I had grown skeptical by Easter, and the very thought of finding money in the street was no more than amusing.
"Hola, senor! Que cuentas?" a purveyor of tourist information greeted me as I walked in front of the Crescent Hotel. I am glad to hear Spanish spoken to me although I don't speak the language yet - the sound of Spanish gives me a feeling of belonging. Really, there ought to be free Spanish classes for poor immigrants like me - I've got to recommend that to Mr. Padron the next time a pass by the downtown campus.
"How do I count? One, two, three, four, five...."
"I mean, How are you?" said the man in American English, grinning broadly.
"I'm fine. I see you've got a stack of Ocean Drive magazines there," I nodded at the low wall along the patio in front of the hotel. "I got a copy of the Independence Day issue with Nikki Taylor on the cover when I was down here a few years ago. I mounted it on the wall of my office in Manhattan. I discovered we had been burgled one morning. When the cops came over they kept gawking at Nikki - they were not that interested in taking down my report of the burglary."
"I remember her, the model."
"Yeah, that's her. I heard her sister was killed, by asthma medicine, I think. How sad."
"You want a copy of the magazine?" he offered.
"Yes! I'd love to have a copy," I accepted. "Majestic Properties had a stack of them a yard high at the Artécity sales office, but the associate wouldn't give me one because she said they were for qualified people."
"You're qualified, sir."
"You know how to treat a man."
"We like to treat people right," he said, handing me his card - Alberto was his name, a representative of the Tourist Information Center.
"People who treat me right are righteous," I affirmed. "They're all right, because they treat me right."
"Do you live here now?" Alberto inquired.
"Yes, down the street."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a numbers cruncher and a wordsmith. Here's my card."
"What's this mean, The Miami Mirror?"
"Reflections from the street, what people are really saying and doing when they get out of their boxes, what's happening around the beach, stuff like that."
"You just missed something."
"What's that?"
"The guy walking in front of you - did you see him?"
"No, I was looking at a woman."
"He bent over and picked up a big roll of cash."
"What?"
"A roll of cash. It looked like hundreds, about this big," he said, circling his right thumb and forefinger - the two ends did not meet.
"Oh, my God! Money!" I exclaimed. "That could be five to seven grand, a roll like that. Did he ask whose it was?"
"Are you kidding? Of course not. Everybody would have claimed it. He said what you said, 'Oh, my God!' He shoved it in his pocket and walked away. Then you walked up."
"Dammit! That money is mine! It was intended for me!
"You see what I mean?
The Fabulous Nikki Taylor
