Pennys to Remember

John, a gardener at heart kept fit by tossing the soil and planting gardens in his yard. often going on walks to the local coffee shop and Deli where he sat with other folks and chatted while having breakfast and a warm cup of dark roast. A few were ex- military veterans enjoying one anothers company, a lot of younger people with family and older people as well Dan and April knew John and many others. Johns next door neighbors consisted of a younger couple on one side and a single bachelor on the other. John had regular conversations with Roy on his right side of his home, the sjngle gentleman. Roy seemed to be a good soul but had acted odd in a couple of occasions. He had told john that he had suffered with adhd for sometime. I didn’t quite understand why he told me of this, his problem.

My wife and I had always thought of Roy to be different than others. Never keeping his yard clean, his folks would come over and do chores for him. I had always believed that should be vice-verca. Each to their own. Many years ago our home was broken into and all they took was a laptop, a jar of pennies and some of my wifes medicine. We reported it to our insurance company and the police. It was odd, we thought it was probably one of the many homeless people in our area. Our other neighbors Jess and Lee, being the good people they are , always seemed to lend a hand when needed like the time i was getting ready to change the oil in the car or climb a ladder to clean the gutters, Jess said when you need this stuff done don’t hesitate to give me a jingle and I would come over and help you. i don’t want yo see you fall from a ladder any time! Up at the coffee shop Dan the owner and I were chatting. He was becoming more and more skepticle about how our area here in the city of Federal Way had been changing. His Roastery for the coffee was in Auburn, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes away from the deli-coffee shop. It was a pretty quiet area there at his Roastery. But he kept raising concern over his Deli. He said he had a couple broken windows from either disgruntled employees or perhaps vandals and that was about it. All in all his customer base was good, plenty of happy people like Moose, an eighty-six yeat old , folk musician from Alaska and Jackie and elderly woman as well who had lost her husband years before. She had told me she liked coming to the coffee shop for conversation and coffee.

I returned home to do some Gardening as my wife Lucy remained inside reading her novels. Today was a good day to transplant a large overgrown Black Bamboo I had in an oak barrel. Mixing dirt, fertilizer and nutrients i tried my best at keeping the garden growing well. Roy had a large german shepard dog in the backyard, Heidi was her name. She had a habit of barking at noises she heard but today she was really carrying on, barking loud and incesently. I sensed something wasn’t right. When she would be outside and saw Roy through the slider door she would whine more than bark. i walked over to the fence and saw a man running through the back yard with Hiedi on his tale. I immediatley called the Police. They were there within minutes, I gave them a description of the man that I saw , in his late twenty, about five foot 4. Dark hair and wearing a hoody and that he was carrying something. Roy had just pulled his truck into the drive way, the police went to him and went with him inside of his house. Roy and I met later and said everything was intact and there except a jar of pennies he had been saving for awhile. The police had told him about break ins that have been reported lately. In a few days things were slowly moving back towards normalcy . Roy was back out doing his weekly smoking meat of some sort and cooking it up on his BBQ. I had returned to my gardening and weekly visits to the coffee shop. Up there sitting on a quiet day sipping my coffee and reading on my tablet. Earlier I had mentioned to Dan about my neighbors break in. Dan said It’s sad to see that type of thing happening. He said John, you know that sort of thing was a real rare thing in past years. I said , yes I know, things have changed along with the economy of today’s world, with the homeless problem, jobs, costs of living. Dan agreed with John. While sitting there waiting for his breakfast John noticed a figure come through the door that seemed to resemble the figure he saw in Roys back yard, but he couldn’t be sure. He received his breakfast and quickly are, as he wanted to follow the young man out the door. The young man sat down and drank his coffee and got up to leave after putting a tip down, in pennies. Then the fellow left the coffee shop. John got up and slowly followed him out, he saw the man greet a young woman at the car, they got in and left. John wrote down the licence plate number just in case. When he got back to the house he told his wife Lucy, she said it was probably a coincidence. He told her, I wrote down the licence plate number, do you think I should notify the police? Lucy said, no It sounds legit to me.