Treasure Chest
I must have asked my uncle about that chest a thousand times. He said it contained the bones of a leprechaun saint, or a pair of nylons once worn by Marilyn Monroe, or the silver lining of a cloud, or the best ham sandwich of 1953, but he never told me the truth. It was a treasure chest, and I was sure it held diamonds or emeralds he had picked up during the war.
And it was mine. I deserved it. Who spotted the cancer on the back of his neck, and sent him to the doctor? Who sent him to the nursing home, and held the bucket when he couldn’t keep anything down? His own children pretended nothing was wrong. My cousin Elizabeth told him he would live forever, and shut her eyes to his approaching death. But I didn’t. I was the only one who was really there for him. The rest of the family came around to play games or sing songs. I was the one who took care of him.
But, dammit, Uncle Rubin liked to jerk me around.
I sat by his bed one evening while he slept. The nurses were down the hall shouting answers to Wheel of Fortune, and I knew they would be leaving us alone for a while. I covered his face with a pillow and put some weight into it. Uncle Rubin will not revise his will again, I decided.
I was the last to arrive at the lawyer’s office, and sat down with my back to the musty bookshelf. No one looked at me. The executor—a cousin, I forget his name—stood up and read the will aloud. The family let out a moan.
“Please,” said my cousin Elizabeth. “Let us have the chest.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, unwilling to let this fortune slip through my fingers.
“But it only has sentimental value,” she said.
I had to laugh. Everyone knew that wasn’t true.
When Elizabeth offered to pay for the chest, the others chimed in. They pulled together nearly $10k, so it must have been worth more than that.
“I won’t sell,” I told them. “It’s mine.”
It wasn’t on the dresser, or on his nightstand. I pulled the drawers, dumped his clothes out onto the bed. I went through his socks, and his underwear. Opened the closet door, and looked through his pants pockets, his shoes, even his shirts. The cardboard boxes on the top shelf contained nothing but old letters and photographs—worthless. I broke into his piggy bank, thinking it might be there; found only small change. I went back and searched the inside of his dresser, thinking that he might have had it taped up in there, but he didn’t. I searched the pockets and the lining of his one sports coat. It wasn’t there. Or under the bed, or in the cookie jar. His television set wasn’t sitting on it. It wasn’t under his mattress, or in the medicine cabinet. I turned his room inside out, and didn’t know where else to look.
If there was a key to his treasure chest, I couldn’t find it.
I went back to my hotel room carrying the chest under one arm and a toolbox under the other. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking someone in my family might be following me. Might want to knock me off, to get the chest. The chest that I knew—there wasn’t a doubt in my mind—was worth a fortune.
I didn’t see anyone.
In my room, behind the double-locked door, I threw the chest onto the bed and tried to pick the lock. It looks so easy in the movies. I tried a tiny screwdriver, a hairpin, and a paper clip. Only managed to scratch up the inlaid wood around the keyhole. I tried to cram the screwdriver into the crack, and pry the lid off that way. It wouldn’t to budge. I tried the claws of a hammer, couldn’t get it right
I thought about those diamonds and emeralds. Only the chest stood in the way now and it was as stubborn as my Uncle Rubin. It was my Uncle Rubin. He was dead and in the ground, but this chest, this damned chest was jerking me around. Like him, like him. Like him. So I picked it up and hurled it against the wall, hoping to break that chest open like an egg.
Only succeeded in denting the plaster. The chest crashed to the floor and rolled over on its side, defiant. It glared at me. I kicked it, but that only hurt my foot. That chest hurt my foot. So I picked up that hammer again and just started waling on it.
The wood cracked—
Splintered—
Split, under the blows. But I didn’t stop. And I didn’t, until I had smashed a fist-sized hole in the top of the chest, then wiped the sweat from my eyes and looked inside.
Saw a folded-up piece of paper. That’s all.
Maybe it contained gems, I thought. Maybe it was a map that would lead me to the real treasure. I didn’t know what to think, at this point.
What if my Uncle Rubin had already sold the gems in order to pay for his chemo…
Or had already given the treasure—that I had been dreaming about since I was a little boy—to his daughter, my cousin Elizabeth?
My heart beat in my throat. I snatched the paper out of the chest, and unfolded it. Saw someone’s neat penmanship—not my Uncle Rubin’s. I put my glasses on with trembling hands, and read:
Small valuables chest
From the house of Borgia, late 15th century
In excellent condition
Appraised by H. Landau & Co. for $216, 000
May 14, 1953