Don't Forget the Fare

IT WAS EARLY afternoon. Rush hour still to come, the Lechmere-bound trolley was coasting up Beacon Street, collecting a steady mix of students and the elderly.

I was sitting towards the front, studying the sixtyish-looking motorman in the control seat. He was engaged in conversation with another MBTA employee leaning against the fare-box, the kind of professional Kibbitzer who looks as if all he does is just ride the trolleys or busses--always standing on the steps, peering out the front windshield with bored confidence, intermittently letting out wisecracks about anything or nothing. This time it was politics:

"I tell 'ya, it's crazy with Nixon..." The voice trailed off and continued in a lower tone, indistinguishable amidst the screeching of the trolley. After appearing to listen for several seconds, the driver shouted back with agitation.

"For crissake, they all do it...only Nixon's the one 'ta get caught holding the bag, know what I mean? Yeah, why don't they leave the guy alone already--I mean, we got another war in Israel, and now those goddamn Arabs won't send us any oil, for crissake..."

COOLIDGE CORNER stop. About ten people pushed their way onto the trolley, plunked their forty-five cents into the farebox, and moved to the rear, the driver repeating his drone, "Don't forget your fares, please, your fares." Meanwhile, the elderly woman next to me had been leaning forward towards the floor; she reached down awkwardly, coming back up with a bunch of dollar bills as wrinkled as her paste-white hands. Thoroughly bewildered, she looked at me.

"Someone just dropped this," she said in a barely audible voice. Then looking away from me, and towards the back of the trolley, she tried to see who might have dropped the bills. There was a pause of fifteen or twenty seconds; it appeared as if the woman either didn't know what to do, or was beginning to entertain thoughts of hushing up and keeping the money. But she knew that I had seen her pick it up.

"Why don't you tell the driver--he'll make an announcement," I suggested to the elderly woman. After all, I thought, with only fifteen or twenty people on the trolley, it shouldn't be too hard to locate the person, who probably just got on. The woman hesitated then moved forward in her seat towards the driver.

"Excuse me...sir?...yes, excuse me, but somebody lost some money," she said, holding up the crumpled mass of dollar bills in front of her. She was shouting as loudly as she could, but the driver barely heard her. Immediately, both the driver and Mr. Kibbitzer looked at the woman, then back at each other, their mouths breaking out into knowing smirks. The driver turned to the old woman once more.

"That money was just dropped on the floor?" he asked her with playful amusement.

The woman nodded.

"And you picked it up, in front of you?" he continued, in apparent disbelief.

She nodded again, this time adding an emphatic "Yes."

"Then for crissake, hold on to it," he said. "Around here, it's 'finders keepers, losers weepers."' He grinned and nodded to his companion.

The woman looked a little embarrassed, but after a few seconds leaned over towards the driver.

"Oh...thank you," she said.

Meanwhile, rush hour was beginning to creep in from the distance; the crowds were starting to form. The driver and his companion talked on about Nixon, Watergate, and other things, all the while reminding the boarding passengers, "Don't forget your fares...your fares, please."