3. The Gold Digger
It turns out, on June 12th on the way to the airport, Gerald actually forgot the damn passports at home. It was a good thing they arrived very early because he didn’t realize this until after he paid for the parking of his car for 10 days, which was not cheap. Like I said earlier, luck was never on Gerald’s side. He hailed a cab and him and his daughter made their way back home, and when they got back to the airport, walked the half mile to the parking garage to get their luggage. They still had plenty of time. Air de France Flight 764 was scheduled to depart at 11:55 AM. Gerald glanced down at his watch and noticed it was a quarter after ten. Plenty of time.
After stopping at Starbucks for a quick fix on caffeine and getting Justine a frozen frappamochachino, or whatever you call them, they proceeded through security. No problems there, now that they had their passports. While they were sitting and waiting for their gate to be called, a guy wearing a turban came and sat across from Gerald and Justine. He was obviously from a different country, perhaps the Middle East. Gerald was reading The Clearwater Times he had picked up at the tiny Starbuck’s station, when Justine nudged her father.
“What’s with the nudge?” Gerald asked.
“Osama over there. He is digging for gold. He goes any farther, and he may lose his finger.”
Gerald turned his head towards the guy and peeked ever so slightly over the newspaper. He was digging all right. A mole could not dig as well as Osama was. Gerald lost it, broke out in a laughing hysteria. That’s when Justine lost it, and turned her head to the right and bent over, pretending to tie her shoe. Not that this did any good. Sight seekers at the top of the Eifel Tower in Paris, France could have heard them cracking up over a gold digger wearing a turban in Tampa, Florida. He tried for what seemed like an hour to gain control of himself, and when he finally did, he peeked out over the top of the newspaper. There was Osama standing up , at least 10 feet away from them, but appeared to Gerald as if he was looming over him and his daughter. Osama stuck out his hand and raised it chest height, and touched his middle finger to the tip of his thumb. The process of this happening seemed to be in slow motion. Gerald could see something stuck to the foreign man’s finger. Osama stood there, eyes dark as Coal, staring at Gerald, then his finger let loose. He flicked whatever he had been hold into the direction of Justine. Gerald watched as this thing hit Justine’s pink Jansport book bag, and stuck there. He turn his puzzled snare to his daughters plum red face, then back to the thing on the book bag. As soon as he got a good look at it, he knew what it was. It was the gold Osama had been digging for. With a feeling of rage and disgust, Gerald stood up and grabbed Justine by the arm.
“Come on, we are not sitting here with this lunatic.”
Gerald turned back to where Osama had been standing and he was gone. There was no turban to be seen. He went around the corner and up the walk to the men’s restroom on the right. There was no sign that said Men, but there was the classic men’s symbol along with the word Banos. He opened the door, hoping to not run into the rude Pakistani or whatever he was, and sighed with relief. There was no Osama in here. He grabbed a large handful of paper towels in one hand, and a squirt of hand sanitizer in the other. He pushed open the door carefully with his elbows and walked back to where his daughter was sitting. He bent down and got the green crusted gold from his daughter’s book bag with the paper towel, and threw it away in the trash can beside the terminal. Luck had come across Gerald’s path once again. They sat patiently and waited to board flight 764.
