When the trishaw had picked up the old Chinese woman and her servant whom he took to the gold shop and then waited in the hot sun to bring back, he had just dropped another person off who had taken him far outside of his usual area, and he was quite hot and tired. And after letting the old Chinese woman and her servant off back at her car he then rode right away back over to his own side of the town to park his trishaw and take a break at his usual coffee stall.

When she had lifted all those plastic bags into the seat, he didn't notice that one small one had slipped down on the side of the seat. He took a couple more customers that day, and no one noticed the bag that had lodged itself further down.

It wasn't until late that night when he was weary and found a place to rest for the night that he opened up the seat to get out his blanket and tarp to cover the trishaw that he noticed the white plastic bag and found the gold chain inside.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever held in his hands his entire life, and he felt at that moment the luckiest person in the entire world. He had never stolen anything in his life. He did not even know for sure who might have left it there, although he figured that it probably was the old lady who was carrying all the bags. At first he thought that he might try to find her to return it to her, but then he thought that if she wanted it she could come and find him. He would keep safely inside his trishaw until someone came to claim it. And if no one showed up to claim it, then he would be in possession of a very valuable piece of jewelry. But he was already getting old and had no idea what he could do with it short of selling it for a lot of cash. He had been peddling the trishaw for so long that he couldn't imagine what else to do.

It had been his entire life since he had been a young man, and now that he was getting old he felt very tired. He had no family except relatives he knew as a small child in China, but he could not remember these very well and would not know how to find them if he ever went back to China. He was alone in this country, as he had always been, and he had grown into it well over the years.

Not having much, he peddled the tri cart around during the day and sometimes in the evening and then he would find a spot somewhere to park it and sleep without too much disturbance. Sometimes he would peddle it all the way out to the river by the Hospital so that he could park it under the shade of the trees and wash himself and his clothes in the stream near by. He did not make much money in a day--mostly just enough to eat a little. If he had much leftover it would afford him a new shirt or something to fix his cart with.

He knew a lot of people in his regular area, which was over by the Jetty and the poorer side of the town. He had a lot of usual customers, mostly middle-aged Chinese women whom he would take to the morning market and children he would take and pick up from school everyday. People trusted him because he was honest, worked hard and asked for little--the proper ingredients of a successful Chinese businessman.

A few months before he had fallen sick and someone found him half-dead in his trishaw. He was rushed in an ambulance to the hospital where they had performed an operation on him and where he remained for over a month. He was worried what would become of his trishaw when he got out. He did not even know where to go to look for it but found that the person who had discovered him and called the ambulance had parked the trishaw and locked it with a chain to the grill in front of his shop. He was very grateful to this person and whenever he gave him or any of his family a ride in his trishaw he would not charge them anything.

People around liked him and called him old man. He was friendly and always smiled and was nice to all the children he drove to and from school everyday, making sure that they didn't have to cross any busy streets and taking care that they went directly home after they got out of his trishaw.

Now it was late and he held the gold chain in his hand as it shinned in the light of the street light across the road. He admired its beauty and noticed the humanlike appearance of the monkey pendant. He thought that if no one turned up to claim it from him then he would just keep it for himself, though he didn't know quite what else to do with it.

He had parked in an area that had been demolished and cleared for the construction of a new office building. He had parked there the last few nights and figured he'd get up early enough to leave the area before the workman came in the morning. He knew many different spots around the town that were safe to park and sleep for the night. A few he preferred over any of the others, as long as there weren't any other trishaws in them first.

One of the construction workers who arrived early to the site was the first to find the old man sitting stilly in his cart with his hand stretched out. His body was stiff and the worker called the police who came and bought a small truck to lift his body into the back and take it away to the morgue at the general hospital. The gold chain he had been holding slipped out of his hand during the night as it was outstretched over the side of the trishaw cart, and it fell in between a couple of pieces of rubble on the ground.

That morning a couple of workers were assigned to shovel up all the loose rubble on the ground and use it to fill in a couple of large holes in the back of the construction area. Neither of them noticed the gold chain with the monkey pendant as they scooped up the small chunks of broken concrete and sand, and dumped it into the hole in the back of the lot. They managed to fill all the holes and then someone came with a water hose and watered the fill down to compact it better in the hole.

Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.