The scrapyard was the last stop for junked cars; they got crushed, cubed, and shipped away. Grif didn’t know where, but figured they got melted down. Don claimed they might be used as giant bricks, but Grif didn’t buy it. “nobody wants rusty bricks.”
There were precious few perks to the job. For Don it was a good source of metal for his side project, welding up little garden sculptures in his garage. He sold them on the weekends, and his rusty rabbits and grungy tortoises were probably adorning gardens for miles around.
Grif didn’t have a side project like that. He didn’t have side interests other than beer and watching the games on TV at the bar. Real live tickets had been priced out of sight years ago. Still, every so often something worth picking up dropped out of one of the crushed cubes. Nobody cared if you took some pieces home — the place dealt in tons of steel, and nothing that fit in your pocket was worth any fuss if Grif or anybody else grabbed it. He had a shelf in his kitchen where he kept his little collection. A nearly-intact 3-point star emblem from a Merc. A spark plug that, inexplicably, looked pretty new. Most of one of those hula dancers you put on your dash to sway when you hit bumps. And one of a pair of fuzzy dice like they used to hang from the inside mirror.
That was about it until that one day. It was a Tuesday, the actual day of the solstice. Grif had only a general idea what a solstice even was, but the guy on the radio mentioned it in the morning. And it happened right at the stroke of noon, too. Grif knew that because the lunch whistle at the plant across the street was blowing.
He also knew it was noon because of what he found. It dropped out of the carcass of some old junk being forklifted across the yard, rolled a couple of times, and lay there smack in front of him. It was an old-timey pocket watch, and the hands both pointed to the 12 printed — or maybe painted — in black on the white face.
Grif bent over and picked it up, just like this was something that happened every day. When he told the story later, he mimed an exaggerated double take, but in the moment he didn’t do any such thing. He just matter-of-factly picked it up. Then, as you do, he held it to his ear. Satisfied that he heard ticking, he dropped the watch in his pocket. Not his right-side pocket; his keys and some coins were in there, and he figured they might scratch the watch. He put it in his left-side pocket with the $27 in bills and two or three wrapped mints from the bar.
It was a remarkable find, though, and when he finished his shift he went to the bar and took it out of his pocket. Think of a thing like that coming through the crusher and still running. More than that. He looked it over, front and back, and the watch wasn’t even scratched. Not a mark on it. Incredible. It seemed to keep perfect time, too, although he’d only had it since noon.
Grif tried winding the watch but the stem didn’t turn at all. Must be some trick to it; he’d never actually had a pocket watch in his hands before. He wondered what the case was made of. It looked like gold, but gold was soft; whatever this was didn’t have a flaw or scratch anywhere. Couldn’t be some fancy new alloy — weren’t pocket watches practically antiques?
“Hey Don, look what dropped out of a junk today,” Grif called down the bar. Don yelled “cool” automatically. Hadn’t even looked up. “No, I mean come look at this. You won’t believe it.”
Don finally picked up his beer and sat next to Grif. “That thing went through the crusher?”
“Yeah, fell out of a cube right in front of me. Still runs, listen. Grif held the watch up to Don’s ear.
“Wild,” agreed Don. He also agreed that pocket watches were probably antiques. But he didn’t know how to wind it; like Grif, Don had never touched one before. “You probably pull that thing up or press it in or something,” he said.
“Think I haven’t tried that? Must be something else.”
“You know who might know? Chris over at the pawn. He must get these things sometimes.”
“That’s a good idea,” nodded Grif. “They’re still open, right? I’ll ask Chris now.”
Grif finished his beer and tossed some money on the bar.
“Hang on, I’ll go with you. Maybe Chris knows what the thing is worth.”
“Chris can put a number on anything, even if he don’t know.”
“Well, yeah, but at least then ya got a number, right?”
The Triple A Pawn Shop was just a couple of blocks away, still open. Chris was behind the counter as always, and they were in luck; the place was deserted except for him. Grif had been in there before when he’d ended up with more month than money. “Hey Chris,” he said, “have a look at this,” He took out the watch.
“Nice piece,” said Chris, “you pawning or selling?”
“Naw,” said Grif, “I picked this up at the yard today; just want to know about it. Like, it’s still running, but how do you wind it?”
“Oh,” said Chris. He was less interested if there wasn’t a transaction involved, but figured it was Grif, so he’d be seeing the watch again sooner or later. He held out his hand.
When he took a close look at the pocket watch, Chris was surprised. “You say you got this at the scrap yard?” he asked. “Under a seat cushion or what?”
“Naw,” said Grif, “fell out of a cube that just come through the crusher.”
“You guys pullin’ my chain?” asked Chris. “This thing didn’t go through no crusher. Not a mark on it.”
“Swear,” said Grif, holding up his hand. “Fell outta the cube right in front of me. Still running, too.”
“Can’t be,” said Chris. He held it up to his ear. “Whaddaya know,” he said. “You mean it started up when you wound it?”
“Don’t know how to wind it,” said Grif. “Thought maybe you could show me. Tried everything I could think of but that thing on top don’t turn.”
“That’s the stem,” said Chris, “it’s gotta turn somehow.” He tried pushing it in and pulling it out; no play at all. “Huh.” He got out his magnifier and went over every bit of the watch. “Damn good condition,” he muttered. “Gold, too.”
“It’s gold?” said Grif.
“Far as I can tell, yup,” said Chris. “Look.” He reached into his case and held a gold ring right beside the watch. “Exact same color.”
“But ain’t gold soft?” asked Don.
“Yeah, it’s soft all right.”
“But the watch don’t got even a scratch,” said Don, rubbing the back of his head. “What is it, brand new?”
“Far from it,” said Chris, “I think it’s old. Real old. My guess is it must have been in a museum or something. Don’t look like it’s been handled much at all. But there’s another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The really old watches have backs that open. Used to need to get into ‘em all the time for adjustments. But not this one. There’s no seam, no hinge, no latch. Must have to unscrew the crystal.”
“Crystal?” asked Grif.
“The glass,” said Chris. “That must be how you open it. Which will have to be done, because the winder’s broken.”
“Broken?”
“Yeah, you wind these things by pulling up or pushing down on the stem — that’s the knob on top — then turning it. But this one is jammed or something. I don’t want to force it too hard. Gotta tell ya, Grif, this is really something you found.”
“Worth a lot, you mean?”
“Maybe, yeah. I’ve never seen a watch quite like this, but I’d say it’s over a century old, undamaged, and aside from the winder, in perfect shape. Big bucks, probably.”
“How big?”
“Hang on,” said Chris. He ducked into the back room for a minute, then came back with a thick book. “Let’s see if there’s a match somewhere in here,” he said. He used his magnifier on the watch again, and finally put it down with a frown. “Weird,” he said, “these watches always have a mark or a name from the maker, but I can’t find it on this one. Let me have a look anyway.”
Chris paged through his reference book, sometimes holding the watch next to one photo or another. Finally he put the watch down on a particular page and turned the book around for Grif and Don. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but this looks to me like the closest match. Looks like it’s French, and over a century old. Grif, my friend, this could be your lucky day.”
“Bree-gut?” read Grif.
“Bru-geh,” I think, said Chris. “French watch company since 1775. I’m not sure, cuz I’ve never seen one before. And if there’s a mark, it’s on the inside. But I’m not gonna open this thing up; it’s too much for me. If you wanna find out more, you’ll have to take the watch downtown. I can tell you where to take it and who to talk to. But look, Grif, this thing could be worth big money. Big enough you wanna be careful. Don’t wear your work clothes, or they won’t believe it’s really yours. And your best bet might trying for a reward, somebody’s gotta be looking for it.”
“Whaddaya think it’s worth, Chris?”
“All I got to go on is the book,” said Chris, “but if I’m right about what it is, and how old it is, you might be looking at a major payday. Told you. Your lucky day.”
Grif took the watch and left without a word. Don walked right behind him, wondering what was up. Grif usually had something to say; Don wasn’t used to hearing nothing from him. “Hey Grif, pretty sweet, huh?” he said.
Grif still didn’t respond, but led Don to a bus stop with a bench. Nobody there. Grif sat down, so Don sat down too. “You can’t tell anybody about this,” said Grif. “Like, no stories at the bar, no ‘Grif got lucky’ jokes, nothing. OK?”
“OK Grif, sure. But what are you gonna do? Take it downtown like Chris said?”
“Yeah I guess. Too late today though. I’ll take some time off tomorrow and go. But I’ll just say I gotta see my parole officer or something, got it?”
“Grif, you ain’t got a parole officer.”
“I’ll come up with somethin’. Just don’t let on you know anything about it.”
“Ok, okay. Lips are sealed, man. What’s the big secret?”
Look, if word gets around that I got big money, even if I don’t, everything’s gonna change. Everybody’s gonna look at me different, ya know?”
Don thought about it, finally nodded. “Yeah Grif, I see what ya mean. OK, not a word from me. But ya gotta let me know what happens downtown. I just gotta know.”
“Sure, I’ll tell ya when I get back.”
The next day Grif called in sick at the scrap yard, something nobody could remember him doing before. He said he was puking his guts out, though. Next night there he was in the bar at his usual place. Don sat down next to him.
“So what’s the story, man? You, uh…” Don looked around; nobody was close by. “You a lucky man?”
“Nah, thing was a fake. From China, prob’ly. It wasn’t old, it was pretty new; that’s why it looked so good I guess.”
“It did look nice. Can I see it again?”
“Nah, I just left it with the guy. I got no use for a watch you carry in your pocket. You can probably tell Chris you want one and he’ll get you one for ten bucks. Make a profit at that.”
Don was disappointed. But he brightened up when Grif said he could tell anybody the story now that there wasn’t any value involved. It became one of the standards in the bar for a few years afterward, the story about how a fake antique fell out of a crushed cube at Grif’s feet and turned out to be a piece of copied Chinese junk. Grif told the story himself, too, and perfected the exaggerated double take he pretended happened when he saw it.
Chris heard the story too, and shook his head and chuckled like everybody did. But later he scratched his head and looked back in his reference book. He dealt in goods like those, and had never been fooled by a phony before. The next time he saw his friend from downtown, the guy he’d sent Grif to, he asked if the guy remembered it.
“If somebody from your neck of the woods showed me a watch, I think I’d remember. I haven’t appraised an out of the blue find like that in years.”
Chris thought about that, but never said anything to Grif or anybody else. There had been something about that watch.
Grif went on just like he had, working at the scrap yard and mostly hitting the local bar at night with his friends. His little collection grew slowly — a few weeks later he scored a nice badge from an old Z car; only slightly cracked. He put it on his shelf, right next to the watch.
At some point the badge slipped and fell on top of the watch where it vibrates ever so slightly as the watch continues ticking. The last time Grif looked at it, it was still telling the right time.
