One and Two and Three and...

Well fuck me.

I worked my way to the cargo door and was pleased with my early morning planning; I had brought my heaviest rock hammer and a long pry bar. It was easier unlatching the door than actually opening it. But I kept at it until I had it completely open.

I scrambled into the fuselage which was angled tail down and slightly on its side, maybe 15 to 20 degrees off level. It was obvious that nobody survived the crash. The cargo had been strapped down but the g-forces of the crash had broken it free causing it to slam forward and break apart.

There was money everywhere.

Loose bills, settled into deep drifts on the downside of the interior, shoebox sized bundles tightly wrapped in plastic were scattered about, and bales (yes, fucking bales!) of bundles were wrapped in heavy duty plastic and secured with criss-crossed lines of duct tape.

There were maybe a dozen visible bales of money, and too many unseen bundles to try to count, and everywhere piles of loose currency were scattered. The bills that I could see were in denominations of $20, $50, and $100.

I was for a brief period of time ecstatically happy. And then there was a mighty crack, like a gunshot, and I immediately thought of merciless bands of cartel soldiers coming up the canyon to reclaim their I'll-gotten treasure. In the next moment I realized the wreck was just settling. It still scared the shit out of me.

But it did snap me out of my euphoria of instant riches. In some ways I was fucked. As I stood amidst the profits of the drug trade, I figured I could probably carry half a dozen bundles back to my camp. But it galled me and left me shaking in fantasy and fear as to what to do with the rest.

I did the only thing that made sense and grabbed as many bundles as I though I could safely carry on my motorcycle. I loaded up the bike and rode back to my campsite, arriving just before sundown. I stashed the bundles in my truck and quickly measured the interior space available. It was woefully inadequate to what I needed.

I made dinner, ate it all, then sat back to think. Due to the carrying capacity of my truck there was no way I could leave this area with much more than a tenth of what I'd seen. I thought about it from as many different angles as I could but the undeniable reality was that I had only so much space. And that was with me being willing to break up bales in order to stack and stash the bundles more effectively!

The other problem was I did not have unlimited fuel for my motorcycle. Yes, if I was able to get my truck closer to the wreck, that would definitely be a good thing. I needed to break down the problem into manageable sections.

I had brought one of the bundles into my camp with the intention of counting it. I began to carefully unwrap it. From the outside I had been able to discern that the bundle appeared to be three stacks or rows of bills. This was confirmed as I completed the unwrapping; one stack of $20's, one of $50's, and one of $100 dollar bills. I should also tell you that the stacks of bills were horizontal in orientation, stacked one upon the other. Basically, imagine a bunch of $20 bills in horizontal orientation and that stack or row was approximately 12" long. Same with a stack/row of fifties and hundreds, one on top of the other. I counted, I measured, and came to the shocking realization that I was looking at a bundle worth approximately half a million dollars. I realized I had close to three million dollars, in cash, stashed in my truck right now!

Holy fuck!

I tried to visualize how many bundles were in a bale. I found myself thinking in terms of 16 bundles, stacked 6 deep. Or, almost 100 bundles for every bale. A bundle worth $500,000 multiplied by 100 equals $50 million dollars.

I multiplied that $50 million by the dozen or so bales I had seen. My heart pounded, my head hurt, I could hardly breathe. That plane had half a billion dollars in it - more or less. Half a billion dollars...in cash.

I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't sleep that night.

Early the next morning I started slowly; coffee first, then a simple breakfast. I had a plan. First and foremost was to empty the plane of as much of the cargo as quickly as I could with the exception of the loose bills. My focus was bundles first, and then the bales.

I got on my motorcycle and rode back to the crash site. Along the way I carefully noted how far I could drive my truck and to what extant I could create a clearer path in order to get the truck closer.

The answers were about halfway from my camp to the crash site, maybe 2/3's of the way if I could safely move some rocks and fill some of the deeper ruts. Over loaded or otherwise wrecked was not an option.

Back at the airplane, I grabbed bundles first and attached them to my bike. I'd brought duct tape and rope enabling me to attach 17 bundles, very likely eight to nine million dollars.

I spent some serious time thinking about the bales. I wanted them, truth be told I wanted everything. Even the loose bills if possible. But the one thing I kept coming back to and running up against was what would I do when someone stronger, meaner, and ridiculously well armed came looking.

By the time I returned to camp I had my plan. I stashed and stored everything in the truck and immediately drove out. My first stop was my storage garage where I kept my camping equipment and fossil stash. I placed all the wrapped bundles in a security cabinet, locked up as I left and headed to the nearby Denny's and enjoyed a deluxe cheeseburger with a pile of onion rings. I paid with a twenty from the unwrapped bundle, my first official laundering of my newly found cash.

Then I was off to fuel up; filling the truck tank and the motorcycle tank. Next was Home Depot for some five gallon buckets of paint in various shades of brown, rolls of duct tape, cargo straps, a couple of come-alongs and various battery powered tools, a dozen high capacity batteries and a generator. Plus a half dozen five gallon jerry cans.

I bought a gun too. Due to my growing security consciousness (paranoia by any other name) in time I would end up buying a ridiculous number of guns from small concealed carry revolvers to a huge.50 caliber beast of a sniper rifle. But this one, my first one was a simple Mossberg 500 12 gauge pump shotgun.

It was a person to person sale, one of those "I know a guy who knows a guy" kind of things. The seller happily accepted my cash!

I was despairing of a way to transport the bales without breaking them up. Until I realized I was fighting the obvious. The bales had worked for a high labor or mechanized operations. There was no way for me to efficiently handle the bales. Bundles I could work with, I could put a couple of bundles in a normal backpack. Once I thought about it, I realized working with bundles was the way to go.

So I made a travois, mostly out of two by fours and eyebolts that I could tow behind my motorcycle.

I'd hoped to head back the same day, but I was trying not to look unusually active or in a rush. It was kinda fun paying cash for everything. I ended up spending the night in a motel.

I drove out to the canyon just after sunrise. Once off road I drove at a casual pace, no need to draw attention to anything I was doing.

I came to my first "roadblock", an old dry branch hanging across the road, and moved it out of the way. The second roadblock, some medium size rocks "scattered" so they appeared to have fallen from the nearby cliff side. I'd created both roadblocks to alert me to any other vehicles passing this way. I drove the truck to the end of the road, unloaded everything, then turned the truck around.

I put the travois together and rode out to the crash site bringing most of the equipment I'd bought with me. My plan was to ferry as many bundles as I could during daylight hour, then stay overnight at the truck. I figured to get as much of the cash out as I could in two days time.

Once at the crash site, I hoisted the paint buckets onto the wings, dipped a heavy duty mop into the paint and slathered paint on every horizontal surface I could reach; wings, tail, and fuselage. If someone did a flyover I wanted to minimize the reflective metal surfaces as much as possible.

Inside the plane I drilled holes in the rear bulkhead and used one of the come-alongs to pull bales to the cargo door. I pushed the bale out the door letting it fall to the ground. Surprisingly it didn't break apart, so that became the plan. Once all the bales were out, I managed to strap a couple to the travois and carefully rode back to my truck. At the truck, I cut open the bales and began storing the bundles in the truck. This was repeated the next day. I brought as many of the bales to where I parked the truck, even though I knew they likely wouldn't fit.

As daylight faded I drove out of the canyon and headed to my storage garage. I unloaded, then gassed up and ate.

I got a room for the night, showered, and slept. My phone woke me before dawn and I drove out again. Once back at the end of the rode, I loaded the truck again. I was getting nervous, really nervous. I decided I had more than enough.

I loaded the motorcycle and left everything else behind. Having paid cash there was no way to tie any of the tools or other equipment to me. I drove off and didn't look back.

I didn't return to my original storage garage but went to a different one in a neighboring city. I told them I was looking to store my motorcycle for a year or more. They were happy to accommodate me.

A plan was beginning to form.

Once I was back in town I took time to assess my situation. A rough inventory of my crash recovery loot was one hundred and seventy eight bundles or approximately $90 million. I estimated that I had removed maybe 15% of the money at the crash site. But there was no way I was going back. In fact, next to figuring out how to deal with safely storing my cash was the very real fear of being found out.

In some ways I had in my possession a very liquid haul of cash money. In others, not so much as having large amounts of paper money suddenly available with no story or reason why - that was disconcerting. Flashing around fistfuls of dollars was a guaranteed way to attract unwanted attention.

Walking into a bank with a briefcase full of cash guaranteed unwanted attention. I realized a couple of things fairly quickly. One, I was a recognized person in this area. Teachers did not usually have a lot of ready cash in their possession. And two, I had to develop some simple strategies for dealing with wheelbarrows of cash.

I quickly requested and was granted a leave of absence due to a family emergency. I was going to miss teaching, but I couldn't stay.

I had to get out of town. Get on the move and stay on the move for awhile. I bought(with cash, of course) a used RV and slowly travelled the country.

I kept out four bundles of cash, the rest went into various safety deposit boxes scattered about the country.

One other thing I did was buy gold coins every time I was near a dealer.

The sun was setting, painting the sky with a riot of colors. I was sipping an excellent craft beer, after enjoying an delicious lobster roll. I figured the bill for just shy of $50. I left a fifty dollar bill with five $20's stacked neatly beneath it for the tip.

An abundance of ready cash was a wonderful thing. As the years have passed my paranoia has lessened. You google just about anything from laundering cash, to offshore banking, to having high quality fake ID's.

It's a little dicier trying to find the people who can actually produce. My solution, pose as a Hollywood script fact checker, basically a self-employed continuity of reality coordinator. Pretty much everyone wants to be a part of making movies. And a simple cash filled envelope "thank you for your assistance" is almost always appreciated.

So that's my story.

Oh, and for those of you who think I was crazy trying to retrieve all the cash or not occasionally returning to the crash site and recovering more cash. I'm alive, I've got more than I can spend, and I very much enjoy living this life - works for me.

MARCH OF THE BENJAMINS

Money, it's a crime

Share it fairly, but don't take a slice of my pie

Money, so they say

Is the root of all evil today

But if you ask for a rise, it's no surprise

That they're giving none away.

- Pink Floyd, "Money"

The boys pretty much covered it. Money is a powerful catalyst, mix it in and things change. Too little, too much, the timing or lack there of, it's ebbs and flows, the waiting for it to arrive, the watching it go away. Money is a long strange trip.

It can also be a lot of fun.

Unless things change in ways dramatic. Then everything can shift, and change, even transform. This is especially true if you find yourself awash in an abundance of cash completely unimagined. Things like that change you - in ways good and not so good.

It happened to me, I became a crazy tipper. I made large donations to shelters and food kitchens as I travelled. I didn't throw money away, so much as to be liberal in its distribution.

It also led to some questionable behaviors on my part. I tried to not be evil, but the bottom line is that money gives you a lot of leverage. Whenever I exerted that leverage on my behalf, I tried to leave the other party happy, if not completely whole.

I'm going to share with you a game I've come to enjoy playing. It's definitely got leverage in it, but I like to think it's a win-win for all who play.

This is how I play it. It begins with me finding a appealing young woman who has just been left behind by her companions (the reason or excuse for their leaving is inconsequential.) I chat her up for a drink or two, my intention is to confirm my observation; he alone, not in a serious relationship, and apparently interested in me. We engage in a wonderful game of theorizing, philosophizing, maybe just a bit of self-aggrandizing the delights and foibles of men and women, all to get to the core of the game, A Glorious Parade of Benjamins.

Picture yourself sitting in a bar, on a bench seat, in a cozy booth, with a bit of space between you and your willing, but not yet completely committed companion. The point of the game is for me to have fun getting laid. The winning of the game is simple; for me - a few hours of decidedly carnal pleasuring. For the charming young lady - taking possession of the Benjamin's moving from me to her.

It begins with a simple statement, "I propose a contest, between you and me. I believe given a span of time not to exceed three hours, I can induce such orgasmic delights and thrills upon you as to require you to ask me to cease any further effort. Toward that end, I am allowed to use my fingers, my mouth and tongue, and my cock [condom-covered, of course].

"The prize that you are playing for, should you survive three hours, is a marching parade of Benjamin's. For your part all you need do is to accept the challenge by mutually agreeing to the size of the parade."

That statement would be accompanied by my placing three $100 dollar bills side by side on the bench seat between us. The first bill was placed against the seatback. The next two long edge to long edge, a fourth would get in line soon enough, put in place to an earnest inquiry or a bit of faux outrage.

"Do you accept the challenge?" I'd say that with the fifth bill poised to join it's brethren. I waited for outright rejection, but if none was received it to settled into place.

If you're visualizing this along the with the storyline you'd be noticing that the five Benjamin's placed side by side reach about halfway across the bench seat. Bills six and seven often found their place as expressions of skepticism or disbelief were uttered. Bill number eight tended to be balancing on the crown of the seat or otherwise close to falling off.

Oh the mystery the placing of that particular bill realized. Because I'd take care to place it precisely. This would prompt the inevitable question.

"What happens if you run out of room?"

"Should the placing of a Benjamin not hold, should the bill fall to the floor, then the challenge is forfeit, the game is over, the prize is no longer in play. I scoop up the Benjamin's and March right on out the door."

"And if I were to say "yes" right now?"

"The potential winnings are placed in an envelope, I pay our tab, and we adjourn to a nearby motel or hotel of your choice. The three hours begins when we are both naked."

"And if I make it to three hours?"

"The envelope is yours."

"And if I don't - if I end up asking you to stop..."

"You will have a story to share with your friends the like of which they can barely imagine."

"Okay, okay Danny boy, I'm in."

"Alright Becs my love, let's go. But I feel I must correct you, because in about 30 minutes, I'll be the one that's in."

Poor Rebecca tried, she really tried but there's only so much an overwhelmed and thoroughly worked over clitoris and vagina can endure. At two hours and thirty-seven minutes, she passed out and fell into a deep, deep sleep. A well satisfied smile on her face.

She had thought to over power me quickly and turn this into a sprint. I was in for the long distance.

I showered and dressed, leaving the envelope, filled with the revealed eight Benjamin's, five of their brothers and a smattering of fifties and twenties) on top of Bec's clothes.

That girl came in bunches once she got going and became beguiling compliant. She was especially susceptible to intensely focused clitoral stimulation; specifically rapid tongue work and pursed lip motorboating(think of playing a trumpet and direct that buzzing intensity directly on the clit.) I came four times. She really tried to wear me out. I'm guessing that she never considered I might have a pharmaceutical advantage that would see me through to victory.

Oh, you're thinking what victory, she still got a envelope stuffed with cash. Well, let me put it this way, if I played "March of the Benjamin's" every day and the average amount of cash in the envelope was $1500. Then a year of nightly sex would run close to $550,000. Not to brag too much, but a rounding error more or less to my overall net worth.

I imagine Rebecca woke sore and satisfied. Once she saw the envelope and counted the contents, win-win.

And yes, I am that well off. I'm loaded. I am flush with funds. Now truth be told, I haven't always been crazy rich. In fact this new state of financial freedom is but a few years old.

And it's a pretty crazy story how I got that way. And I'll tell you about it - mostly - but some elements will be changed or dropped as required.

Curiously, an argument could be made that none of this comes to pass but for a wake you up hard on. Seriously, a stiff dick wake up call.

PS: Oh, and one last thing, the bundles in those well wrap bales that I recovered turned out to be different than the loose bundles. Those bales contained nothing but bundles of $100 bills.

Life is sweet.