The Cabinet of Curiosities

The foreman jerked his head toward Boxer’s work detail. Not coming any closer, though. So much the better for him. Boxer looked around for his shift crew. They were busy piling bricks into a Dumpster, no doubt for sale to some pioneering yuppie around the corner who liked crappy-looking old bricks at five dollars each. He began walking, just slowly enough to let the foreman know he wasn’t in any hurry.

There was a shout. The grinding of the excavator ceased suddenly. The Cat had bit into a brick foundation wall, exposing a dark, ragged hole behind it. The operator swung down from the idling rig. Frowning, the foreman walked over, and the two men started talking animatedly.

“Boxer!” came the foreman’s voice. “Since you ain’t doing squat, I got another job for you.”

Boxer altered his course subtly, as if that was the way he’d already been going, not looking up to acknowledge he had heard, letting his attitude convey the contempt he felt for the scrawny foreman. He stopped in front of the guy, staring at the man’s dusty little workboots. Small feet, small dick.

Slowly, he glanced up.

“Welcome to the world, Pee-Wee. Take a look at this.”

Boxer gave the hole the merest glance.

“Let’s see your light.”

Boxer slipped the ribbed yellow flashlight out of a loop in his pants and handed it to the foreman.

The foreman switched it on. “Hey, it works,” he said, shaking his head at the miracle. He leaned into the hole. The guy looked like an idiot, standing daintily on tiptoe atop a fallen pile of brick, his head and torso invisible within the ragged hole. He said something but it was too muffled to make out. He withdrew.

“Looks like a tunnel.” He wiped his face, smearing the dust into a long black line. “Whew, stinks in there.”

“See King Tut?” someone asked.

Everyone but Boxer laughed. Who the hell was King Tut?

“I sure as shit hope this isn’t some kind of archaeological deal.” He turned to Boxer. “Pee-Wee, you’re a big, strong fella. I want you to check it out.”

Boxer took the flashlight and, without a glance at the weenies around him, hoisted himself up the collapsed pile of bricks and into the hole the excavator had cut into the wall. He knelt atop the broken bricks, shining his light into the cavity. Below was a long, low tunnel. Cracks doglegged up through the walls and across the ceiling. It looked just about ready to collapse. He hesitated.

“You going in, or what?” came the voice of the foreman.

He heard another voice, a whiny imitation. “But it’s not in my union contract.” There were guffaws.

He went in.

Bricks had spilled down in a talus to the floor of the tunnel. Boxer half scrambled, half slid in, raising clouds of dust. He found his feet and stood up, shining the light ahead. It lanced through the dust, not getting far. From inside, the place seemed even darker. He waited for his eyes to adjust and the dust to settle. He heard conversation and laughter from above, but faintly, as if from a great distance.

He took a few steps forward, shining the beam back and forth. Threadlike stalactites hung from the ceiling, and a draft of foul-smelling air licked his face. Dead rats, probably.

The tunnel appeared to be empty, except for a few pieces of coal. Along both sides were a long series of arched niches, about three feet across and five high, each crudely bricked up. Water glistened on the walls, and he heard a chorus of faint dripping sounds. It seemed very quiet now, the tunnel blocking all noise from the outside world.

He took another step, angling the flashlight beam along the walls and ceiling. The network of cracks seemed to grow even more extensive, and pieces of stone jutted from the arched ceiling. Cautiously, he backed up, his eye straying once again to the bricked-up niches along both walls.

He approached the closest one. A brick had recently fallen out, and the others looked loose. He wondered what might be inside the niches. Another tunnel? Something deliberately hidden?

He shined the light into the brick-hole, but it could not penetrate the blackness beyond. He put his hand in, grasped the lower brick, and wiggled it. Just as he thought: it, too, was loose. He jerked it out with a shower of lime dust. Then he pulled out another, and another. The foul odor, much stronger now, drifted out to him.

He shined the light in again. Another brick wall, maybe three feet back. He angled the light toward the bottom of the arch, peering downward. There was something there, like a dish. Porcelain. He shuffled back a step, his eyes watering in the fetid air. Curiosity struggled with a vague sense of alarm. Something was definitely inside there. It might be old and valuable. Why else would it be bricked up like that?

He remembered a guy who once found a bag of silver dollars while demolishing a brownstone. Rare, worth a couple thousand. Bought himself a slick new Kubota riding mower. If it was valuable, screw them, he was going to pocket it.