Back in my early twenties, I went to an estate sale for a local, rich eccentric. It was a part-time hobby of mine, and I mostly bought the stuff nobody else would bid on. In this case, it was a cardboard box full of books, the catch being that they didn’t disclose what books it held beforehand. Judging by the moist and cracked box, it was just glorified trash, but I took a chance on it anyway. I got it for $15.
When I brought it home, I had my share of fun going through the mystery box. Most of the books were old and tattered paperbacks - mainly detective novels from the 80’s - with dusty covers and sand scrunching between the pages. I pictured the owner reading them on a beach somewhere warm; after all the money making and the societal weirdness, how else would a rich eccentric wind down?
One book was different. Old, but not like 80’s old, more like a couple hundred years, at least. It was in surprisingly good condition, but rifling through it I could feel how its pages were more brittle, its spine soft and curved by scoliosis. It was a book about alchemy.
I immediately called out for my roommate Hugh to come check it out. He’s a history major, so I thought he’d get a kick out of it. He was a bit grumpy when he first came out of his room, but once I showed him the book the disturbance seemed to become worth it, his eyes widening in the way that they always did when he’d find something to nerd out about.
He began to rifle through it, and without lifting his gaze, his eyes glued to the pages, he said “Where’d you get this?”
“An estate sale. It was in a box with a bunch of other books, but they were mostly trash. This must’ve slipped into the wrong box,” I answered.
“And how much did you pay for it?”
“Fifteen dollars. I mean, not just for this book. The whole box.”
“Fifteen? Dude, this might be worth a few hundred, at least. Or maybe a bit less,” he said as he abandoned the books innards, instead examining its exterior like a pawn shop owner. “It’s not in the best condition, but any alchemy book from the sixteen hundreds is still worth something.”
“Holy shit that’s great! Where should I sell it?” I asked him. I didn’t care if it was a bit less than a few hundred; that’s still an awful lot more than fifteen bucks.
He’d started to rifle through it again, a smirk erupting on his face. He held the spread up to me and said “Or we could keep the book, and manufacture gold.”
I grabbed the book from him and inspected it, and wouldn’t you know it, there were a whole slew of instructions on how to make gold. And it didn’t require a single metal to be melted, either.
“Yeah, right,” I said as I skimmed over the pages. It was actually quite complicated. The process resembled something between baking, a chemical process, and a magical ritual.
“You know, we could try it out,” I told him as I looked over the list of ingredients.
“And accidentally make mustard gas or something? You know that you can’t just make gold out of thin air like that.”
“It’s not out of thin air. Look,” I said, handing him the book. “You’re the history buff, so tell me if I’m wrong, but those ingredients would have been nearly impossible to get your hands on four hundred years ago when the book was written. But now, I’m pretty sure I can find most of that on ebay in under five minutes.”
“I mean… you’re right, in a sense. It would’ve been hard, well, nearly impossible, to get all this shit way back then. Trading and all that was different. But that doesn’t mean it’ll work, obviously. I don’t know much about chemistry, but I really doubt that some weird leaves and the slime of a frog are a part of the chemical makeup of gold.”
And I knew that, of course, but it didn’t belittle my intrigue. “Someone wrote this down, so it must make something. It must have a reason. Yeah, maybe not gold, but something. And because the internet, we can try it out. Maybe we’d be the first ones.” I smirked at him and with my best impression of a chem teacher said “Jesse… we have to cook!”
That got a laugh out of him. “Okay, fine. But you order this shit, okay? I’m not paying.”
“Sure thing, boss.” I switched to a not-so-great Albuquerque accent and shouted “Science, bitch!” as Hugh retreated back to his room.
As I ordered all the ingredients from various sellers across the globe, a tinge of doubt scurried up my throat. It was stupid to spend this much money on a mediocre joke. But once I was finished ordering, I realized that I might as well do it, since I’d come this far. “I’m sure Hughie will get a kick out of it,” I thought.
Packages started coming in nearly every day, and after two weeks I received the final parcel. Once it arrived, I stacked all of the boxes and letters on top of each in the living room. I waited until Hugh got back home, told him to follow me, and then exclaimed “Ta-daa!” at the mountain of parcels that faintly resembled the leaning tower of Pisa.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Don’t you remember? It’s our gold, just waiting to be crafted!”
“Oh…” he replied. I don’t think he found the subject funny now that we’d actually be able to do it.
“So, should we cook tonight?” I asked.
“Well, you know, I got a lot of homework.”
“Hughie, you sly dog! I ordered all this bullshit, and we’re gonna make gold, even if it kills us! Now get an apron and some mad scientist goggles and meet me in the kitchen.”
He seemed to lighten up a bit. “I think I still have those thick safety goggles from chem.”
“Awesome. I’ll start unboxing,” I said, and began to move the boxes into the kitchen.
The task seemed quite daunting once we had everything laid out. The instructions were long and detailed, and there were at least thirty ingredients, and each had to be added at a precise point in the process. I cracked my knuckles, put on some tunes, and we began to work.
It was actually quite fun, sort of like a game. We mixed and pulverized and sorted ingredients, and at times the recipe would call for an incantation to be read, and specific words had to be said out loud as specific ingredients were added. Each step was weirder than the previous, and we laughed at all the crazy and weird ingredients we had to add. A few hours later, we’d arrived at the second to last step, which was to add in a rat’s jawbone, pulverized to resemble fine salt, and say a specific prayer written in the book. The final step was to lock the pot into a dark room, leave it undisturbed, and come back in a few hours time. Once we were finished, we chucked the pot into a closet, and realizing that it was nearly two in the morning, decided to go to sleep, and to check on it the next day.
The next afternoon, once Hughie was back from school, we went to the closet together for the grand unveiling. Once we opened the door, the pot seemed empty.
“Did it evaporate?” he asked.
“Well, that was some fucking joke,” I said, frustrated. But it was also… kind of funny. Maybe this was just a huge practical joke, and we became victims of it some four hundred years after it had been written? If so, bravo.
But then, I saw something glimmer at the bottom. I picked up the pot and brought it into the light.
“Holy shit,” Hughie said.
“Holy shit indeed,” I replied, and picked up one of the small nuggets at the bottom of the pot. It looked like gold, but it was impossible to say what it was without testing it. There were five little nuggets in total, maybe a few grams worth.
“Do you think it’s real?” I asked.
“No fucking way. Probably just some chemical reaction, making something that looks like gold, but really isn’t.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll go to a jeweler today and ask them what it is. Maybe it’s still worth something.”
“Sounds good.”
I bagged up the little nuggets and went straight to the mall, where there was a jeweler who’d also buy gold and silver. He was a bit skeptical when he saw the minigrip holding the small, golden rocks, but he was kind enough to check it anyway. When he asked where I’d gotten it, I told him I’d started going gold panning, which was an okay lie were it not for the fact that our county was definitely not one where panning for gold had ever been done - at least successfully.
As he was testing the nuggets one by one, he asked me “Whereabouts you been panning, then?”
“The answer depends on whether or not it’s real gold,” I replied snarkily.
“Well, you’re in luck. It’s real gold, alright.”
“Holy shit!” I croaked, the excitement overpowering my poker face.
“I’m guessing this means you won’t be telling me where you’ve been panning, then?”
I laughed and said “I don’t think so. But hey, you wanna buy it?”
“For the right price, sure,” the man said. I knew he wouldn’t be giving anywhere near the going rate, but I didn’t really care - I could just go home and make more! In the end, I walked out with a few hundred bucks, and strutted home with dollar signs embossed on my pupils.
When I came back, Hughie was sitting on the living room couch, watching TV. I walked up to him and slapped the wad of bills on his lap. “What’s this?” he asked, seemingly annoyed, but then he picked up the cash and started counting through it. “Wait, it was real?”
“Yup,” I answered.
“And you’re not just fucking with me?”
“Nope.”
“Holy shit…”
“Yup.”
We decided to make another batch immediately - we had to double check that this wasn’t a fluke, and perhaps Hughie also wanted to absolutely guarantee that I wasn’t pranking him. As if I’d have that much cash on hand for a prank. Anyway, the only problem was that we’d only had the one rat’s jaw. It’s not exactly a product they sell in bulk. But with the fifty or so other ingredients still plentiful, how much could it really matter? It didn’t make sense to begin with, and maybe it’d just come out more impure or something, so we decided to try anyway.
We followed the recipe to a tee, making a much bigger batch this time, simply omitting the pulverized jaw bone. We left the pot in the closet and called it a night. It was difficult to fall asleep through the excitement, like it was christmas eve, but at some point I drifted off. I dreamed of sitting on a yacht, drinking mojitos brought to me by muscular men in speedos.
A loud, visceral scream woke me up. The kind that is produced by something so horrible that all your inhibitions fade away and your voice cracks and wails and burns as you yell, hoping for it to drown out that abhorrent, spiteful feeling in your chest. Panic and confusion arose in my mind, and right as I flipped the bedside light on, my door slammed open, which made me yelp frightfully. I was expecting a murderer, but instead, it was Hughie. But something was wrong with him; he was missing his jaw.
It looked as if it had been ripped clean off, leaving the rest of his mouth intact. His tongue seemed longer than usual as it hung limply, pointing at the ground as it no longer had nothing to lay on. Blood was still spewing and dripping from broken blood vessels around his mouth, making it look like the pink redness of his mouth continued far below, right down his neck. He screamed in panic, but it came out accompanied by a gurgling sound, exemplified by the battalion of red bubbles rising from his throat.
His tongue moved, like he was trying to say something, but without a jaw the task was nearly impossible. His vocal cords began to tire themselves out as he tried to speak in vain. His breathing started becoming ragged as he inhaled blood into his lungs in panic. His eyes were moist with fear, and he simply stared at me, his posture wide and static. He was trapped, wanting to ask for help, but he couldn’t. He had been robbed of that human effort to plead for mercy. I could see it in his eyes.
It took me more time than I’d like to admit until I did something. I think I was in shock, which is hardly an excuse. That probably made him even more scared. He was practically drying, and I just sat there and stared at him. Anyway, I finally called 911. The operator didn’t seem to believe me at first, and she made me repeat the same thing three times. Yes, his jaw is missing, and he’s bleeding out. No, I don’t know where the jaw is. No, I didn’t do it. No, I don’t know what caused it. PleasepleasePLEASE, come quick.
The paramedics took him straight to the hospital. Cops came as they were hauling him away. They asked me a bunch of questions and searched the house, but seeing as there was no real evidence of foul play, they didn’t bother me further. They ruled out my involvement, I think, but it didn’t seem like they had any working theory for what had happened. There was no weapon. No signs of struggle. Hughies bed was soaked with blood, and the trail only led to my room, so it couldn’t have happened anywhere else, really. What made the case even more peculiar was that they couldn’t find the jaw anywhere - not even a piece of it.
Once the cops left, I went to the kitchen to make myself some coffee. I was tired, physically and emotionally, and Hughie’s jawless face wouldn’t leave my mind, like it was ingrained to my vision to torment for eternity. Guilt wracked me, and once I finally sat down, I began to sob uncontrollably. I knew that it was because of the book. We’d been careless. I’d been careless. I shouldn’t have gotten Hugh into this in the first place.
The pot suddenly emerged into my mind. In all the horror, I’d forgotten all about it. The cops hadn’t looked into the closet, so I had no idea what was in there. I jumped up and ran to it, hoping that maybe I’d find Hughies jaw. It would be hard to explain to the cops, but maybe then they’d have a chance at reattaching it. Maybe.
The jaw wasn’t there, to my dismay. Instead, there was a lot of gold. Large nuggets. Probably a few hundred grams worth, at least.
I grabbed the gold and quickly sorted the nuggets into multiple minigrip pouches. Once I was done, I drove out to a bunch of jewelry shops and pawn shops, selling the gold in small quantities at a time not to arouse suspicion. By the end of the day, I had a boatload of cash burning in my pockets.
Hughie was in the hospital for weeks. I went to visit him a couple times, but he still couldn’t speak. It broke my heart. I wished he could speak, just so he could tell me what a dick I’d been.
During his stay at the hospital, I ordered more supplies, and started cooking on my own. I can’t say how much I made, but at some point I had enough not to have to work for at least a year. Once Hughie was in good enough shape to return home, I left him more than enough cash to cover his surgery bills, as well as a bit of extra. On top of the money I left a note that I hoped would express how sorry I was. What he meant to me as a friend. What a bad friend I’d been.
The night before his return, I left town, taking cash, the rest of the gold, as well as the book with me. Like I previously said, the book contains a lot more than just the recipe for gold. It would be a disaster for the wrong people to get their hands on it. So, I ran. Went off-grid. The book kept me just below rich, and I traveled around not to draw any attention to myself.
If you’re reading this, Hugh, I’m sorry. I hope life has treated you better since I left.