Katie Honan never wants to be the story and is “tired of telling the story” but she recaps and reflects on a very weird week, why she’s “filled with sadness about Winnie,” and the film-noir feeling of getting left, quite literally, holding the bag full of crumbled chips and $300:
At this Harlem event, I saw her across the street and said, “look, there’s Winnie.” She’s at every [Eric Adams campaign] event. She texted me to call her. I did. Walked across the street to the Whole Foods [where Greco said to meet], and that’s when I was given the chips. It was open, I could tell, because there was no air in the bag. But it was crumpled closed. It didn’t strike me as that odd, because I knew when she worked at City Hall, she was always bringing food to people, and I am not unknown personally to give food to people if they come into Room Nine and City Hall.
So it didn’t strike me as that odd, but I refused the chips multiple times. But sometimes, if someone keeps offering, I just think, “Okay, I’ll just hold on to these and I’ll throw them out after we talk.” She’s clearly someone who’s going through a lot. As I leave, I try to give her the chips again. She insists I keep them. I walk outside, and that’s when I saw inside the envelope with cash.
And no, I didn’t open it up because I didn’t want to take the money out on the street corner and it was a little rainy. Once I spoke to the editors, they were like, “Don’t touch it any further,” so I did not eat any of the chips, even though I happened to be starving because it was way past my lunch hour. Called her right away to try to give it back if she was still inside the Whole Food, and she said she’d left. It was just a lot going on.
Then I rode the three train down to Wall Street near our office with the bag, terrified that I could hear the chip crunching as I hugged my bag, and I was like, “No, nobody knows that I have this.” Brought it into our newsroom, gave it to my editors with witnesses and then I never wanted to see it again.