*If you were in a Creative Writing class with me, you’ll recognize this story as originally shared with the title ‘Systemic Risk.’ This is Part 1. Part 2 will be available next week.*
Fifty-two times a year, I buy a lottery ticket. Usually I wait until Friday afternoon, unless it’s a bad week. I stop at the last gas station I pass on my way home from work. It’s the one right next to the discount liquor store, which is convenient if it’s been a really bad week. I always choose the same lottery numbers for half-methodical, half-sentimental reasons. I don’t believe in luck anymore.
Today is Friday. I don’t bother locking my classroom door. Should the malcontents I teach conspire and break in over the weekend, I invite them to torch everything. I’m sure the janitor locks all of the classroom doors at the end of his two-hour shift. I’ve heard rumors about how much money he makes. He’d better be doing something to earn his paycheck. Five days a week, I spend eight hours in a room that reeks of sweat and urine, teaching Algebra to at-risk high school students who stare at me like I’m a freak. I used to be a day trader. The money I spent on the car I drove then would cover my current rent for ten years. Ten years. I try not to think about that too much.
It was candy apple red. I got a lot of speeding tickets driving that car, almost lost my license. I can close my eyes and remember every detail – the gears shifting seamlessly, the intimacy of the songs that came through the speakers, the lingering scent of leather mixed with her perfume.
The car I drive now was a used purchase, acquired for very little cash and a lot of desperation.
“It’s not fancy,” the seller stated the obvious while he watched me kick the tires. “But it’ll get you from A to B.”
He failed to mention the other four letters I’d encounter between A and B: H-E-L-L. My economy sedan is painted a hail-damaged black, with manual windows, an out of commission air conditioner, and a wet dog scent that gets downright oppressive in the summer. The seventeen-and-a-half minute drives between school and my apartment feel a lot longer in August than they do in January.
A construction crew is rolling up black compressor hoses and orange extension cords as I pull into the gas station’s parking lot. My door creaks open and they stare as I awkwardly climb out of the driver’s seat. I’m not attractive, but I’m used to being noticed. At just over six-foot-seven, with albino white, curly hair, and thick black-rimmed glasses, I’m hard to miss.
“Gavin,” Louis the attendant greets me as I walk through the door, “they’ve raised the prices next door.”
I’ve noticed the crew working on the liquor store every morning when I passed by this week, but it never occurred to me that a remodel would mean higher prices. Of course it should have.
“No kidding? How much?” I ask.
Louis is waiting for a customer to make a decision on a gum purchase, so I politely wait several feet back from the counter, my eyes tracing the chips in the dirty, outdated tile. There’s a hint of professional grade cleaner in the air.
“My bottle of whiskey was a dollar more yesterday than it was last weekend. You know it started with Smith’s. I guess Marco’s just the first one to cave,” Louis says, referring to the liquor store’s owner.
“Well, I don’t blame Marco for trying to make an extra buck. Everybody’s doing it – my landlord raised my rent again at the beginning of the year,” I say.
“It’s a racket, man,” Louis says, turning his attention back to the woman who’s made her selection. Wintermint.
Smith’s General Store, a high-end corporate grocery store chain came in shortly after I moved to the neighborhood. Investors have been buying up low income housing and opening new restaurants. Gentrification has been good for the established business owners, too. But for everyone else, day to day life has become more expensive. I should have moved after the rent increased, but moving requires motivation I don’t have and money I don’t want to spend.
Louis cheerfully counts change for the woman, making small talk like always. He’s a short man, maybe early forties, with dark hair and a dark beard – I think he might be Italian. He’s got a wife and three kids. Or, maybe four. I can’t remember. Anyway, I doubt he makes good money here. But he’s always in a good mood. Maybe it’s the whiskey.
“Look,” Louis says after the woman exits the store, “I have more bad news. Some guy took your numbers earlier this week.”
“What?”
My mind is racing to calculate the odds of that happening. I chose the numbers from a chart I created myself, based on numbers that belonged to someone I knew before I lost everything. She was the closest I ever came to being lucky.
“I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted,” Louis says.
It’s irrational, but I feel like I’ve been robbed. One of the few things I care about now belongs to someone else. For this week, at least.
Quickly scrambling the numbers in my head, I make my ticket purchase and wish Louis a good weekend. Next door, the inside of the liquor store smells of fresh sawdust, wet paint, and vodka from a bottle that burst when the Indecisive Gum Buyer from the gas station dropped it moments before my arrival.
I don’t drink vodka. I hate the way it smells. I don’t drink beer, either. There’s a reason for “cheap, unintelligent, simple guy” stereotypes in the beer commercials. Most of my students were probably fathered by beer drinkers.
I drink wine. Spicy, full bodied reds. The right wine, if its layers are complex enough, is a drink for the sophisticated gentleman who doesn’t want to shell out the cash for scotch. I actually have a bottle of single malt scotch in my kitchen cabinet, but I’m saving it for the right occasion – either the day I win the lottery, or the day I get her back. Until then, I drink wine.
“I’m so sorry,” the Indecisive Gum Buyer apologizes to Marco’s daughter, Rosa, as she finishes cleaning up the mess. Rosa doesn’t seem bothered. She’s sweet as sugar and if she wasn’t so young, I would hit on her, Marco or no Marco.
I can’t stop thinking about the ticket. I’m not obsessive compulsive. I’m just very particular about certain things. I don’t have a good feeling about the numbers I just picked.
It really shouldn’t matter, though. The numbers I use are based on a lie. I never told her. Some truths are better left untold. – ©️ 2014-2021 Portia July
(To Be Continued NEXT Week…)
Portia July 