lottery winner ✔️ h.s.

one

May 17th, 2013

T H R E E D A Y S E A R L I E R

I walk through the aisles of the 7-11 with a dollar coke in my hand. "Ninety-nine cents?" I grab the bag of gummy worms off the rack and head towards the counter. The Indian man is speaking to his wife in some language and she looks extremely annoyed. I set my soda and candy down on the counter. The man greets me with an angry look and begins to ring up the items.

He begins to press some buttons on his register and I remember I had a couple extra dollars that I found in the couch this morning. "Can I get a pack of Marlboro, please?"

He reaches for a pack of Malboro's and rings them also. "Eight dollars, fifteen cents," he says through his thick accent.

I pull out one five dollar bill and three one dollar bills. I rummage through my pants and manage to find a quarter. "Eight twenty-five," I say, sliding the money accross the counter.

He nods and his drawer pops open. He hands me a dime back and I thank him, grabbing my three items off the counter. "Sorry," I say to the person tapping their foot behind me. They ignore me and set their stuff on the counter after I move out of the way. I head out the door and walk down the sidewalk. My job is just across the street from this store, so I'm always here whenever I have a break. I work as a mechanic. I make just enough to pay my one-fifth of the rent, buy some food, and on good payday's, I can pay to take the bus instead of walking or biking. That usually happens once in a blue moon. Sometimes Big Mike let's me catch a ride on the bed of his truck if he passes by my house.

"Hey Jimmy." I wave the homeless man sitting on the ground at the end of the sidewalk. "Cigarette?"

He nods and I take a seat beside him on the hot ass concrete. The owner usually yells at us for sitting on his property, but I didn't see him in there today. He says "our kind" aren't welcome. And by "our kind", he means poor people.

I hand Jimmy a cigarette and my lighter. "Rough day?" He asks.

"Hot day," I reply. It's been unbearably hot here in Arizona. And dry. "It's only 105 degrees," The pretty blonde meteorologist on the news always says from the comfort of her A/C. "We could use rain. And a lot of it."

"My plant died."

I nod. "I'm sorry, Jimmy."

He shrugs, taking another hit of his cigarette. "I pissed on it."

My lips form an 'O' and I just take a hit of my cigarette. I have no response for that. Jimmy is a weird man, not going to lie. What little hair he has is super long and an orange color. His shirt used to be white but is now a grey-black color with holes all over it. Most of the time he's not wearing shoes. His eyes are all sunken in and his skin is permanently discolored. But he's nice. He sometimes offers me cocaine, but I always decline.

"I gotta get back to work, Jimmy," I say with a sigh. I stand up and brush my pants off. "It's almost time to go home, anyways."

He nods, humming to himself. His fingers twitch a little as he stares blankly at the gas pumps.

"Good talk," I say to myself.

As I'm walking toward the road, I notice a Powerball ticket in the grass. I pick it up to see when the date for the drawing was. Sometimes when I'm walking I find all kinds of lottery tickets and scratch-offs. One time I found a winning scratch-off that was worth three dollars.