Lottery Page 2

  “Like who?” I ask.

  We make a list.

  “For example, a policeman.” Gram draws numbers on the paper. “He’s number one on the list.”

  “I always have to do what Ray the cop says.” I already know this. That is the law. Officer Ray Mallory has a crew cut and wears sunglasses even when it rains.

  “Don’t ever call Ray a cop. He’s a policeman.” When Gram scolds, her eyebrows get all bushy and her hair comes out of its bun like it is mad too.

  “Keith calls him a cop,” I say.

  Then I remember when Kenny Brandt called him a cop, Ray chased him all the way down the street and Kenny had to hide behind Mrs. Callahan’s bushes until way after dinnertime. I do not want to be chased by the police and go to jail.

  “Okay, a policeman,” I agree.

  Gram is number two on our list. I do everything she says. I do not ever do what Chuck at church says because he is a jerk. A jerk is someone you cannot trust, so Chuck is not on our list. Gary Holsted is number three, because he is my boss. I do not do what Manuel says.

  “Manuel’s a jackass, Per! A jackass is an animal, and you don’t do what animals say.” Keith helps us with the list.

  “Keith, you should be on the list.” I say this at least two or three times a week. I want to make him number four.

  “I don’t need to be on any list, Per,” he says. Per sounds like pear, but I am not a fruit. Keith is not on the list because he is my friend. I never have to do what he says. A friend is someone who calls you something for short like Per for Perry. You never have to do what friends say, but you want to, because you are friends.

  We add and subtract people from our list all the time. Sister Mary Margaret used to be number five on the list, but Gram took her off because she tried to collect money from us.

  “That goddamned church has enough money! It doesn’t need ours!” Gram was mad and used a big pink eraser to rub out Sister Mary Margaret’s name. When Sister is nice to us at bingo, we put her back on the list. She goes on and off so much the paper beneath her name is almost worn through.

  On rainy days, I take the bus to work. On nice days, I ride my bike down the hill to Holsted’s. It rains a lot here, so mostly I take the bus. It takes ten minutes and stops right in front of our house in Everett, Washington. Not in the middle of Everett, on the edge.

  “Hanging on the goddamned edge of Everett.” Gram squeezes her fingers tight like killing a bug when she says this. Blue veins stick out on her hand.

  Everett stinks. When I ask why, everybody says something different.

  “It’s because all of us fart at the same time.” Keith laughs, then lifts one cheek and lets one go.

  “Don’t be smart! It’s because of the paper mills.” Gram smacks Keith in the head with her paper for farting.

  “What stink?” Gary asks. “I don’t smell a thing.” He has allergies and sniffs a squeeze bottle. That is gross.

  “I think it depends on your nose,” I tell them. “Some noses are fast and smell all the stinks. Some are slow and they don’t. I have a very fast nose. I smell lots of stink.”

  “You sure do, Per! You sure do. You got a great nose.” Keith farts again. I know because I smell it.

  I am lucky to live with Gram. I have been with Gram since I was a baby. I am the youngest. There is John, my oldest cousin-brother. He has never lived with Gram. He looks just like me except he is taller, has jagged teeth, a gray-brown mustache, and gets married a lot. David is next oldest and looks just like John except he is shorter, thinner, and has blue eyes. He is married to Elaine. Gram calls her different names like That Woman and HER. David has never lived with Gram either. He is an MBA.

  “MBA! It means Must Be Arrogant, Perry. You remember that! Marrying The Ice Queen is his comeuppance.” Gram cackles like a witch on Halloween when she says this and rubs her hands together like she is trying to start a fire. She is good at witch laughs.

  Gram says comeuppance means you get what you deserve.

  John is a lawyer. David’s wife, Elaine, is a lawyer. My mother, Louise, married my father who was a lawyer, but I think he is dead. I am named after a very famous TV lawyer.

  “Perry Mason. The only lawyer worth a goddamn!” Gram said.

  I only got the Perry part. That’s okay.

  “Money runs through your mother’s hands like water. You remember that, Perry. Marrying a lawyer is as bad as being one! You remember that too!” Gram warns. “Not one of them goes on our list!”

  I call my mother Louise. It is a pretty name and she likes it better than Mother. Sometimes I cannot tell who she is because I do not see her very often and her hair is always different. It gets longer or shorter and changes colors. That is scary. I hope my hair stays just like it is.

  I do not live with any of them. I live with Gram.

  “Everybody in our family is either a lawyer or married to one,” I tell Gram, “except for you and me.”

  “That’s a good thing, Perry,” she says. “It’s a goddamned good thing.”

  Gram can blow smoke out the side of her mouth and through her nose. She limits herself. “Only two menthol cigarettes a day. Count ’em. One. Two.”

  She will hold them up in front of me.

  Sometimes, Gram loses count.

  3

  Monday, I work all day at Holsted’s Marine Supply. I unload big trucks, put away orders, and carry packages out to cars, trucks, and SUVs. I mop the floor, wipe off the counter where the register sits, clean the two front windows, and empty all the trash cans, even the metal ones outside on the sidewalk. I also file papers in the back office because you just need to know the alphabet for that. I am very good at the alphabet. Keith and Manuel do the cash register, and when Gary goes home, Keith lets me ring up customers.

  It takes me longer to learn something, but when I do, I learn it good. This year I learned how to use the air machine. It is called a compressor and makes a rumble rumble noise. It blows up inner tubes and fenders. Those are squishy things on boats that need to be blown up. I am very good at blowing up fenders with the compressor.

  “Yeah, Per, you’re a good worker. A real good worker.” Keith tells me this all the time.

  I watch the store so he can take a nap. He needs naps at least two or four times a day. I don’t take naps at all. Keith can sleep standing up. That is so cool. Sometimes he snores. He has a hairy face that has lots of gray and two scars. One is above his eye from when we had to change the towel dispenser in the bathroom. The crowbar I was holding slipped and the dispenser came off the wall too fast. It hit Keith in the forehead. The other scar is from a bar fight. I did not see the bar fight, I only heard about it.

  “What’s a bar fight?” I asked him.

  “See, Per, um . . . a bar fight is when . . . uh, it’s when a guy says fuck you, and then you say fuck you, and then you fight.” Keith knows all about bar fights. I do not say the F-word. Gram does not let me.

  “Only morons and jackasses talk dirty, Perry! Morons, jackasses, and Keith.” Gram likes Keith even though he talks dirty.

  On Tuesday, I have my special sandwich at Gilly’s next to the marina. They have pretend crab, which I like.

  “What do you eat that crab shit for? It’s not real. It’s made of fish guts!” Keith says. It is definitely not nice to say pretend crab is made out of fish guts.

  After I buy my sandwich, I go to the Marina Handy Mart down the street. I buy a Coke Slurpee, five Lotto tickets, one PayDay candy bar, a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, and the National Enquirer. The paper is for Gram.

  “I only get it for the crossword puzzle.” She shows me the front page. “See this, Perry? It’s full of gossip! Look at this! Part human and part bat! That’s impossible. How’d they make that picture? Look at this, Perry! Here’s another one of them alien baby stories.” She pulls her sweater tight over her shoulders. Gram is always cold.

  “I can throw it away and just tear the puzzle out if you want.” I try to be helpful.

&n
bsp; “No! No. Don’t waste your time. I’ll toss it later.” But she stacks them up in the back room. She really likes it when she notices they use the same picture twice.

  “Ha! All they did was reverse the photo! Look here, Perry!”

  I like talking to Cherry who works at the counter at Marina Handy Mart. She is pretty, funny, and her name rhymes with mine. That is what Gram says.

  “Cherry and Perry! Get it? You’re both errys!” Gram likes it when things rhyme.

  "Only Lotto?” Cherry likes MegaBucks because you can win more money, but Gram and I are stick-in-the-muds. That’s what Gram says.

  “Stick-in-the-muds. We do the same thing. No sense changing. Lotto’s good enough for us.” Gram likes the fact that Lotto comes out like a cash register receipt and you get more numbers for your money. We always bought lottery tickets, right from the beginning. From the very first. It was cool then because you got shiny green tickets, but you only got one set of numbers. The very first person who won was a nurse. A million dollars. Gram said it was the Lord rewarding a selfless profession.

  “A nurse, Perry, they’re dedicated. It’s a sign from God.” She was very disappointed to read in the paper, years later, that the nurse lost all that money.

  “How do you lose a million dollars?” Gram shakes her head. “What if we won? Just think of it. We could do anything we want! Hawaii! We could go to Hawaii, where it’s not so goddamned cold!” Gram’s eyes close. Like she is praying.

  “We can do anything we want right now,” I say.

  That is true. If we save our money and decide, we can do whatever we want.

  “Don’t be smart.” Gram frowns at me, but I laugh.

  It is fun thinking about winning the lottery.

  Gram and I have dinner once a week at Kentucky Fried. Gram complains about the prices for someone on Social Security. She frets about the tiny little ears of corn and getting too many wings.

  “Goddamn it, Perry! You’d think they raised chickens with nothing but six flappers and an ass, the way they pack those boxes.” She only says this at home because she does not want to hurt the counter girl Loretta’s feelings at KFC.

  At seven o’clock Tuesday nights, we go to bingo at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church. We are not Catholic, but we like the nuns and bingo. We like Sister Mary Joan because she is nice all the time. We only like Sister Mary Margaret when she is on our list. I think all nuns are called Mary something. They wear glasses and regular clothes, except for their feet. Their shoes are all shiny black with long laces. Gram said they used to look like penguins. I do not see how. But she said they did.

  “How are you doing, Perry?” They are friendly and do not treat me like I am retarded. I am not retarded, but some people treat me like I am. The nuns are always very interested in how I am doing and ask if I will come to church on Sunday. I can’t come to church because I have to work Sundays.

  “Will we see you at morning mass, Perry?” Sister Mary Joan spits when she talks.

  “Tell them you have to work!” Gram whispers this into my ear to remind me, so I do not forget to tell the nuns. If I say I have to work, neither of us has to go to church. Church is boring except for the music, but we do not tell the nuns this. It would hurt their feelings. Sister Mary Margaret has blue eyes and hair on her chin. I wonder if nuns are allowed to shave. God must not let them because Sister Mary Joan has hair too, only it is on her upper lip. Gram does not approve of gambling, but bingo and lottery are not gambling.

  “Gambling’s something people do that loses money, Perry. You remember that!” Gram lectures.

  “What’s your numbers, sonny?” Chuck the bingo helper says this each time he walks behind me. I play one single card and Gram plays ten. She is an expert and won two hundred and fifty-two dollars once. Chuck shoves my chair, jabs me in the back, and smells like Listerine. He likes to let me know he is there watching over my shoulder. My markers slide off the numbers on my card whenever he pushes me. He also scratches my head and makes my hair stick up.

  “Time for a haircut, sonny!” My name is not Sonny.

  “Leave him alone!” Gram has eyes in the back of her head. That is what Chuck says. “Woman, you got eyes in the back of your head,” he says.

  I laugh. Her eyes are right where they are supposed to be.

  Chuck is the only one at bingo who treats me like I am retarded. He is taller than me. There is always a person who is taller than you unless you are Michael Jordan or someone like that. Chuck is a jerk.

  “Ignore him, Perry! He’s a jerk! There are jerks all over. Everybody has jerks in their lives,” Gram says. One of her jerks is the woman on the front desk at Social Security. Gram had a hard time getting Gramp’s Social Security death benefit. I thought it was cool you got a prize for dying, but it was very hard to collect.

  “And then there’s the guy that answers the phone at Medicare.”

  Gram has a lot of jerks, at least as many as me.

  “We need another list for jerks,” I say.

  Thursday mornings are my favorite time. That is when I go with Keith and do extra jobs at Carroll’s Boatyard next to the store. I have to wear my oldest blue jeans when I work there. Gram would not be caught dead in jeans.

  “Those blue jeans, Perry! Women get all kinds of diseases from them. It’s better to wear a good cotton dress from Kmart. Airs out my privates!” she says. “It’s okay for you. You can wear jeans. Men don’t need to air out their privates.”

  Privates are personal parts that you do not show people.

  Gram and I get hamburgers at McDonald’s on Friday after work and go to an early movie. The 5:45 show costs only two dollars. We buy the small bag of popcorn and sneak in our bag of Hershey’s Kisses from Marina Handy Mart. The movie guys do not like it when we bring in our own food. I think we should be able to take our food anywhere we want. It is our food.

  Saturday is the busiest day at Holsted’s. Everybody needs lots of boat stuff on weekends, like rope, metal parts, and beer. They have to buy the beer from Marina Handy Mart. Holsted’s does not sell beer. Our floor is gray tile and gets very dirty from wet and muddy feet. The parking lot is gravel and has puddles. Most people do not clean their shoes off on the mat before they walk into the store. That is so rude.

  I have to work until six-thirty on Saturday. Gary and Manuel leave early. Keith and I close up together. He gives me a ride home and then stays for spaghetti night. We have our weekly cribbage contest. Gram makes the tomato sauce in the big pan. It has to simmer for two hours. It is the only thing she cooks now. Keith and Gram play first, while I boil the noodles. The loser sets the table while I play the winner.

  Keith thinks he has to coach me.

  “Throw two away. Come on, Per! Sometime today!” he complains, but I take my time. When I play cards with Keith, he gets antsy. Antsy is when you think everybody else is too slow. Most people are antsy. I always win at cribbage. You only have to know numbers like what makes fifteen and how to add up to thirty-one. The rest is luck. And I am lucky.

  On Sunday morning before I go into work, Gram and I eat cinnamon rolls, read the paper, and check our Lotto numbers. This is my very favorite time because we pretend to win the lottery. I love pretending.

  “Come on! Come on!” I cheer.

  "This is it! I can feel it in my bones.” Gram can feel a lot in her bones.

  “Oh-two. Oh-five. One-four. Two-four. Three-two. Four-four. ” I read them off to Gram. She says nope after each number that is wrong and yep for each right number. We check all ten numbers twice. That is like getting more chances to win. It is as if we bought more than just five tickets. That is so cool.

  We have another game we play. It is lottery list. The What would be the first thing you’d buy if you won the lottery? game. We play with Keith.

  “A new TV!” That would be me.

  “Hawaii!” That would be Gram.

  “Cable!” That would be me too. I really like Animal Planet.

  “A dishwasher.”
That would be Gram. I do not understand this because I am the one who washes all the dishes.

  “Fix up Diamond Girl.” That would be Keith. Diamond Girl is his sailboat.

  “A year’s supply of tequila.” That would be Keith again. I am surprised he does not say beer too, or maybe Mexican babes. He talks about Mexican babes all the time. They are close to Texas in Mexico. That is a country.

  “Fix Yo’s heater.” That is Gram. She is always cold. Yo is Keith’s truck.

  “Go to Hershey’s chocolate factory and see how Kisses are made.” That is me.

  The end of the game is when one person can’t think of anything else they would buy. It is always Gram. She says she is fortunate.

  “I’m fortunate I own my own house, damned fortunate I have you to help with expenses, and goddamned fortunate your grandpa worked his ass off then had the courtesy to drop dead without lingering. ” Lingering is a word that means costing a lot of money to die. She says she hopes she does not linger. She is damned fortunate and I am lucky.

  Gram says we make a good pair.

  4

  Fall is my favorite time of year, Reader’s Digest is my favorite book, and my favorite candies are Hershey’s Kisses. I like to wear flannel jackets, I bounce when I’m happy, and my bike is blue with red spray paint.

  “Hey, Gram!” I yelled when I found it lying in our side yard all splattered. It looked like it was bleeding. “What happened to my bike?”

  “Some asshole decided to be a moron, that’s what,” Gram said. After that, she made me lock it up in our garage every night.

  I like to ride my bike to work so I can pretend I am flying or sailing. Keith and I earn extra cash by working on other people’s boats. Boats are my favorite thing besides riding my bike. Sailboats run on water and wind.

  “Sailing and riding a bike are like flying because of air and physics, ” Gramp told me. He taught me how to sail boats, and Keith teaches me how to fix them.

  “Smoother, Perry, you missed a spot.” Keith has to inspect my work. We are sanding teak on a boat that is supported on jacks high in the air. It is hauled out at the boatyard. They call it being on the hard. I think that is funny. On the hard. Keith makes dirty jokes whenever we help put boats back into the water. Keith and I work up on the boat. The foreman carries a clipboard and tells us to hurry.